An FttxArms Race

Much has been made about the push for faster broadband across the UK.  The 2009 ‘Digital Britain’ report clearly sees it as core to this country’s future, setting an ambitious task of bringing  at least 2Mbps to every home across the UK by 2012. Some might think that most places already have that kind of connection speed but there are still plenty of ‘not-spots’ in Britain.  Many rural places still only have dial-up connections with broadband still seeming a long way off yet.

The reason behind this push for faster broadband lies in the ramifications for the economy.  Faster internet means better efficiency in operations, and it’s not just in businesses where the improvements will be felt.  Schools can introduce more effective video-based learning and digital education centres. Telecom companies can use Voice-Over-IP (VoIP) technology to reduce costs or at least will be forced into being more competitive due to the new open access model. Healthcare systems will benefit from better connections between hospitals as many files, such as X-Rays, are now digitised and shared between institutions. Making these processes more efficient can only lead to better performance in every aspect of technology.

However, if the UK is really going to benefit from this initiative economically, it’s really going to have to pull it’s socks up.  Many countries are already way ahead of the UK when it comes to internet speed.  Sweden, is leading the European charts when is comes to fast internet and much of that is owed to its ‘Fttx’ strategy - ‘Fttx’ meaning ‘Fiber to the x’.  This is a generic term for any broadband network infrastructure that uses fiber optic cabling for the last mile communication, rather than traditional copper wiring.  It provides vastly superior connection speeds, some up to as many as 1Gbit per second.

Sweden already has 11% of households connected with ‘fiber’ and has seen significant improvements, particularly in its rural and lower GDP areas.  Increased connectivity has been coupled with an increase in population and number of businesses in local areas.  More remote locations have attracted key verticals that benefit from the cheaper living costs without suffering from a decrease in bandwidth.  The initiative has also seen an increase in the percentage of remote workers. The rural region of Hadiksvall itself seeing the number of companies in the area grow from 6% to 14% since 2004 as a result of being developed as a fiber-optic hub station.

Currently, the UK doesn’t even make the top ten list of European countries adopting ‘Fttx’, wallowing behind the likes of Slovenia, Andorra and Lithuania. In many ways we are suffering from having ‘got there’ first.  Our infrastructure for internet connectivity has already been laid using, at the time, cheaper copper wiring.  The expensive digging costs have already been absorbed.  Those who are now benefiting from fiber-optic technology (the price has come down considerably in the last few years) have the Attacker’s Advantage.

It will be interesting to see how these countries develop over the next few years.  It’s not hard to see the benefits faster internet can provide, especially from a managed IT services perspective.  Imagine being able to upload data at 1Gbit per second and stream 30GB of lost data back onto a machine in under a minute.  It’ll bring a whole new meaning to the term disaster recovery.