PJCNET

1 & 2: BT and Cable Lines (FIXED)

In the UK there are basically 2 types of physical land line installed in the home. There are cable lines (almost entirely super fast fibre optic cable) and there are BT land lines. Most BT lines are old copper lines that run from the home to the local BT telephone exchange where most people are then connected via fibre optic although some areas are still being upgraded to their 21st Century network (21CN). BT are however upgrading the largest distance proportion of the existing copper phone lines that run from the home to the local telephone exchange to super fast fibre optic cable over the next few years at the time of writing and are therefore starting to compete with Virgin Media’s up to 50Mb/S service with their new super fast service called BT Infinity which boasts download speeds up to 40Mb/S and record upload speeds of up to 10Mb/S, please see my article titled BT Infinity & Superfast Broadband in the UK for more details.

Various Internet Service Providers (ISPs) now use Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) where customers still use their existing physical BT line to connect, but the rival ISPs are allowed to connect their own equipment to the opposite end of the BT line at the local telephone exchange to replaces the standard BT equipment which then allows them to provide their own broadband and phone services instead. BT obviously wouldn’t really want to allow rival companies to install their equipment in their telephone exchanges without at least charging them highly, but OFCOM regulations have forced BT to allow this for a reasonable price in the interests of creating a healthy and fair competition with no monopoly to the public. Not all ISPs however have their equipment installed in every local BT telephone exchange in the UK which means their LLU services aren’t available everywhere nationwide and there are still some unlucky residents who are usually connected to smaller telephone exchanges that still haven’t got access to any LLU services at all, although LLU service availability is still improving over time. LLU services however and the way they’re provided is likely to change in future with the advent of super fast optical fibre Internet services (please see my article titled BT Infinity & Superfast Broadband in the UK for more details).

Rival ISPs still sometimes provide alternative broadband and phone services to BT when their LLU services aren’t available, but they’re simply renting the phone line and equipment from BT at a fair price laid down by OFCOM. Because of this the alternative services available to non-LLU customers aren’t usually as competitive, as fast and are often more prone to throttling (ISPs slowing down transfer speeds by capping at certain times, often on particular traffic like file sharing or sometimes on particularly heavy users). Sometimes BT themselves could end up being the preferred choice of ISP if LLU services aren’t available with any reasonable ISP or if LLU services aren’t available at all, even though BT are certainly far from perfect from my personnel experience.

Non cabled copper phone lines can theoretically only connect at a maximum speed of 24Mb/S where the latest used ADSL2+ technology is available on BT’s 21CN (21st Century Network), but the actual connection speed is normally much slower as it’s reduced significantly by the old copper line’s distance from the home to the local BT telephone exchange before it’s then connected to super fast optical fibre lines. In fact barely anyone gets connection speeds greater than 20Mb/S as you’d literally have to live virtually next door to your local BT telephone exchange using a copper line, but most customers get much slower connection speeds than the maximum. In fact a connection speed of around 16Mb/S would be considered very good at around 1.7Km from the local BT telephone exchange, while around 12Mb/S would be considered good at about 2.3Km and 8Mb/S would still be considered average at about 3Km from the exchange. Connection speeds of around 4Mb/S would normally be considered as poor and for this you’d live roughly only 3.7Km from the exchange, but you only need to live around 4.3Km away to reduce to a dire 2Mb/S speed even on an up to 24Mb/S ADSL2+ service.

What really surprises me is that BT are now actively working towards super fast fibre optic Internet speeds which will eventually make ADSL2+ up to 20Mb/S or sometimes up to 24Mb/S technologies obsolete (Please also see my article titled BT Infinity & Superfast Broadband in the UK), but BT haven’t even made their 21CN (21st Century Network) ADSL2+ speeds available to Millions of customers as yet in the UK at the time of writing. These unfortunate customers are still stuck using older ADSL Max technologies (Up to 8Mb/S) because their local BT telephone exchange still hasn’t been upgraded. The average connection speed on ADSL Max is just 4.6Mb/S for urban customers and just 3.3Mb/S for rural customers (statistics taken from OFCOM in July 2009).

Predicted Future of Fixed Line Broadband:

Fibre optic cable services to street level boxes from BT Infinity and Virgin Media will eventually completely make slow and unreliable long and medium distance old copper phone lines obsolete which in my opinion should have been phased out a long time ago. Fixed line Internet services will certainly be around for the foreseeable future as they offer the fastest, cheapest and most reliable connection to the Internet possible. Virgin Media are already testing an even faster 100Mb/S cable service at the time of writing with definite plans to upgrade to 200Mb/S services after that. South Korea has plans to have a 1Gb/S (roughly 1000Mb/S) broadband service available by 2012 which is a sign of what’s to come in the UK. Many fixed line broadband connections are and will continue to be connected to wireless routers which will then allow multiple PCs or other network devices to be connected wirelessly around the home or other establishment.

3: 3G (3rd Generation) Mobile Broadband

There is a 3rd type of broadband service available in the UK which uses relatively new 3G (3rd Generation) mobile phone networks to connect to the Internet. Customers either connect via a 3G mobile phone or via a 3G mobile phone connected to a PC, or alternatively and most popularly customers connect by using a small dongle that plugs into the USB port on desktop PCs and laptops.

