uk broadband | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:54:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png uk broadband | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Superfast broadband now covers 95 percent of the UK https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/damien-cox/superfast-broadband-now-covers-95-percent-of-the-uk/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/damien-cox/superfast-broadband-now-covers-95-percent-of-the-uk/#comments Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:54:53 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=362371 Covering 95 percent of the UK with Superfast broadband has been a part of the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) initiative since 2011 and after some delays, it seems that goal has finally been achieved. The details were collected last month, and while Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales fall below the margin, England's overachieving averages …

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Covering 95 percent of the UK with Superfast broadband has been a part of the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) initiative since 2011 and after some delays, it seems that goal has finally been achieved. The details were collected last month, and while Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales fall below the margin, England's overachieving averages it above the proposed line.

In fact, Scotland and Wales linger below the 95 percent line, whereas Northern Ireland dips as low as 86.7 percent coverage for Superfast connections, according to thinkbroadband.com. The current definition for ‘Superfast' is achieving speeds of at least 24 Mbps, which has increased from the original 20 Mbps at the time of the initiative's proposal. It's worth noting that this isn't measured via geographic coverage, either, but instead covers population.

The goal was set in motion at the turn of the decade, in which over the years the government has invested a total of £1.7 billion to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in order to provide coverage where there was none prior. This was delayed an extra two years, but managed to complete on time with the reevaluated deadline of 2017. Openreach is the biggest contributor to this, in which the returned profits are being reinvested in covering more areas alongside upping the speed of its fibre connections.

Moving forward, new goals have been set for the initiative with a proposal of 97 percent coverage in the UK by the end of 2019 and as high as 98 percent in 2020. Pairing this with the UK announcing it is making 10 Mbps broadband a legal right means that by 2020, ISPs will be legally obliged to connect anyone that asks to a network of sufficient speed. This will finally quell the 3.8 percent of the population that endure less-than-ideal connection speeds, including the downtrodden 0.7 percent that suffer from less than 2 Mbps.

KitGuru Says: By the time 2020 rolls around, it's likely that Superfast will again be reevaluated to something higher. But it's good to keep aiming for that high 100 percent barrier as it means that the UK might finally have acceptable internet for a developed collection of countries. How do you feel about your internet speed? Will these new plans help you?

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Virgin Media to spend £3 billion improving fibre network https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/virgin-media-to-spend-3-billion-improving-fibre-network/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/virgin-media-to-spend-3-billion-improving-fibre-network/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2015 15:54:47 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=235592 Virgin Media has today announced plans to spend £3 billion improving its fibre-optic broadband network, creating 6000 jobs in the process. These improvements will roll out over the next five years and is the largest investment in the UK's broadband infrastructure made in the past decade. The investment is currently being referred to as ‘Project …

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Virgin Media has today announced plans to spend £3 billion improving its fibre-optic broadband network, creating 6000 jobs in the process. These improvements will roll out over the next five years and is the largest investment in the UK's broadband infrastructure made in the past decade.

The investment is currently being referred to as ‘Project Lightning', which will increase the network's reach from 13 million to 17 million homes and businesses by the year 2020. Virgin Media will also be able to offer speeds of up to 152Mb to more customers.

vigin-logo-union

Virgin Media CEO, Tom Mockridge, has said that “Millions of homes and businesses will soon be able to benefit for the first time from broadband speeds at least twice as fast as those available from the other major providers. Consumers and business owners who want to make the switch to better broadband speeds now have an alternative: you can call on Virgin Media to ‘Cable My Street'.”

However, rural areas with not many residents may not be able to generate enough ‘cable my street' requests to become a priority, meaning some rural areas may continue to be stuck with slow speeds.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Do any of you guys have much experience with Virgin Media? What do you think of the service? For me it has always been great for speed but reliability hasn't been the best.

