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Fibre-Optic Broadband
Fibre-optic broadband 'could transform communications'
Wednesday 21st January 2009, by Daniel King
Large-scale optical fibre deployment must take place in the UK to help transform communications, it has been claimed.
David Evans, government relations manager for the British Computer Society, said the delivery of superfast broadband would "rival the engineering feats of our ancestors" if it could be implemented.
Speaking at the Westminster eForum and Westminster Media Forum keynote seminar, Mr Evans compared next-generation access with notable UK developments such as the national railway network or the telegraph infrastructure.
"It would be madness to speculate on bandwidth requirements in 100 years time, but it is at least conceivable that optical fibre from today could still be put to good use into the next century," Mr Evans commented.
"No matter how we dress this up, large-scale optical fibre deployment needs to take place," he insisted.
According to Ofcom, broadband ranks as one of the most significant developments in recent years, but demand for higher speeds is still strong.
The organisation claimed that the introduction of a superfast service would help improve web surfing for consumers by offering quicker download speeds and more reliable services.
Mr Evans claimed that this development could then "take some other technologies off the leash".
He suggested that cloud computing, semantic web technology and agent-based computing could all take off if fibre-optic connections are made available in the UK.
Consumers could also take advantage of a number of other new facilities, with Ofcom highlighting reliable high-definition video and two-way video communications as services which could become more widely available.
Categories: Broadband
