Broadband Market in the UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Broadband Market in the UK - Essay Example 4). Nevertheless, broadband services â€Å"can be accessed from the local telephone exchange (either via copper lines or fibre optic cable), a cable television hub and via wireless and satellite technologies† (Downing 2011, p. 4). Broadband services â€Å"is usually described by the amount of data (in bits) that can be transferred† (Downing 2011, p. 4). To give an idea of the required speed that would make data transfer fast and efficient, â€Å"a typical email is thousands of bits (kilobits or kb), a music file can be several million bits (megabits or Mb per second---Mbps) and a firm may be several billion bits (gigabits or GB)† (Downing 2011, p. 4). To enjoy a live stream requires a constant speed of 2Mbps and, in 2009, it was estimated that about 2.75 million people in the UK had broadband speed of less than this (Downing 2011, p. 6). Today, broadband services are highly available on mobile phones. Mobile telephony is â€Å"a largely deregulated market in the UK† and this may be an explanation why broadband services became increasingly available in mobile phones (Downing 2011, p. 12). II. ... 1). Nevertheless, residential fixed broadband customers have been using an average of 17GB of data monthly (Ofcom 2011b, p. 2). Citing data from the London Internet Exchange, Ofcom (2012b, p. 2) reported that internet traffic â€Å"has increased seven fold in the last five years.† The Ofcom estimated that if demand continues to grow at the same pace, new investments have to made (Ofcom 2011b, p. 2). New technologies are being introduced to deliver up to 80 Mbit/s over copper wires and 300Mbit/s over fibre (Ofcom 2011b, p. 2). In the market, there are at least three kinds of internet speed: the headline or the advertised speed, the average speed and the maximum speed (Ofcom 2011c, p. 3-4). 2G. According to UK Ofcom, as of November 2011, â€Å"97% of premises and 66% of the UK landmass can receive a 2G signal outdoors form all four 2G networks.† However, according to the same source, â€Å"approximately 900,000 UK premises do not have a choice of all four 2G mobile netwo rks.† The 2G coverage is mostly voice and SMS. The so-called 2G refers to â€Å"second generation of mobile telephony systems† (UK Ofcom 2011b, p. 101). The 2G â€Å"uses digital transmission to support voice, low-speed data communications, and short messaging services† (UK Ofcom 2011, p. 101). Ofcom calculates that for 2G, 99% of England, 92% of Wales and Northern Ireland and 98% of Scotland have broadband coverage (Downing 2012, p. 13). 3G. Meanwhile only â€Å"73% of premises and just 13% of the UK’s land mass receive a signal outdoors from all five 3G networks, with lower coverage in less densely populated areas† (UK Ofcom). Thus, â€Å"approximately 7.7 million UK premises do not have a choice of all five 3G mobile networks† (UK Ofcom 2011a).