 Fibre will help to deliver super-fast broadband speeds |
Antony Walker, chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group - one of the key bodies that will shape the future of broadband in the UK - gives his response.
It was really useful to see the views and responses on superfast broadband. Many of the comments reflected issues that the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) is currently working on. We have taken what we saw to be the key themes and have tried to address the various points raised.
Although the UK is a world leader in terms of broadband accessibility, it is clear that there remains a small yet significant group who still can't access broadband from home.
As broadband becomes an ever more central part of people's daily lives, the frustration of living in a so-called broadband "not spot" is easy to imagine. Connecting these last remaining areas remains a key challenge and there is a real debate now about whether broadband should become a universal service in the same way that access to a phone line has been.
Looking forward, there is of course the worry that the next generation of super fast broadband services will only be available in urban areas.
This seems, at least at first, a likely scenario, as densely populated areas will be more attractive for commercial investment.
As such, serious thought needs to be given to ensure that, in the long term, next generation broadband does not cause a new and enduring digital divide.
It is still not clear how strong demand will be for next generation broadband or how much consumers will be willing to pay for these services
Many comments focused on the quality of service currently delivered by ISPs. A main gripe appears to be the difference between actual and advertised broadband speeds. Put simply, people want a reliable broadband service that does exactly what it says on the tin.
It is a reasonable expectation, but not one that is easy to deliver.
The nature of the underlying technology means that the speeds you experience at home will vary depending on time of day (whether you are using the network at peak times) and the distance between your home and your local telephone exchange.
This complexity presents a real marketing challenge, one that Ofcom and the industry is currently reviewing. However, consumers are clearly becoming more savvy about their broadband services and want broadband to be fast and reliable.
While headline speeds appear to be the clear priority, other problems people raised included the time it takes to upload information to the internet.
Today's networks were designed to be asymmetric (ie the download speeds are higher than the upload speeds) and didn't anticipate the extent to which peer-to-peer networks and other services would increase upload traffic.
The next generation of networks would address this issue providing much higher upload and download capacity.
Other commentators drew attention to that fact that much faster broadband services are now being offered in other countries and voiced concerns that Britain is being left behind.
The impact of broadband on our economic growth and international competitiveness is something that needs to be considered alongside the benefits that high-speed broadband can offer individuals.
This is a key issue and the BSG is conducting research that we hope to publish in the spring that should shed more light on the wider economic and social value of next generation broadband to the UK.
This is the $64,000 (or perhaps more in fact) question.
Several people raised concerns about who is going to stump up the cash to pay for these new networks, and this remains the big uncertainty in how and when next generation broadband will be deployed in the UK.
Despite many signals that consumers value higher speeds, it is still not clear how strong demand will be for next generation broadband or how much consumers will be willing to pay for these services.
Uncertainty about demand and potential revenues is one reason why some remain sceptical about the business case for investing in next generation broadband.
However, there are signs for optimism.
BT has announced that it will deploy fibre-based technology to deliver broadband speeds of 100Mbps (megabits per second) to the new Ebbsfleet Valley community in Kent.
Virgin Media has also committed to making improvements to its network in order to offer broadband speeds of 50Mbps to 9m homes by beginning of next year.
These are early but significant steps, and could mark out the beginning of the road to a faster and more sophisticated broadband network for the UK.
Time to choose Frostbite agony Stolen Generations
Labels: generation , technology
Ultra-mobile future beckons for PCs
Monday, January 21, 2008
"We want to be mobile and not tethered to our desks anymore - we can take our computing power with us," said Mooly Eden, general manager of the mobile platform group at Intel.
"Today's laptops have more processing power than all the computers that took the Apollo rocket to the moon," he added.
Laptop sales are expected to overtake desktop sales around the world by 2009 as the shift to an untethered computer experience accelerates.
"Consumers want the performance of a desktop - they are not willing to compromise," said Mr Eden. "They want battery life, they want wi-fi connectivity and good form factor."
Intel is pushing hard into the mobile space. At CES this week the company announced five processors for laptops, using its latest chip designs made up of transistors with features just 45 billionths of a metre in size.
 Today's ultra mobile PCs have the same power as 2005's laptops |
It also announced a new dedicated chip set, called Menlow, which will power a new generation of ultra mobile computers.
"Much of our future, in terms of volume, is going to be in this area," Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel told BBC News.
Sales of so-called Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC), which were first launched in 2006, have been modest, but Mr Otellini said the market was still evolving.
"Ultra mobility is the ability to access all of your information, get in touch with anyone you want to, collaborate with anyone, and run any application you want from anywhere on the planet," said Dennis Moore, chief executive of OQO, which builds UMPCs.
He added: "It's about getting the same kind of connectivity and performance as sitting at your desktop PC."
Companies such as Samsung, iRiver, Lenovo, LG and Toshiba have committed to building these mobile devices.
