After Dr Jyoti Choudrie of the Brunel University commented that that the UK “needs to sit up and take note of the example Japan is setting”, BT CEO Ben Verwaayen has responded – and has basically said that speed doesn’t matter over 2Mbps. One in four homes in Japan has a 12Mbps connection, used for VoIP.
“All services, with the exception of live TV, are possible with 1.5 to 2Mps” he said at the UK Technology Partnering and Investment Forum. We’ll soon see if BT really believe that when they start marketing domestic connections faster than that.
Verwaayen wants us to concentrate on services – but this seems at odds with what users want. Broadband subscribers are more than capable of finding their own content, and would rather their broadband ISP provided them with a fast, reliable connection than pop videos they can find on other sites.
Silicon.com
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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