For businesses that rely on rapid communications and the need to download and upload complex data quickly, the gradual upgrading of the U.K.’s broadband is good news. It will take a while, however, for the pilot to be established and then a matter of a couple of years, at least, for the whole country to be appropriately networked. Currently, the BBC reports, 93 percent of premises can access superfast broadband services, which run at speeds of about 24mbps.
The new broadband, which will be aimed at businesses and public services like hospitals, will provides data at speeds approaching one gigabit per second (gbps). The imitative is described as the first use of “full-fiber” network technology. The pilot sites which, surprisingly do not include London, are Aberdeenshire, West Sussex, Coventry and Warwickshire, Bristol, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. With the exception of the former (located in Scotland), the other five areas are all in England. The other two countries that form the U.K. – Wales and Northern Ireland – will have to wait a little longer for the results of the pilot to be evaluated. The cost of the project is £10 ($15) million, and up to 20,000 premises will be provided.
Commenting on the initiative, the British government Minister of State for Digital, Matt Hancock, told the website Think Broadband: “We want to see more commercial investment in the gold standard connectivity that full fiber provides, and these innovative pilots will help create the right environment for this to happen. To keep Britain as the digital world leader that it is, we need to have the right infrastructure in place to allow us to keep up with the rapid advances in technology now and in the future.”
The process of installing the new broadband involves bringing high-speed optic cables straight to premises. Once connected businesses will have to pay to access the service, although the government is offering full-fiber broadband connection vouchers to enable the connection costs to be subsidized.