At CES Mr Otellini showed off a Toshiba portable computer about the size of a paperback book running Windows Vista.
"The Menlow-powered device from Toshiba has the same performance as the most powerful Centrino laptop two years ago," he told BBC News.
Intel gave the Centrino label to a combination of chipset and wi-fi technologies optimised for mobile computers.
Key issue
"We will have dual and quad-core processors in these devices in just a couple of years," he added.
The relationship between computing power and battery life was the key issue in making portable computers practical, said Mr Eden.
"More performance means more transistors and more transistors means more power and more power is less battery life; that is a problem for laptops," said Mr Eden.
Power efficiency
The crucial development for ultra mobile devices is the power efficiency afforded by the latest chip designs.
Intel's Menlow chip set is five times smaller and consumes 10 times less power than ultra low voltage mobile processors introduced in 2006.
Soon you will be able to have connected experience everywhere you go
Mr Moore said: "Power is not an issue on a desktop, because a giant fan can suck the heat out of the machine; it is in a UMPC.
"You can measure the progress because a typical UMPC is smaller than the fan in a typical desktop computer."
He added: "Today's chips do not overheat, do not drain the battery in an hour."
Lightweight machine
The goal, said Mr Eden, was to build laptops - and UMPCs - which could run off a battery for an entire day.
Companies such as Qualcomm are also building processors to drive a new generation of lightweight computers. It unveiled two designs, called Anchorage and Fairbanks, at CES.
Other firms committed to a new generation of mobile computers include Taiwanese firm Asus, which has enjoyed success with its Eee PC - a lightweight machine, which can run Windows XP, and uses solid state drives instead of hard drives to keep the weight down and improve reliability.
Mr Eden said: "Moving to solid state drives is inevitable. This is a revolution that must happen. They have many advantages compared to rotational drives - they consume less power, they are more reliable because you don't have moving parts.
"This is the optimal solution for notebooks. The only problem today is the pricing. And for that reason economies of scale will play its game."
Solid state drives are more expensive to manufacture than hard drives as they are built from silicon - and lack the higher storage functionality of a hard drive.
However, Bit Micro are expected to announce a 2.5in 832 Gigabyte solid state drive at CES, closing the gap on hard disks.
For maximum mobility, Toshiba and Samsung both unveiled 1.8in solid state drives that can hold 128 GB of data.
Wireless broadband
Drives like this will start to make their way into devices in the coming months, along with other technologies such as Wimax.
The next generation wireless broadband will be introduced into a device from OQO later this year.
Its current flagship UMPC, the e2, can run Windows Vista operating system and can also connect to the net over wi-fi and 3.5G mobile networks.
At CES on Monday Asus also announced it would release a Wimax-enabled version of its Eee PC.
Mr Otellini said Intel too was looking to roll out Wimax in its chips designed for laptops in 2008.
"Soon you will be able to have a connected experience everywhere you go," said Mr Moore.
"You won't need to worry about finding a wireless hotspot and with improvements in battery life and power efficiency you won't need to worry about recharging," he added.
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Labels: computer , experience , generation , performance , processors , technology , transistors
The golden age of videogames
Monday, December 10, 2007
Halo 3, The Orange Box and Super Mario Galaxy have all been awarded one of the highest accolades in gaming - a perfect score from Edge. And plenty of other games have been given near perfect scores also - from Bioshock to Crysis, Drake's Fortune and Call of Duty 4.
The Edge scores are just one of a number of signs that reinforce a growing feeling that videogames are enjoying a golden age.
It is not just that the interactive experiences are getting ever more immersive, or the industry is being taken ever more seriously, but hardware and software sales are up significantly on last year - buoyed by a new generation of consoles and the work of developers who are beginning to exploit the tools they have at their disposal.A lot of the games are sequels and I would like to see more innovation
"It's difficult to say across the board that games are getting better. But we are seeing publishers being more careful about the quality of games that they release.
"And there are so many good games out now that some publishers are holding titles back to next year."
The industry also looks to have found a way to blend the loose attractions of casual and social gaming with the hardcore experiences beloved by the seasoned player.
Margaret Robertson, a former editor of Edge and now a games consultant, said long-standing gamers were spending more money on games and a whole new audience had been introduced to gaming for the first time.
"There are now more ways than ever to spend money on video games - from consoles to handhelds, supplementary purchases online via Live Arcade, Virtual Console and the PlayStation Network to games on your iPod.
"The evidence of what Nintendo has done to attract people to games for the first time with the DS and the Wii is unmistakably clear."
This year will be remembered as the year the Wii took centre stage as the console of choice for families, the year PlayStation 3 finally showed its promise in real terms and the Xbox 360 hit its stride with the 5th anniversary of online service Xbox Live.
I have been publicly criticised for saying that we are yet to see a next generation game in terms of gameplay. And I stand by that
David Braben, founder of Frontier games, agreed: "This new generation of machines is now bedding down with developers. A crop of quality titles emerging simultaneously is typical at this point in a console's lifecycle.
