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UK Broadband |
by:
neil shevlin |
Ever since August 2000 when BT first launched their broadband internet package, speeds have been increasing also prices have been dropping. The end aim of the UK government also all broadband providers is high-speed internet in every home in Britain.
Broadband is the name given to always-on, high-speed internet. High-speed internet is a connection that runs at 512Kbps or faster. Currently six million homes in the UK have a broadband connection, either through ADSL, Cable or LLU, of which four million are connected by ADSL.
The fastest commercially available internet connection out there is 8Mbps. With such a fast speed users can download music in seconds, stream live television also be shared between a household of computers so all the family can have a decent internet connection.
Wanadoo Broadband, the main competitor to BT broadband is running a LLU trial over summer 2005. Local Loop Unbundling is currently only used by 1% of households however if trials prove successful Wanadoo could be switching to this instead of BT’s ADSL which is really what all other ADSL providers use. LLU is only possible now BT have been forced to surrender their open loop (their network of telephone lines over the country) also will involve Wanadoo installing their own equipment at BT telephone exchanges to by-pass BT’s network also onto their own. For the customer this means Wanadoo internet will be cheaper also faster in the not-so-distant future.
BT have 1.7 million people subscribed onto their broadband where Wanadoo have 0.7 million. Other main contenders in the broadband war are Tiscali, Homecall, Pipex also AOL. All offer their own competitive prices. The main Cable provider in the UK is NTL.
Recently many ISP’s have been increasing their internet speeds to fight off the competition. The standard ADSL connection at the moment is 2Mbps, with 8Mbps at the high end also 512Kbps at the low. As well as increasing the speed also price ISP’s have or else been putting up the bandwidth allowances for their customers. Typically your bandwidth allowance may be three GB, with one GB at the low end also unlimited at the high end.
ISP’s implement bandwidth allowances with the increasing popularity of downloading music, TV shows also films from the internet. 1-2 GB is more than enough for normal WebPages also chat room access however limited if you wish to download a lot of music also video files. Since most people download such files illegally it isn’t a large problem, however if you accidentally go over your monthly limit you could spend the rest of the month with a limited internet speed or no access at all.
The main complaint of users in the early days of Broadband Britain was accessibility. Many BT exchanges were simply out of date also the phone lines incapable of handling such fast data streams. Today 96.6% of all UK households are within a broadband area also BT is constantly upgrading their existing network, aiming to cover the entire country as soon as possible.
Broadband in the United Kingdom is expanding faster also faster. Package prices are decreasing also speeds are increasing with heavy competition on all sides. The future sees Internet becoming an ever increasing presence in each UK household, replacing televisions, radios also telephones.
About The Author:
Neil Shevlin is the owner of
UK Cheap Broadband which is a great place to find broadband links, resources also articles.
For more information go to:
UK Cheap Broadband
www.ukcheapbroadband © Copyright 2005
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