All the major mobile networks are offering wireless broadband Internet services using their high capacity 3G network, but unfortunately the maximum download speeds possible are still only 7.2Mb/S at absolute best (Vodafone are pioneering up to 14.4Mb/S at the time of writing), but actual connection speeds will usually be much slower. This speed fails to come close to what’s available via wired fibre optic services in the home and 3G mobile Internet networks are still very expensive networks to use in comparison even though the prices have come down over the last year.

At first glance the monthly cost might not seem that expensive, but the maximum download allowance will be tiny and even so called ‘unlimited’ services have extremely harsh Fair Usage Policies which when you read the small print still enforces a small download allowance (it’s NOT really unlimited as advertised which is in my opinion wrong). Three Mobile (3 Mobile) for instance charge £7.50 a month for a minuscule 1GB usage allowance then £15 a month for a tiny 5GB allowance or £30 a month for a small 15GB allowance on an 18 Month contract, Pay as You Go allowances and prices are even worse. I could literally use the 15Mb/S allowance on their top package in just 3 days or less if I did what I really wanted on-line even if I was only connected at say 4Mb/S and most of the month I’d have no Internet or I’d be paying absolute extortionate rates per GB for going over the limit. In fact one has to be really careful not to go over the allocated transfer limit per month on contract as you could be in for a very nasty surprise when you receive your next bill as you could for instance be charged a scandalous 10p per MB over the limit (about £102 per GB on the Three Network) and it’s easy to transfer a few extra GBs in almost no time SO BE WARNED!

The only big advantage of using a 3G mobile broadband service is that it allows people with Laptops to connect to the Internet virtually anywhere, plus you don’t have the added hassle and expense of obtaining Virgin Cable or a land line to connect. In fact customers can even now buy Pay As You Go 3G Internet USB dongles without any long term contract to connect to the Internet almost instantly, although you tend to get an even smaller download allowance for your hard earned money. 3G mobile broadband can even be used while travelling in the same way as using a mobile phone without disconnection, although like a mobile phone there are black spots and also connection speeds will vary with signal strength.

Predicted Future of Mobile Broadband:

The 3G mobile network already covers the majority of the UK population and it’s coverage is improving all the time to catch up with mainstream 2G mobile phone coverage. I expect 3G networks to flourish in future as more people demand Internet and other fast network services on the move. Usage costs will most likely come down while usage allowances will continue to increase over the next few years. Speeds will also increase as technology improves as more bandwidth is demanded by more and more complex mobile applications along with a demand for high definition video on the move. Vodaphone have at the time of writing have already managed to increase speeds to a theoretical maximum of 14.4Mb/S which is only available in large cities, although eventually this service or faster is likely to be available to the majority of the UK.

4: Wireless Broadband

The 4th way to connect to broadband Internet in the UK is via standard wireless hotspot services. Modern laptops and many portable devices have wireless connection ability built in as standard, but you can connect any desktop PC or older laptop to wireless services using a cheap USB adapter or compatible Wireless card. The prices and packages available to connect vary greatly and there’s even some totally free hot spots available in a few parts of the country or sometimes ‘free’ hot spots are provided in pubs, cafe bars, hotels Etc to their customers. In many cases when connecting to a wireless hotspot you are really using a fixed line broadband connection by connecting to a broadband router wirelessly instead of via a standard RJ45 (internet cable), so it’s debatable if this is really another type of broadband service at all in this situation.

There are a number of companies providing national Wireless broadband hotspot services around the UK including BT Openzone and The Cloud. With BT Total Broadband you actually get ‘unlimited’ wireless minutes included with your home broadband package (a fair usage policy applies). Unfortunately to connect via wireless however, you need to be in range of wireless hotpot, these tend to be dotted around towns all over the country, but only cover a very small percentage of the population and UK area is covered.

Unlike 3G mobile broadband, Wireless Internet certainly can’t be used when travelling apart from perhaps moving about nearby the current connected hotpot or you will get disconnected regularly during use, this is because it’s not a cellular network and connections can’t be maintained without interruption from one hotpot to another. Unfortunately each hotpot can only transmit a relatively short distance, because of this, Wireless is often used for private networks in the home or in hotels, coffee shops, cafes Etc.

There are more wireless hotspots available than ever in the UK and with improved Wireless ‘N’ technologies the wireless signal can travel further than ever from each hotspot, but open wireless services still only cover a fraction of the UK at the time of writing. Even the latest Wireless ‘N’ hotspots only each cover a small local area up to a distance of around 400M away or more theoretically, but in reality this is much less and in built up areas the maximum distance is more like 40M or even less.

BT have gone one step further with their BT Fon wireless broadband service where people connected via their fixed line broadband service have the option of sharing their Internet connection securely by effectively making their router a BT Fon wireless hotpot. In return the customer can connect freely to any other BT Fon hotspot around the country while travelling. People who aren’t BT broadband users still have the option of paying to connect via BT Fon at various rates depending in usage. BT Fon hotspots are available to more people than ever, but even with this service, it’s still a lottery whether there’s a hotspot available in any given location.

Predicted Future of Wireless Broadband:

Wireless services will in my opinion continue to be popular in the home and in places like pubs, cafe bars, hotels Etc or perhaps even in parts of city centres for the foreseeable future, but 3G mobile broadband will make nationally available wireless services become more obsolete in future. The range of wireless networks can’t improve much more past Wireless ‘N’ without increasing power output levels, but this is unlikely to change due to radio power output restrictions without a licence in the UK.

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