Source: The Inquirer

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UK £1Bn broadband shortfall solved https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/jules/uk-1bn-broadband-shortfall-solved/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/jules/uk-1bn-broadband-shortfall-solved/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 08:43:22 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=90214 Using the old ‘give yourself enough rope and you can inflict a great self-hanging' wisdom, the UK government decided that 100% of households will have high speed broadband by 2015. Now, according to the LSE (London School of Economics), there will be a shortfall of around $1Bn. KitGuru calculates that the government might have missed …

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Using the old ‘give yourself enough rope and you can inflict a great self-hanging' wisdom, the UK government decided that 100% of households will have high speed broadband by 2015. Now, according to the LSE (London School of Economics), there will be a shortfall of around $1Bn. KitGuru calculates that the government might have missed something.

High speed broadband is a relative term. While UK consumers were suffering at the hands of BT with its pretty-but-weak 512kb links using green Alcatel frogs, places like Sweden and Singapore were basking in waves of internet access that we could only dream of.

Singapore went live with a national fibre optic network in 1998, making 100% high-speed, broadband access possible. Between 1999 and 2001, a whole bunch of companies were falling over themselves to provide Singaporeans with better/faster broadband than their neighbours. In 2006, a system of ‘fast-n-free' mobile broadband was rolled out and this hit the magic 1 megabit a second mark way back in 2009.

So you can see just how far behind most other countries are.

For the UK, faster network speeds will make things quicker, but – at the same time – if the government successfully closes off loads of download sites, then the nation's need for high speed will diminish and, maybe, it can satisfy its targets quicker.

In most cities, you can download radio tracks in realtime on your phone and almost no one has a programme in place to download film. So the mobile (forget hard wired) networks we have, are already just about fast enough to cope with non-video traffic. And that's with 3G (approx 200kb/sec). Roll forward to 4G (approx 1.2Mb/sec) and you will have plenty of bandwidth in place for present services. And that will happen sooner than we might think.

So what do we mean by ‘blocks = bandwidth'?

Well, introducing new rules in Sweden to block torrent sites meant a drop in internet traffic of around 33%.

Might be enough of a drop for the UK providers to stop almost exactly where they are.  Increase spam filtering/prosecution and you may well have all you need. Stop chaps, we seem to have arrived.

Queen Elizabeth I recognised the benefit of building an economy through piracy and allowed the most vicious corsairs to operate under royal approval. "As queen of a small nation, one's gotta do what one's gotta do", she was fond of saying.

KitGuru says: As the main UK providers increase investment in their broadband infrastructures – introducing a draconian shut down of sharing sites will mean that we could have a massive over supply of bandwidth in the UK. Why should providers carry on upgrading, when the network we have is fast enough for all of the normal traffic that needs to be carried? The government reckons that faster broadband to everyone in the UK can increase productivity by up to 1.5% and push the economy forward, but will that still be true if all people download is Angry Birds?

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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Ultimate irony as 4G launches in Swindon https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jules/ultimate-irony-as-4g-launches-in-swindon/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jules/ultimate-irony-as-4g-launches-in-swindon/#respond Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:01:27 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=88104 If there's one sector of the market that Intel would like more of, it's the mobile computing business. Sure, phones would be nice – but that seems a way off. In the more immediate term, Microsoft's decision to release Windows 8 RT for the ARM instruction face looks like a serious face-slap. But there's an …

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If there's one sector of the market that Intel would like more of, it's the mobile computing business. Sure, phones would be nice – but that seems a way off. In the more immediate term, Microsoft's decision to release Windows 8 RT for the ARM instruction face looks like a serious face-slap. But there's an even more ironic fact in play today. KitGuru journeys down the M4 for a laugh – iPad 3 in tow.

One of the biggest controversies surrounding Apple's iPad 3 is that 4G has been splashed everywhere – including the UK store descriptions – but there is no 4G outside selected parts of America and Japan.

Until now.

In the ultimate ‘tongue out, thumb to nose and wiggle fingers', Apple's 4G features look like they will be made available outside Intel's offices ahead of everywhere else in the UK. Following on from a limited 4G LTE deployment in London for commercial purposes in May 2012, PCCW owned UK Broadband will be targeting Intel's home town of Swindon.

UK Broadband has a very mundane web site - unlike parent PCCW which is very swanky

UK Broadband's CEO, Nicolas James, said that it was the sad state of mobile communications in Swindon that made it appealing.

