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UK hits its 95 percent ‘superfast’ broadband coverage target
'Superfast' broadband with speeds of at least 24 Mbps is now available across 95 percent of the UK, according to new stats thinkbroadband.com published today. The milestone was actually achieved last month, meaning the government's Broadband Delivery UK initiative (BDUK) actually completed on time, in 2017. Superfast coverage in Northern Ireland sits at 86.7 percent, while the corresponding figures in Scotland and Wales hover just below 95 percent. Take into account England's overachieving and it averages out to a hair above the magic number. We're talking population/premises coverage here, of course, not geographic coverage.
Virgin Media's biggest ever expansion to bring cable to 100,000 London homes
Not content with upping the top speed for many of its existing broadband customers, Virgin Media is also working hard to bring new subscribers into the fold. That's why the company today announced that as part of its biggest ever expansion, it'll extend its cable network to 100,000 more London homes. Virgin is focusing solely on East London, with broadband work already underway in Bethnal Green, the Isle of Dogs, Newham and West Ham. Homes in Stratford, Stepney, Poplar, Bow and East Ham are also down for future upgrades. With cable running to their properties, residents will enjoy the benefits of competition, allowing them to choose between Virgin Media 152Mb broadband speeds or BT's fibre-optic network, which delivers speeds of up to 76Mb and counts Sky and TalkTalk as wholesale suppliers.
Ofcom makes switching fibre broadband suppliers cheaper and easier
From July 1st, it could become a whole lot easier for you to switch between superfast broadband suppliers. After setting out its original guidance back in May, communications regulator Ofcom has gained approval from the European Commission to set new targets for BT. Currently, if you switch from one fibre-optic provider to another, Openreach (the company that controls BT's phone and broadband infrastructure) will enforce a £50 connection fee against your new ISP, which can be passed down to you. Ofcom's new rules will cut that wholesale fee down to just £11, shielding you from that value-added cost and allowing new companies to launch their own superfast services for less. Ofcom has also slashed the minimum-term contract between BT and ISPs from one year to just one month, and will force BT to fix line errors within two working days of you notifying them, if weather permits. Those small changes could make a big difference, especially if you're looking for a cheaper short-term broadband supplier.
Ofcom considers slashing fees for fibre broadband switchers
Under new rules put forward by UK communications regulator Ofcom, switching between superfast broadband suppliers could soon become a whole lot cheaper. Currently, if you switch from one fibre-optic provider to another, Openreach (the company that controls BT's phone and broadband infrastructure) will levy a £50 connection fee against your new ISP, which is sometimes passed down to you. Ofcom's new guidance will cut that wholesale fee down to just £11, possibly saving you money and promoting competition by making it easier for new companies to launch their own superfast services. That's just one of many new regulations being put forward to the European Commission. The watchdog also intends to reduce the minimum-term contract for ISPs from one year to just one month (passing subscription benefits to consumers) and wants to force BT to fix phone and broadband issues within two days, but only when weather permits. All of today's regulations will now be sent to the European Commission for review, and we should see the final decision arrive sometime in June.
Shaw plants 100Gbps fibers in Canada, watches them grow
Consumers can dream of 1Gbps, businesses might ask for 10Gbps, but here's the next step along that logarithmic curve: Shaw and Alcatel-Lucent just launched a new 100Gbps inter-city fiber optic network in Canada, following a successful trial between Calgary and Edmonton. The network can purportedly handle 133 million simultaneous voice calls, 440,000 HDTV channels, or transmit the equivalent of 44 Blu-ray discs in a single second. More redweed details in the PR after the break.
Intel plans to stuff more than 8 cores, extra speed into 2011 server chips
Yeah yeah, "more cores and faster speeds," you've heard it all before right? That'd be our reaction too if we weren't talking about the successor to the Nehalem-Ex, Intel's most gruesomely overpowered chip to date. Launched under the Xeon 7500 branding in March, it represents Intel's single biggest generational leap so far, and with its eight cores, sixteen threads, and 24MB of shared onboard cache, you could probably see why. Time waits for no CPU though, and Intel's planned 32nm Westmere-Ex successor will move things forward with an unspecified increase in both core count (speculated to be jumping up to 12) and operating frequencies, while keeping within the same power envelope. Given the current 2.26GHz default speed and 2.66GHz Turbo Boost option of the 7500, that means we're probably looking at a 2.4GHz to 2.5GHz 12-core, hyper-threaded processor, scheduled to land at some point next year. Time to make some apps that can use all that parallel processing power, nay?
