Tag: United Kingdom

Artilcle

Gigaclear announces next batch of Oxfordshire villages to get Gigabit | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Rollout page – Otmoor

Press Release – Otmoor

My Comments

Gigaclear, whom I have featured on this Website, are working hard and fast on enabling more of the Oxfordshire villages for real broadband. Here, the Otmoor community which is the latest to be targeted with this technology is being set up with fibre-to-the-premises “next-generation broadband” technology.

Here, this community has its wetland and grasslands as its assets being a nature reserve, most likely being of touristic value in some way. But Gigaclear had put the broadband rollout on the map without government assistance and having this become the full symmetric broadband courtesy of the fibre-optic technology.

When I read the ThinkBroadband article, there was a comment about Gigaclear focusing their efforts on the small upmarket Oxfordshire villages rather than the “real” rural areas in the UK. But the “real” rural areas could approach Gigaclear to cover them by visiting this page and not “giving up” with them if they are turned down. There is still the issue of high-speed Internet being of importance for professionals working from home along with small businesses where online competitiveness is still valued.

Of course, a question that may be always raised with these broadband rollouts is catering to the larger properties be they estates with a large house and a handful of cottages or smaller houses or simply small or large farms that are colocated to the villages. Issues that may be raise include whether a fibre rollout may be extended to a cluster of neighbouring large properties or not.

Similarly, if Gigaclear “conquered” a larger area of Oxfordshire or a similar area, could they be seen to be in a position of influence by providing the high-speed broadband for that area?

At least the Gigaclear effort is taking place to make sure that rural communities, which are also being seen as urban outposts or venues for “tree-changes”, as viable locations for proper Internet service.

Could the value of a house be affected by its access to decent broadband?

Article

Rightmove adds Point Topic broadband speed data to property listings | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

Rightmove

Broadband Speed Map page

My Comments

When one is considering property, an issue that may come up is whether there is access to broadband Internet with a decent bandwidth at that property. This is due to the Internet being considered a commodity especially in those countries like the UK and France where there is competitive Internet service overseen by pro-competition government telecommunications authorities that have teeth.

Now an online property-listings service operating in the UK is listing the Internet bandwidth available at that property alongside factors like number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms and existence of a garage. The data is being based on a snapshot of what is available at June 2013 but would be considered dynamic due to various broadband-improvement projects taking place around the country.

Personally I see this kind of listing as being able to vary a house’s price not just on location, view or kind of house but also the kind of Internet service available to the prospective householder. Even factors like a property being wired for Ethernet, recent AC rewiring (conducive for proper HomePlug AV operation) and/or the vendor showing a Wi-Fi “heatmap” that is strong for the whole house may also be seen as important to the prospective buyer / tenant.

This trend may also extend to other estate agents and property-listing services where a property’s suitability to “online life” may be seen as a selling point. It is more so as people start to work from home such as through telecommuting or running a small business; or want more out of an online-driven personal life.

As for local government (who are dependent on their local property taxes), they could see these resources as a way to encourage the deployment of high-speed broadband to all of the properties. It is more so in Europe where local and regional government is able to plough public money that is under their remit towards broadband-improvement  projects in a similar manner to other local infrastructure.

Of course, maps offered by ThinkBroadband (UK), DegroupNews (France) and similar comprehensive Web resources will earn their keep when you assess a target area for broadband availability.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Gigaclear partners with Fluidata to offer provider choice on network

My Comments

In the UK, a lot of small fibre-based networks are popping up in different country areas to offer real next-generation broadband to these areas. They are typically either a sole private effort or assisted by local or central government or even the local community.

But, unlike most next-generation broadband networks (including the National Broadband Network in Australia) and the ADSL broadband networks in most areas, there isn’t competitive access to the infrastructure. Here, it makes it hard for these markets to be approached with retail Internet service that competes on price or services offered.

Now, Gigaclear, whom I have been following on HomeNetworking01.info, have partnered with Fluidata to open their fibre-to-the-premises networks to other retail providers on a competitive-access model. This could allow a potential customer in Lyddington, Appleton or somewhere similar to benefit from a competitive tariff chart or sign up to a package that has “all the fruit” like VoIP telephony or IP-provided television.

There needs to be a platform for providing competitive access to infrastructure provided as part of any new next-generation-broadband project  This means that there is a company who looks after the infrastructure to the point of demarcation between the company’s responsibility and the customer’s responsibility at a customer’s installation.

But different companies can use this platform to provide a business or home customer access to the Internet using this infrastructure but in a competitive manner. Here, a customer then chooses which company provides an offer that best suits their needs and provides the best “bang for the buck”.

One could easily think that such a platform needs to be built or integrated at a later stage after the project is established but it is worth investigation any competitive-access systems as part of rolling out a next-generation Internet or rural-broadband-enablement project.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Highlands and Islands in £146 million fibre boost

From the horse’s mouth

British Telecom

Press Release

My Comments

Another rural area in the United Kingdom is being enabled with real broadband. This time it is the Highlands and Islands region in Scotland.

