By Vicki Owen
Some small firms are paying for multiple broadband subscriptions or plan to relocate because their local internet provision is so poor. And while the Government has pledged ?114 million to transforming ten cities into ?digital leaders? in its drive to make Britain?s internet speed the fastest in Europe by 2015, the Forum of Private Business has said its current target of superfast broadband ? 24 megabits per second ? is positively sloth-like?.
London will receive the largest chunk of funding ? ?25 million ? followed by Leeds and Bradford, which will receive ?14.4 million between them. Belfast, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Newcastle will also get part of the pot.
But Stu Kennedy, 36, a composer of music for film and TV, suspects that promises of faster broadband will not be fulfilled, and is considering relocating from Lochwinnock, Renfrewshire. ?The only thing to do is go to a city with solid provision,? says Stu, who is also the founder of Continuata, a firm which allows those in the music industry to download sample libraries. Stu says he has to rush to internet hotspots or upload compositions to his phone when his ?25-a-month BT Business broadband is not sufficient.
?My work involves a fast turn-round and I am regularly uploading demos with music. Often a company will say, ?We need this in a few hours?. If my broadband fails it is catastrophic,? he says. Stu also fears that even with improved infrastructure, broadband providers will use bandwidth ?throttling?, slowing the service down to free up capacity to recruit more subscribers.
Dave Baker, 58, runs his one-man business, chartingsuccess.co.uk, from Gislingham, in Suffolk, and pays for two broadband connections. He says: ?Where I live it is very rural and we get less than a megabit per second. It is unreliable and cuts out for no reason. As a business coach working from home, I need to communicate over the internet, so I have two broadband connections from different suppliers, BT and Andrews and Arnold. They are both delivered down the same phone line, but it is rare that both connections will go down together. I pay close to ?50 a month combined.? Baker adds: ?My village has been trying to get a private company to put in 100Mbps infrastructure.?
According to BT, the average speed in the UK is 9Mbps, which it says is ?sufficient for most people?s needs?. BT advises small businesses to ensure they are on a business grade product.
Phil Orford, chief executive of the Forum of Private Business, says: ?Superfast broadband continues to be a big issue for many small firms. The Government?s target for 93 per cent of the country to be superfast broadband ready by 2015 isn?t unachievable and it is providing funding for the regions to make this happen. By this time too it is likely that mobile 4G will have been rolled out to cover most of the nation.? But he adds: ?The definition of superfast broadband is perhaps where the Government?s future vision for broadband becomes rather less impressive. Their 24Mbps definition is positively sloth-like compared with certain Scandinavian countries where already speeds are in excess of 100Mbps. It could be that in three years? time, even by achieving this target, many more nations in Europe and beyond will be doing broadband bigger and better than here in the UK.?
>> BT says:
BT Business Total Broadband services, including the BT Infinity for business service, are designed to provide businesses with the fastest possible speed under any line conditions.
The Government?s aim is for the UK to have the best super-fast network in Europe by 2015. BT?s roll out of fibre broadband ? together with Virgin?s deployment of faster speeds ? will transform broadband availability across the UK.? As a result, we believe the Government?s aim is achievable. We also believe that BDUK funds ? together with similar funds from local government and other sources as well as further private investment? ? could see more than 90 per cent of UK premises in each local authority area have access to fibre broadband in the next few years. By the end of 2014 more than two thirds of UK premises (and possibly far more when Virgin?s network and BDUK funded networks are added in) will have access to speeds of up to 80Mbps AND all premises within the BT footprint will also be able to order FTTP on demand which will offer speeds of 300Mbps. Such speeds are not widely available in other parts of Europe and so the UK will be well positioned.
Broadband traffic speed can vary according to the total amount of Business Broadband traffic at any given time. BT Business Total Broadband services, are designed to provide businesses with the fastest possible speed under any line conditions
To provide a quality service, BT Business like many other business broadband providers, may manage network performance during high demand periods, including line speed reductions, application and protocol management.
Managing the network in this way, mainly affects customers who use peer to peer (P2P) software that enables file and program sharing between groups of people logged on to a P2P network.
Customers using P2P, often upload and download large files which are left running 24/7, taking up a lot of bandwidth, even when used by a small number of customers. This can affect service quality for other customers, making it slower to access the internet and send or receive emails, especially at peak times.
As a lot of P2P traffic is not time-critical, e.g., downloading and uploading TV programmes or movies for later viewing, we treat it differently from time-critical traffic, like surfing, streaming or internet telephony, by applying speed restrictions to all P2P traffic.
Tags: broadband
Source: http://www.fmwf.com/uncategorized/2012/10/superfast-our-internet-is-so-sluggish-we-may-move/
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