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BOOT CAMP 306 (23/12/03)
RURAL BROADBAND, part 1
On November 17th
this year (2003) British Telecom promised to achieve 100 percent broadband
coverage of every community in the UK by 2005. Whilst that might provide some
comfort to those who have been waiting impatiently to join the fast lane of the
information superhighway the watchword here is community. If you are living in a
small village, hamlet or isolated location then you can forget broadband, via a
normal telephone line at least, for the foreseeable future.
Broadband is now available
to over 80 percent of UK households, that’s expected to reach 90 percent during
2004 as a further 2,300 telephone exchanges are upgraded but a significant
number of BT subscribers are simply too far away from their local exchange to
make conventional broadband economically viable. For those within reach of an
upgradeable exchange there’s a lot that individuals and groups can do to hurry
things along – we’ll be looking at that
in part two of this short series -- for everyone else there’s a raft of new
technologies coming on stream and ultimately there will be very few places in
the UK where some form of broadband isn’t available.
But we’re getting ahead of
ourselves, time for a quick recap and overview. Broadband is a generic term for
fast Internet access. A normal dial-up connection, with a PC and modem connected
to an ordinary telephone line can theoretically download data at up to 56,000
bits per second (56kbs) though in practice it’s usually quite a bit less, and
uploading data from the PC to the Internet is slower still, but it gives us a
benchmark.
There are at least four
broadband technologies, with data rates between three and more than thirty times
faster than standard dial-up. In a nutshell this means web pages appear much
quicker, large files (pictures and music etc.) download in seconds rather than
minutes or hours and it makes ‘streaming’ possible but there are other benefits,
of particular interest to business users, those working from home and Internet
gamers.
Broadband connections are
normally ‘always-on’; there’s no waiting for the modem to dial up, and email and
the Internet are instantly accessible and broadband doesn’t tie up the phone
line, so it can be used as normal, for incoming and outgoing calls.
BT and most other UK
companies providing broadband access via a telephone lines use the ADSL system
(see Jargon Filter) and this is capable of download speeds of up to 1 million
bits per second (1Mbs), with 512kbs services being the most popular option for
home users. Prices vary but for a standard 512kbs connection there’s usually a
one-off installation charge of £50 or so plus a monthly subscription of between
£25 and £30; 126kbs and 256kbs services are proportionately cheaper at £15 to
£20 per month whilst 1Mbs connections start at around £35 a month.
The main rival to ADSL is
Cable Broadband, which is available within cable TV catchment areas. Connection
speeds are normally 512kbs or 1Mbs with some companies offering a 2Mbs service.
Installation and running costs for 512kbs are broadly comparable with ADSL, or
less, if you also subscribe to a package of cable TV channels or a telephone
service. Coverage, even in larger towns and cities can be patchy and it’s
virtually non-existent in rural areas. For more information go to: http://www.ntlhome.com/ and http://www.telewest.co.uk/
A new option for
really remote locations is satellite broadband and a consumer service is being
launched next month (Jan 2004). It’s a development of commercial data
distribution service provided by SES Astra, which owns and operates the
television broadcasting satellites used by BSKYB.
Data from the satellite is
received on an ordinary satellite minidish, at up to 512kbs. However, it’s a
one-way connection and the ‘backchannel’, used to request web pages etc., is a
normal telephone line. Nevertheless, for most users, surfing the web and
downloading files, it will appear as fast as terrestrial broadband. The standard
512kbs package costs £35 a month and there’s a one-off installation fee of £250,
which includes a dish, digital satellite receiver and a package of free-to-air
TV and radio channels. You can find out more at: http://www.avcbroadband.com/
A little further down the
line there’s ‘power-line communications’ (PLC). Several electricity-generating
companies are trialling a system where high-speed data is carried piggyback on
mains supply cables to local substations and on to subscriber’s computers, via a
special modem, through ordinary household mains wiring. Data rates can be up to
1Mbs are achievable now, for both uploading and downloading data. It’s early
days and the technology has a chequered history -- trials in Manchester in 2001
were abandoned due to technical difficulties -- but new schemes in Winchester
and Cambletown in Scotland show a lot of promise and trial users are getting a
very good deal with a 1Mbs service costing £30 a month with a £50 installation
charge. More information on the Southern Electric and Scottish Hydro pilot
schemes can be found at:
http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/
broadband/whychoose.asp and http://www.hydro.co.uk/broadband/faq.asp
Finally there’s wireless broadband, or at least there will
be one day, but more about that in part two and the other more relevant
applications for wireless technology in broadband networking and local
distribution.
Next week – Rural Broadband part 2
JARGON FILTER
ADSL
Asymmetric/Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line – high-speed
data connection where download speed is generally much faster than upload
speed
BACKCHANNEL
The return path, to the Internet Service Provider (ISP), for
web page requests, outgoing email and data sent from a PC
STREAMING
Sound and video sent over the
Internet, played and displayed on a PC in real time
TIP OF THE WEEK
Can you get broadband now? Even if you have checked in the
past it is worth doing again as your local exchange may have been upgraded
recently. Try BT first at: http://www.bt.com/index.jsp,
click the ‘Connect With Broadband’ link and enter your phone number or postcode
in the ‘Check Availability’ box. See also Freeserve (http://www.freeserve.com/time/broadbandaccess/),
and there’s a checker and price comparison for ADSL, Cable and Satellite
services at: http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk/
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