Week of broadband progress shows UK on its way to superfast future

It's been a busy week for the broadband industry, especially when it comes to closing the digital divide, with the fixed, mobile and satellite sectors all making a case to help solve key problems and get the entire UK digital.

First up, the satellite industry made its play for increased funding from member states and the European Commission by arguing that the technology is ideal for closing the digital divide in the remotest of regions.

Then mobile operator Everything Everywhere announced a partnership with BT to deliver a 4G trial network in Cornwall for 200 lucky volunteers.

Jersey Telecom Group and Alcatel-Lucent, meanwhile, announced the trial of an LTE network on Jersey and Guernsey in the 1800MHz band that could offer speeds of up to 50Mbit/s.

Rural MPs recently argued that the use of mobile broadband on LTE networks is key piece of the digital divide jigsaw, urging Ofcom to enhance coverage obligations on operators that win key 4G spectrums from 95 to 98 per cent.

More good news for Cornwall came from BT with the announcement on Friday that its project to bring superfast broadband to every resident in the county, part funded with EU money, is on schedule.

Half of all exchanges in the region are set to go live in 18 months' time in areas including Falmouth, Truro, Camborne and Redruth, while St Austell is head of the queue with exchange upgrades scheduled for this summer.

More widely, rumours circulated this week that BT is behind on its rollout of fibre to the premises (FTTP) owing to blocked ducts, although the company said that any delays are down to the sheer complexity of the rollouts and that work is moving as quickly as possible.

"FTTP is a complex technology which we are currently trialling at scale. We are pleased with how the trials are going, but have always been clear that we will only launch it on a commercial basis once it's been fully tested and is ready for market," the firm said.

Finally, homes and businesses in Wiltshire, Norfolk, Somerset and Devon had reason to cheer when it was announced that they will receive a portion of the second wave of government funding for broadband of £50m.

So, with all three industries pushing ahead, whether through political pressure, unique trials, live rollouts or securing government funding, the UK's broadband market certainly doesn't want for effort at trying to get everyone online with high speed access by 2015.

27 May 2011