The mighty Scots will have a fibre-optic infrastructure that will intend to pass at least 84% of homes and businesses in this area. The setup will be primarily of the FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet / fibre-to-the-curb) fibre-copper setup with some installations being FTTP (full fibre-to-the-premises) setups.

This £146m project is being primarily provisioned by BT but, like a lot of these projects, has a lot of public funding. There will be £19.4m pitched by BT and £12m coming from the Highlands and Islands Enterprise business group with balance being public money from BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK) and from Edinburgh.

This will be considered one of the most ambitious rural-Internet-enablement projects in the UK due to the geographical makeup of the are i.e. the hilly nature of the Highlands as well as the Scottish Islands separated by water. One of the main costs would be to run 19 undersea fibre links to the Scottish Islands that are in this district. As well, areas that are considered to be remote will be the target of a £2.5m innovation fund to get broadband in to them.

What I would see of this is that the Highlands and Islands project can he used as an example of deploying real next-generation broadband to areas that have a mixture of geographically-difficult terrains like mountains or islands.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Frilford Oxfordshire to benefit from 1Gbps FTTH from Gigaclear

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Project Announcement Page

My Comments

Regular readers and subscribers of HomeNetworking01.info have noticed me covering Gigaclear’s activities in bring real next-generation broadband to the Berkshire and Oxfordshire rural communities in the UK.

Now Frilford and the neighbouring communities of Frilford Heath and Cothill are to benefit from this same technology. This is the same business-friendly service with 1Gbps upstream and downstream. Again this is a short drive (in an MG) west of Abingdon, like Fyfield and Tubney. This is another example of the villages and hamlets that exist close to a major town of employment “cottoning on to” the full business-grade broadband at the door in order to facilitate telecommuting for the businesses in that towm.

What I also like about this is that people who want the “tree-change” from Abingdon can value this option yet have access to the real broadband whether they still work or are considering retiring or setting up that small business.

Of course, like other Gigaclear services, this will primarily be a data-only service which will mean that people who want integrated telephony or TV service will have to source these services from “over-the-top” providers.

It is of course another example of pro-active thinking when it comes to bringing real broadband to rural, regional and peri-urban areas, and allowing these areas to become more “switched on”.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Bangor starts the ball rolling for Superfast Wales

From the horse’s mouth

Superfast Cymru

My Comments

Wales is to be expecting a rollout of next-generation broadband, initially in the Bangor area. The article cited the establishment of fibre-to-the-cabinet infrastructure in Bangor’s High Street with one of the fibre-copper cabinets being deployed there. At the moment, the service isn’t active at that point but I would like to see the service come alive with customers connected to it very soon.

The next-generation service will be based on fibre-to-the-cabinet technology with the option of on-demand fibre-to-the-premises upgrade. Most likely the copper link would be based on VDSL2 technology. This is meant to lift the average broadband speed in Wales beyond 9Mbps.

There is GBP£425 million invested in this broadband project with the estimated rollout between now and end of 2015. There will be some focus on identified “Enterprise Zones” and “Local Growth Zones” where government wants to help stimulate economic activity or population growth.

Of course, like most rural-broadband or next-generation-broadband projects, there will be some public-sector investment. In this case, the funds will come from European Union, UK and Wales governments.

The question about rural broadband will be based on what kind of engineering conditions are needed to determine what kind of technology would be used to supply the broadband. In a lot of areas in the UK where there are estates with clusters of closely-located properties, they should look at using the FTTC technology to plant the cabinets in the estates and close to the houses rather than placing them outside the estates.

It is also worth knowing that BT are the infrastructure providers but there is importance being placed on people having their choice of retail Internet service from different retail Internet providers.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Fibre broadband coming to Overbury and Conderton

My Comments

Another rural area in the UK has become “switched on” with next-generation broadband. This time, it’s the Overbury Estate in the Cotswolds. This area, which encompasses Overbury & Conderston has been known to be up-to-date and to be the first to come with running water, power and telephone service.

Here, it is being equipped with point-to-point Gigabit fibre broadband which has been said to be the envy of most areas around the world. This is where each customer who has their own fibre-optic run has the full bandwidth of their broadband service to their home network. It is like what happens with the Ethernet switches which provide the full bandwidth to the Ethernet sockets.

Like other “next-generation” broadband rollouts that have been occurring across the UK and Europe, this has allowed the online benefits of city life yet also have the peaceable and community-driven benefits of rural life.

One addition that has been factored in to this rollout is a “drop-in” hub for ad-hoc access to broadband by villagers, business, craftspeople, and community organisations. What I also like of this is that it can be used to help people who aren’t computer-literate get their hands wet with online life.

Let this be a chance to prove whether a “point-to-point” or “active” fibre-optic broadband service can really work and be a viable upgrade for existing next-generation broadband services.