Kamis, 11 September 2008
Cable puts its foot down
CABLE BROADBAND providers have turned up the heat on ADSL by boosting the speed of their services by 50 per cent. Telewest and NTL have increased the speed of most of their services by half, with no increase in subscription rates. Telewest said that the extra speed would give users an incentive to try out more broadband content, such as music and video files. “If consumers want to take full advantage of the internet they need a fast connection,” said the company’s head of marketing, Chad Raube. “It will also give users more bandwidth to share between computers around the house using wireless networks.” He added that cable technology could provide up to 28Mbit/s links to every household where its service was available, with much faster speeds possible in future. “Only five per cent of our network is used to carry broadband to homes. Most is used to carry analogue television signals, and we expect the switch to digital television to be complete in a few years,” said Mr Raube.
BT now offers faster services using ADSL but they are subject to the same distance limitations that affect the standard 512Kbit/s connection. A representative said that services up to 2Mbit/s were currently limited to about 4km from the nearest exchange, meaning only 70 per cent of households would be within range. BT said it would continue to invest in research. But cable suffers from its own limitations – only those who live in its franchise areas can subscribe. Telewest’s network can reach a maximum of 4.9m households and currently has 450,000 broadband customers. NTL has just over one million broadband subscribers and can reach about 7m homes. Both companies have struggled with debt recently and although their finances are now under control, there is scant prospect of either laying new cables to expand their networks in the near future. Nonetheless, NTL is bullish about its prospects. “We could even see pay-as-you-go broadband services next year, with no monthly charges,” said Bill Goodland, NTL’s director of internet services. Customers of both companies will be notified by email when their connection is upgraded.
BT now offers faster services using ADSL but they are subject to the same distance limitations that affect the standard 512Kbit/s connection. A representative said that services up to 2Mbit/s were currently limited to about 4km from the nearest exchange, meaning only 70 per cent of households would be within range. BT said it would continue to invest in research. But cable suffers from its own limitations – only those who live in its franchise areas can subscribe. Telewest’s network can reach a maximum of 4.9m households and currently has 450,000 broadband customers. NTL has just over one million broadband subscribers and can reach about 7m homes. Both companies have struggled with debt recently and although their finances are now under control, there is scant prospect of either laying new cables to expand their networks in the near future. Nonetheless, NTL is bullish about its prospects. “We could even see pay-as-you-go broadband services next year, with no monthly charges,” said Bill Goodland, NTL’s director of internet services. Customers of both companies will be notified by email when their connection is upgraded.
Label: Customers to get 50 per cent speed boost for no extra charge