Topic: Cable Technologies

The on/off saga of the takeover of network provider Energis is now over. They have finally been acquired by Cable and Wireless (C&W), pushing out the rival bid by Scottish provider THUS. The deal is worth a reported an initial payment of £594 million. and will move C&W to the second largest telecom provider behind BT

Part of C&W's plan calls for a reduction in costs of �80 million over the next years, and admits that this will call for a reduction of 700 staff, although no firm details have been released.

Plans to introduce a fibre-optic infrastructure in Milton Keynes has been announced by the government.

The Oakgrove Millenium Community scheme is part of a design by English Partnerships to to provide a fibre optic network all homes, schools and businesses in the area will have connections which will be up to 20 times faster than average Broadband connections. available at the present time. The advantages are not just with faster internet connections, technologies such as VoIP phone connections and VoD (Video on Demand) become more realistic possibilities.

English Partnerships has announced that BT will become the project’s technology partner in providing the network to up to 2,000 homes over a 158 acre area, along with project partners Milton Keynes Council and the South East of England Development Agency.

The fact that Milton Keynes has been chosen for the trials of BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) seems like no coincidence.

BT has launched a new service called Broadband Voice which is aimed at cable broadband customers. It will enable them to make cheaper phone calls by using their existing cable connection.

According to BT, the service will provide cable customers with savings of up to 57 per cent on calls to mobiles and up to 25 per cent on UK daytime calls.

The service will cost £7.50 per month and will enable subscribers to make free UK evening and weekend calls of up to an hour. UK daytime calls will cost 3p per minute.

If you apply before before 31 March 2004 then they will supply a free adapter, thereafter it will cost £60.

BT admits that phone calls using its new Voice-over-IP (VoIP) service will not offer the same high quality as calls made via normal telephone lines (PSTN) but claims it is better than using a mobile phone.

Product Manager at BT Dave Axam, commented "The quality of calls is considerably better than mobiles but it is not PSTN quality. Sound quality is good but if you are uploading or downloading large amounts of content you will suffer some degradation of the service."

Is it only a matter of time before VoIP ADSL lines become a common form of communication?

Telewest are dropping their installation charges for those who subscribe to Blueyonder during October.
This replaces the previous offer of installation for £10 which closes today (30th).

The offer is available on the 512k, 1M and 2M connections, and as an added advantage you can also save £10 if you order online.

Prices start at £25 per month for the 512KB connection rising to £50 for the 2MB. Details are on the Telewest website.

Another strike for the success of demonstrating the usefulness of broadband technologies was acheieved on the 31st August 2003, as St Phillip & St James's church of Bath in Somerset conducted an online broadband of a Sunday Church service, in what is belived to be the UK's first webcast of its type.

Using the skills and resources of Telewest Broadband from BlueYonder, Rev Alan Bain's webcast attracted an web audience of some 500 UK churchgoers, whilst 170 attended the sermon personally.

More information and a replay of the webcast can be found at the Church's website : www.broadbandreligion.co.uk.