"I have been publicly criticised for saying that we are yet to see a next generation game in terms of gameplay. And I stand by that."
Mr Amor added: "I found myself queuing at the local video game store the other day and that hasn't happened for a long time. There is a batch of very good games out at the moment and I'm finding myself putting TV and movies to one side to play video games.
Titles like Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect have also helped raise the profile of games with big budget advertising campaigns, and an emphasis on storyline and production values. Both are expected to join the ranks of million-plus sellers this year.
Margaret Robertson said the market growth for games this year had been "explosive and phenomenal". Sales in the US are up 50% on last year and the Christmas figures are still to come.
 First person shooters like Call of Duty 4 are ever more realistic |
"On the strength of sales alone 2007 has been the greatest year in gaming - that much is certain," she said
But she said the industry was also showing signs of maturity.
"This year we have had the huge titles like Halo 3, The Orange Box and Super Mario Galaxy, which have had huge success and deservedly so.
"But it's almost the next tier down - games like Project Gotham Racing 4, Call Of Duty 4, Ratchet and Clank and God of War 2 - where there has been such ambition and confidence that you can now almost take the quality for granted. It's very encouraging."
Mr Braben said it was ironic that the games getting all the praise are the least representative of the industry as a whole.
"Games like Bioshock and Halo 3 are made for the hardcore gamer while there is a widening family appeal of games and gaming that is less talked about.
"2007 will probably be remembered as the year of the Wii," he added.
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Labels: generation , software , technology
The golden age of videogames
Friday, November 23, 2007
Halo 3, The Orange Box and Super Mario Galaxy have all been awarded one of the highest accolades in gaming - a perfect score from Edge. And plenty of other games have been given near perfect scores also - from Bioshock to Crysis, Drake's Progress and Call of Duty 4.
The Edge scores are just one of a number of signs that reinforce a growing feeling that videogames are enjoying a golden age.
It is not just that the interactive experiences are getting ever more immersive, or the industry is being taken ever more seriously, but hardware and software sales are up significantly on last year - buoyed by a new generation of consoles and the work of developers who are beginning to exploit the tools they have at their disposal.A lot of the games are sequels and I would like to see more innovation
"It's difficult to say across the board that games are getting better. But we are seeing publishers being more careful about the quality of games that they release.
"And there are so many good games out now that some publishers are holding titles back to next year."
The industry also looks to have found a way to blend the loose attractions of casual and social gaming with the hardcore experiences beloved by the seasoned player.
Margaret Robertson, a former editor of Edge and now a games consultant, said long-standing gamers were spending more money on games and a whole new audience had been introduced to gaming for the first time.
"There are now more ways than ever to spend money on video games - from consoles to handhelds, supplementary purchases online via Live Arcade, Virtual Console and the PlayStation Network to games on your iPod.
"The evidence of what Nintendo has done to attract people to games for the first time with the DS and the Wii is unmistakably clear."
This year will be remembered as the year the Wii took centre stage as the console of choice for families, the year PlayStation 3 finally showed its promise in real terms and the Xbox 360 hit its stride with the 5th anniversary of online service Xbox Live.
I have been publicly criticised for saying that we are yet to see a next generation game in terms of gameplay. And I stand by that
David Braben, founder of Frontier games, agreed: "This new generation of machines is now bedding down with developers. A crop of quality titles emerging simultaneously is typical at this point in a console's lifecycle.
"I have been publicly criticised for saying that we are yet to see a next generation game in terms of gameplay. And I stand by that."
Mr Amor added: "I found myself queuing at the local video game store the other day and that hasn't happened for a long time. There is a batch of very good games out at the moment and I'm finding myself putting TV and movies to one side to play video games.
Titles like Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect have also helped raise the profile of games with big budget advertising campaigns, and an emphasis on storyline and production values. Both are expected to join the ranks of million-plus sellers this year.
Margaret Robertson said the market growth for games this year had been "explosive and phenomenal". Sales in the US are up 50% on last year and the Christmas figures are still to come.
| First person shooters like Call of Duty 4 are ever more realistic |
"On the strength of sales alone 2007 has been the greatest year in gaming - that much is certain," she said
But she said the industry was also showing signs of maturity.
"This year we have had the huge titles like Halo 3, The Orange Box and Super Mario Galaxy, which have had huge success and deservedly so.
"But it's almost the next tier down - games like Project Gotham Racing 4, Call Of Duty 4, Ratchet and Clank and God of War 2 - where there has been such ambition and confidence that you can now almost take the quality for granted. It's very encouraging."
Mr Braben said it was ironic that the games getting all the praise are the least representative of the industry as a whole.
"Games like Bioshock and Halo 3 are made for the hardcore gamer while there is a widening family appeal of games and gaming that is less talked about.
"2007 will probably be remembered as the year of the Wii," he added.
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Labels: generation , software , technology
