There's one thing I can promise you about the space program. Your tax dollars will go further. - Wernher Von Braun
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Virgin Media plans telegraph-pole broadband
NETWORK OPERATOR Virgin Media is testing a high speed Internet service that will use telegraph poles to deliver connections.
The first place to be treated to the service is the sleepy sounding village of Woolhampton in Berskshire, which according to Wikipedia is notable because of its close proximity to Reading and Newbury.
Virgin Media said that it would increase local Internet speeds by roughly ten times, to a ultrafast 50Mbps when compared to British Telecom's copper network.
Neil Berkett, chief executive officer of Virgin Media, said, "This unique trial will allow us to understand the possibilities of aerial deployment and may provide an exciting new way to extend next generation broadband services. With everything from BBC iPlayer to YouTube increasingly demanding reliable ultrafast broadband speeds, we're keen to ensure that all communities, in towns, cities and villages right across the UK, stand to benefit."
Trials start now and will run for six months. During this time Virgin will look at the planning considerations involved in such a "large scale overhead deployment."
According to Ofcom, people in the UK are not happy with the state of their broadband connections. Whether adding to this with connections that are liable to suffer from woodpeckers will help, we cannot say.
Today Ofcom said that for the third consecutive year the number of disatisfied users had risen, adding that thirty percent of the people it had spoken to had voiced their negative opinions.
High speed customers were the most happy with their connections. We read that as smug. µ
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Poles are more for backwards places and rocky ground (scotland is rocky in parts though), I think it's stepping down and I expect many communities will vote to not allow it, and by that fact alone it will probably be easier to simply use underground tubes with fiber.
And 50Mbit isn't blazingly fast btw, and DSL can do 20Mbit over copper (depending on distance from hubs), so when I divide 50 by 20 I don't end up with '10' either.
Still, it might be healthier and better in regards to interference than WIMAX and such, so perhaps they should use that as argument instead of comparing it to copper.
It's existing infrastructure that works perfectly well. Many newly developed areas have underground utilities, but older construction is often left as-is.
Darren - many parts of Europe and Japan didn't have telegraph (lol) poles as late as 1940, and when I was in Estonia 15 years ago the locals said that the only phones available to most people were cell phones because land line phones had never been installed in most areas.
Some areas skipped over the early tech and went straight to the new stuff when the new stuff came out - but that's because they were poor, backwater dumps (even their cities were backwater, and beautiful!) who couldn't afford the old tech when it came out.
im unsure as what canada is doing with its internet access, but america has one of the the worst role outs in the developed world, japan and some parts of Europe are generations ahead of us Brits, we trully are stuck in the dark ages and because investing is someting our country isnt good at any more its unlikely that situation is going to change any time soon. BT need a firm kick up the arse in my opinion, force them to meet certain targets in exchange for tax breaks or funding.
...North America has been doing it for decades.