Having plowed £400,000 of tax payer's money into a failed project already, Swindon board [bored ? – Ed] director for transformation, Hitesh Patel, is hoping to provide a faster way to download video and documents while on the move. Exactly what videos Hitesh was after watching when not in the office or at home is unclear at this time.

We looked hard for a connection between Apple and PCCW, but could not find one. Maybe providing the Intel campus with a 4G network was a complete accident. Maybe.

KitGuru says: While we haven't heard of a specific ban in iPads at Intel, we can also say that we've never seen an Intel person carrying on in person. Looks like having an iPhone 5 or iPad 3 in the Piper's Way region of Swindon will pay big dividends come October.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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UK government push £50 million for superfast broadband https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/faith/uk-government-push-50-million-for-superfast-broadband/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/faith/uk-government-push-50-million-for-superfast-broadband/#respond Mon, 07 Mar 2011 09:07:30 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=36486 George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that they will direct another £50 million to help push the development of super fast broadband. KitGuru has covered the poor state of broadband services in the United Kingdom before, and it is clear that some of the superfast packages are loaded with ‘small print' and …

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George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that they will direct another £50 million to help push the development of super fast broadband.

KitGuru has covered the poor state of broadband services in the United Kingdom before, and it is clear that some of the superfast packages are loaded with ‘small print' and stipulations. The UK Government are directing this money towards local authorities in areas where ‘the market alone would not reach'.

Osbourne said “We want to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 and today’s £50 million will benefit up to 800,000 homes and businesses. This is very much a locally-driven process and we encourage bids from all local people with plans for improving broadband in their local area.”

The BSUK has a reserve of £530 million available which they are meant to use to ‘support broadband services and stimulate further private sector investment'.

KitGuru says: Let's hope that the services not only expand, but improve. We would all love to live in a world when 50mbit broadband actually meant just that . No limitations, no restrictions and no caps, especially not, as in Virgin Media's case for 12 hours out of every 24 hours.

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Why is UK broadband so bad? Virgin Media 50mbit customers complaining https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/carl/why-is-uk-broadband-so-bad-virgin-media-50mbit-customers-complaining/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/carl/why-is-uk-broadband-so-bad-virgin-media-50mbit-customers-complaining/#comments Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:51:34 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=35375 Over the last couple of weeks KitGuru have been receiving emails from readers complaining about the current state of UK broadband services. Many of us in dear old blighty hear about fantastic services in Sweden, with speeds up to 500mbit even being offered now. No caps, no limits, just pay the fee and use the …

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Over the last couple of weeks KitGuru have been receiving emails from readers complaining about the current state of UK broadband services. Many of us in dear old blighty hear about fantastic services in Sweden, with speeds up to 500mbit even being offered now. No caps, no limits, just pay the fee and use the internet connection. Sounds logical right? Not if you live in the United Kingdom…..

Lets take Virgin Media for example, a company who are constantly promoting their 50mbit services as some of the fastest in the UK. Sadly it looks as if their services aren't quite as fast as many would expect.

One reader emailed us to say “Virgin Media 50mbit isn't even close to 10mbit in my area, in the evenings its around 2mbit which makes me think they are oversubscribing the services. What makes it even worse is that Virgin have practices in place which ask their customers NOT to download high levels of data between 9am and 9pm. So basically when im at work the lines are faster, but even if I was at home I would be monitored for breaking specific limits. Then when I get home at night, the service is appallingly slow. I am not paying for 50mbit to simply surf basic internet websites at night with only a fraction of the rated line speed being given.”

Checking online we can see that there are many threads complaining about Virgin Media's high speed services in various parts of the country. Threads such as this, this and this are only a handful of the hundreds easily found from search engines. Looking into unofficial cable support forums in the UK highlights many other complaint threads with a ton of problems. Not only are Virgin Media monitoring downloads for 12 hours a day, but they have placed traffic management on both P2P and Newsgroups activity as can be detailed here. Many of their customers are receiving warnings about ‘large amounts of data' and have even taken steps to limit their own bandwidth, to no avail.

One of our readers emailed us with a copy of the Virgin Media bandwidth email he received:

Detrimental Use of your Broadband Connection

We wrote to you on 21 December 2010 to let you know that your broadband usage was having a negative effect on other Virgin Media customers in your area.

