Category: Distribution

Ultra Wideband (UWB) – its civilian use has been talked about for a while (the military been using it for about twenty years) and now the US FCC has revised some of its rules to enable be used commercially.

Its major advantages are low-cost implementations and low-power consumption – leading to one example of it use being to tagging goods to track them on a dock-side or in a ship. Civilian uses are currently less clear but with single devices peaking at over 50Mbps over 10m, distribution of high-quality video over short distance would be possible.

After a tiny trial of twelve companies, BT is now rolling out their satellite delivered broadband across Scotland.

The fact that there’s satellites footprint over the area gives them 100% coverage, no matter how remote the location. Sadly the service is significantly more expensive to install (a minimum of nearly £900) and use than ADSL, so to get things moving government bodies are subsidising it.

Bredbandsbolaget the Swedish broadband operator is raising its monthly charge from EU21 to EU35. They say the higher than expected costs of installing the fibre and the current lack of income from content have lead them to not be able to cover costs with their current charge.

An exciting area that hasn’t arrived on most people radar is data-over-DAB. Most people aren’t aware that it can be used to broadcast pure data, making it an interesting way of getting content to a lot of people for a fixed cost. Today Capital Radio and UBC Media announced they are forming a Joint Venture to develop data over DAB.

Microsoft announce their intention to be involved with d-cinema.

Is there no stopping South Korea? A number of companies have now announced the roll-out of wireless services up to 11Mbps. Prices of the service vary with provider but current subscribers to Korea Telecom broadband service pay an extra just under £20 uk pound per month. KT aim to have 10,000 sites functioning by the end of the year.

Can it be true? Rumors that BT will slash the cost of broadband, possibly up to 50% off the wholesale price. Its chairman is going to dragged over the coals in front of a committee of MPs this week and the new CEO is to announce the third-quarter results on Thursday. If it’s true, it would be a great entrance for the CEO.

Once again, it’s encouraging to see how much ambition South Korea have as they announced their intention to keep themselves at the forefront on Internet connections by upgrading to fibre they hope to get 1Gb connections. They intent to invest 50m UKP of government money, matched by the same from private companies, over a five year period. It’s interesting to see they predict the value of exports this will bring at over $5bn by 2006.

As of the end of January this year there are now more ADSL than CATV Internet subscribers in Japan.

Business in Northern Ireland are being offered up to £1,500 subsidy to install a satellite-delivered broadband. On the surface it looks like a great offer.