Category: Telecommunications

£67m UK Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme

March 27, 2018 Goverment Policy, Telecommunications No Comments

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond MP has announced a Nationwide Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) which will provide vouchers of up to £3000 for business, and £500 for residential connections from a total investment of £67m. This scheme “builds on” the £200 Local Full Fibre Networks scheme which trialled a pilot version of this scheme in four areas across the UK. All connections must be gigabit capable, in a bid to boost the UK’s fibre infrastructure.

Residents can benefit from the voucher scheme as part of a local community group scheme, which must also include small businesses. However, resident groups and businesses are able to pool the value of their vouchers, especially where installation of full fibre connections exceed the value of a single voucher.

The scheme will be open until March 2021 or until all available funding has been allocated.

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Ofcom’s wholesale superfast broadband prices slashed

February 24, 2018 Ofcom, Telecommunications No Comments

Ofcom has slashed the price BT’s Openreach can charge operators for superfast broadband, in a package of measures BT said will hit its bottom line to the tune of £120m next year.

The proposals are part of broader measures intended to boost broadband investment in the UK, including plans to increase current full-fibre penetration in the country from 3 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020.

Ofcom is also forcing Openreach to introduce stiffer quality of service standards (installations and repairs), and open up its cable ducts to rival ISPs.

In any case, it chose not to control the costs of Openreach’s speediest discount superfast broadband items to boost operators to assemble full-fiber systems.

Under the plans, BT must make its telegraph poles and underground passages open to match suppliers, making it speedier and less demanding for them to construct their own full-fiber arranges straightforwardly to family units around the UK,” it said. It said that could split the forthright expenses of laying fiber links to £250 per home.

To keep BT from smothering new venture by rivals as system rivalry develops, the previous state imposing business model won’t be permitted to make focused on discount value diminishments in regions where rivals are beginning to fabricate new systems, it said.

While Ofcom needs to enhance Blighty’s woeful full-fiber entrance, it is likewise quick to guarantee reasonable access to superfast broadband, or fiber-to-the-bureau. In that capacity it will cut the discount value that Openreach can charge telecoms organizations for its essential superfast broadband with paces of up to 40 Mbps, and transfer paces of 10Mbps.

The present rental charge is £88.80 every year, which will be decreased to £59.04 by 2020/21.

Ofcom additionally needs to guarantee that Openreach puts in new lines on its current system, and fixes shortcomings, all the more rapidly meanwhile.

Openreach will be required to: finish no less than 88 for every penny of blame repairs inside two days, up from 80 for each penny today; total 97 for each penny of repairs inside seven days; and introduce 95 for every penny of associations on the date concurred with the telecoms supplier, up from 90 for every penny today.

These new prerequisites must be met by 2020/21.

Jonathan Oxley, Ofcom’s opposition gather executive, stated: “Full fiber meets the nation’s future broadband needs, as interest for information takes off.

“Ultrafast rates will enable individuals to download whole movies, or organizations to share enormous records, in a flash. Full fiber will likewise support energizing innovation like remote human services diagnostics, 5G versatile and associated gadgets.

“The apportions we’ve set today will bolster the developing number of organizations who have officially declared plans to fabricate full-fiber systems, and open the route for much more yearning speculation around the UK.”

Original Source: The Register

Slow Broadband

British broadband is confusing and speeds are crap, says survey

August 27, 2017 Broadband, IT Sector, Telecommunications No Comments

Four out of five Britons has encountered broadband molasses in the previous year and a large portion of us are likewise “tricked” by the terms that telcos use to hawk their products at us, as per a review.

Only one of every five, in the interim, would change provider to escape from poop web speeds, says review purveyor uSwitch, a value comparison site.

The greater part of us (54 for each penny) have encountered site pages that crash, while 66% of the 2,004 “broadly illustrative UK grown-ups” who reacted to the overview groaned that their web connection, er, disconnects.

While uSwitch discloses to us that superfast broadband “essentially diminishes speed and unwavering quality issues contrasted with standard bundles”, simply finished portion of review respondents trusted it was accessible in their general vicinity.

Ewan Taylor-Gibson, execution advertising lead at uSwitch, gave the required canned quote: “basically, most purchasers aren’t pestered by the specialized meanings of their broadband association, they simply need – and merit – a solid administration that conveys esteem. In any case, customer speed dissatisfactions combined with an absence of mindfulness around superfast accessibility indicates all the more should be done to impart what’s accessible to singular properties genuinely.”

It isn’t just shoppers who are confounded about what “superfast” implies, in the specialized sense. Concede “Michael Green” Shapps MP told the world in a report issued toward the finish of July that superfast implies 10Mbps velocities. Truth be told, the administration characterizes superfast as 24Mbps.

In the interim, even Londoners get poor superfast broadband availability in spite of paying strong wholes for the scandalously promoted “up to” bundles. The administration claims 90% for each penny of British family units can get a superfast broadband administration.

Source: the Register