As a result we asked you to reduce your level of uploading and downloading during our busiest hours, from 9am-9pm.

Unfortunately, it looks like your broadband activity is still having a detrimental impact and therefore you are in breach of our Acceptable Use Policy.

It's now really important that you change the way you use your broadband connection and move a large proportion of your heavy use outside the hours of 9am and 9pm.  You can still take advantage of our unlimited service, but we need to make sure that other users aren't adversely affected by the way you use your connection.

If your broadband usage doesn't reduce during these hours, we'll have to temporarily suspend or disconnect your services and we might not be able to let you know beforehand.

If you have any questions or need help sorting this out, just give us a call, quoting the reference number above, on 0845 234 7007 between 8am and 8pm, 7 days a week.

Yours sincerely

xxx xxxx
Virgin Media

Our reader said that he then contacted Virgin Media by phone to find out what he was doing wrong, and that the department wouldn't give him any detailed information on how much data he had transferred. He then called customer services to complain and they looked into the issue for him. He was told that he had downloaded 60GB of data throughout December between 9am and 9pm.

While 60GB seems like a lot of data, in reality, for a 50mbit line its really not much. He was simply told to stop downloading data between 9am and 9pm. The customer services representative told him that when a third letter was sent out, he had 10 days to reply adhering to Virgin Media's terms or he would in effect be disconnected.

Our reader told us he was paying over £100 a month for HD TV, broadband and telephone services on their ‘VIP' package, which funnily enough stands for ‘very important person'.

KitGuru can understand with such fast connections Virgin Media need to monitor customers data, but it would appear that they are oversubscribing and they are incapable of delivering the rated speeds. The next logical course of action would be to improve their networking capabilities, but instead they are rolling out a 100mbit service.

How are they going to handle 100mbit lines if they are currently experiencing issues with the 50mbit service? With data restrictions between 9am and 9pm, P2P and newsgroup throttling and many customers getting a fraction of their ‘up to' speeds, is it really wise doubling the bandwidth for their customers? While claims of ‘100mbit' looks great in ad campaigns and to get new customers, perhaps Virgin Media might want to look into taking better care of their current customer base. Getting new customers is great short term, but holding onto them is the key factor to really growing your business.

KitGuru says: The UK is so far behind many parts of the world with shoddy internet connections. Will it change in the near future?

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Virgin Media attack broadband speed lies in UK https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jules/virgin-attack-broadband-speed-lies-in-uk/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jules/virgin-attack-broadband-speed-lies-in-uk/#comments Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:34:09 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=23929 Virgin Media have started to attack other ISPs in the UK claiming that many ISP's are lying about their actual speeds. The campaign is being held at http://www.stopthebroadbandcon.org/ and includes a personal plea from media darling Richard Branson. He says “If you regularly use the web, I would ask you to spend just a few …

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Virgin Media have started to attack other ISPs in the UK claiming that many ISP's are lying about their actual speeds.

The campaign is being held at http://www.stopthebroadbandcon.org/ and includes a personal plea from media darling Richard Branson.

He says “If you regularly use the web, I would ask you to spend just a few moments reading this. Virgin prides itself on being innovative and challenging the norms but my views on how to treat customers are pretty traditional. Whether it’s a topped up pint in the pub, the full forty miles-to-the–gallon or broadband speeds – we should all get what we pay for. At Virgin, we believe in being honest about the service we provide. But there’s something going on in broadband advertising that’s against everything we stand for.”

Richard Branson - flying the flag (plane?) for fast broadband

He is keen to point out that many rivals are just not delivering on their claims and that Virgin Media is the best deal in the UK right now. “I’m challenging all broadband providers to be honest with their customers. And I’m asking you to challenge your provider as well.” Fighting words indeed Sir Branson.

Sky come under attack for averaging only 8MB from their 20MB service according to Sam Knows. Perhaps they should spend a little less time promoting their 3D TV and sort out the current customers?

KitGuru says: UK Broadband is getting better, but to be fair it does still generally suck. We hope to see improvements in 2011, but we aren't holding our breath.

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