Virgin Media is set to offer broadband speeds of up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps). The global company says that 400Mbps-ready modems and routers “in the pipeline”.

400Mbps data transfer is fast enough to download an album in one second, or a high-definition movie in two minutes.
Virgin Media believe that more consumers will be demanding faster speeds from their connections. A spokesperson is reported as saying: “The crunch point is coming. There is a step-change in what people are trying to do with their broadband connection.”

The company is pledging 100Mbps by the end of 2010 for millions of customers and 400Mbps to come…

The European Commission has announced it’s intentions to greatly increase the number of Europeans using public and commercial services on-line over the next decade. The Digital Agenda outlines the goal of broadband coverage for all EU citizens by 2013. By 2020 it’s hoped that at least half of all European households should subscribe to broadband services with speeds above 100 Mbps.

The EU proposals also included proposals to boost legal music downloads and set up a rapid response system for cyber-attacks.

The Digital Agenda sets out plans for a range of measures, including 31 EU laws, over the next two to three years to increase the number of Europeans accessing on-line services.

Latest broadband news comes from BT. The communications giant has announced that it will expand its roll-out ofnext-generation broadband to bring super-fast services to two-thirds of the UK.

The original plan was for BT’s fibre services, offering speeds of up to 40 megabits per second, to serve 40% of the population by 2012. But now a £1billion boost will see the service rolled out to a further 20% of the population by 2015. It’s claimed the first four million people will be connected by the end of the year.

Recent news reveals that the government has axed plans to introduce a 50p a month broadband tax on all fixed landlines. This comes following negotiations to pass budget laws before parliament is dissolved ahead of the May election.

The proposed tax, which was set to generate £175 million a year from 2011, would have been used to enable 90% of Britons to access next generation high-speed broadband services by 2017.

Labour had previously said the broadband tax was vital for the UK. It was claimed that the cash injection would have enabled internet service providers to deliver broadband services to areas where they would find it difficult to achieve a profit.

The broadband tax issue had already become something of a party political debate as the Tories had pledged to scrap the tax if they win the election. Their plan is to use some of the TV licence fee to roll broadband services out to rural areas.

So according to a survey, 75% of us in the UK believe that internet access is a fundamental right – yet many small businesses claim they are still troubled by speed and reliability problems on-line. Now some of these small business owners are campaigning for better broadband service.

The Federation of Small Businesses has received complaints from members about difficulties accessing email and/or websites, slow connections and being cut off from the internet. In fact, almost a quarter of respondents to a survey said they were “dissatisfied with their broadband service”. While “another 30 per cent said the area they live in has an unreliable broadband connection”.

Now the FSB is calling for the government to make sure ISPs guarantee a connection speed of at least 8 Mb/s.  Let’s hope the campaign makes a difference.

By 2012, 2.5 million homes will benefit from the super-fast broadband, called Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP). A further 9 million homes will receive the slower Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology.

The FTTP technology, being supplied by BT, has top speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second) compared to 40Mbps for FTTC technology.

The BT spin-off arm, Openreach, is responsible for the fibre rollout and recently announced two brownfield trial sites in Milton Keynes and Highams Park, London, for FTTP. Some 20,000 homes and businesses will receive speeds of up to 100Mbps by March 2010.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of Openreach, is reported as saying that BT was responding to demand from service providers for the faster fibre.

It’s claimed that the UK already leads the world when it comes to broadband availability. A recent study of the global state of broadband, conducted by Oxford University’s Said Business School, put the UK 25th out of 66 countries in terms of the quality of its network.

But BT faces fierce competition from other operators, especially Virgin Media with cable network. Virgin cable network has speeds of up to 50Mbps and has been trialling speeds rising to 200Mbps.