The ongoing mess of old technology and cryptic land ownership rules are decidedly slowing down the broadband speed in the UK. Even the most connected cities of the UK, suffer from sluggish broadband speed, which has with time, eventually, withdrawn people’s patience and faith from the leading Internet Service Providers canvasing the majority of UK cities. Old technology is publicly at fault, but wherever there is copper involved, the outcome is generally a disappointment. Complaints of lethargic connections in several pockets of London are not new and as a consequence of which, small business owners suffer the most.
The Weight of Slow Internet Speed for the last 5 years: There are parts of the UK, where both installed lines are copper telephone lines, i.e. with no fibre at all. Other parts of the UK have the line to the cabinet as fibre, but the outside line remains ADSL or cable, acknowledged often as FTTC or Fibre-To-The-Cabinet. It should be known that the fastest broadband transpires easily when the fibre is installed both inside and outside the Cabinet. This whole implementation is recognized as a FTTP (Fibre-To-The-Premise) or full fibre. Broadband Connections that are devised with only one-sided Fibre or with full copper sync, ultimately die out in speed further giving both residential and commercial customers, an ache in work. British Telecom has since 5 years failed to gap this wide disconnect in its promise and outcomes, and as a result, nearly every small business owner has suffered $ 1000 loss a year, to internet fallouts.
So if FTTP is the fastest, What is the problem with widescale implementation? Limited resources and financial costs have readily constrained the rollout, as a result, British Telecom and Virgin have only completed a limited range of FTTC implementation. Since FTTC is much cheaper than Full Fibre, it is easier to install and is quick in its consummation, BT and Virgin are trying hard, but not enough to resolve the speed paradox breathing inside the streets of UK.
But beyond technical challenges and costs required to upgrade the broadband infrastructure, there are more irrational and mundane delays. An example, there is a strong percentage of landlords following their rigid mindset of tenant policies as they disable the authorities that are earned as a right by their tenants i.e. stamping out a FTTC or an FTTP implementation. Openreach is struggling for a long time to eliminate this ongoing incoherent agreement followed since years.
Andrew Ferguson; Editor-in-chief of ThinkBroadband says: “There’s weird little bits of London where the borough doesn’t own the little bit of pavement in front of the building because of some agreement from 400 years ago,” and continues to quote: “That’s how complex London is.”
Another big reason for a failed implementation is the slow acceptance of FTTC, FTTP or any other powerful internet back up solutions like M247. There are better connections available but people won’t sign up for them because they are new and new that is not understandable is often perceived to be as wrong. According to ThinkBroadband, only 12 per cent of people who are introduced with FTTC or FTTP, agree to pay for the service. On the other hand, since there is a bold number of people in the UK living below the middle-income group, refrain from upgrading since there is a higher upgrade cost involved.
Lack of research and a shy number of testing are new reasons for consistent slow internet problems in the United Kingdom. Less slow speeds are recorded, because of local conditions like old routers, external bandwidth hogging downloads, and weak Wi-Fi signals. These all contribute to unknown and untimely service breakdowns further halting integral ongoing works.
What’s new in 2019 that has changed or is capable to resolve the ever-growing conflict of UK Internet Speed? In the wake of the possibility of a promise made by the Goverment, that by 2020, there will be a universal service obligation of 10Mbps, there are many private Internet Service Providers surfacing up. Businesses can now make a rational choice by selecting Gigabit by M247, where the commercial grade gigabit connectivity can be achieved by Cloud software and services like MPLS IP VPN, VoIP Technology and SaaS products like SalesForce and a few by Microsoft.
Apart from this, now people in the UK, who are suffering from speed as low as 5Mbps can choose 4G connectivity plans and use them as hotspots. But this can only be used as short term resolutions. For long term commercial implementation, it is suggested to sign an up gradation to FTTC or FTTP, since till the time, there is an official announcement of the wide installation of these Fibre backed internet, businesses can run smoothly.
Final Words: The wait has been long for a foundational internet to switch places with the present copper wired internet, but a few promising technologies are slowly mounting up in their customer base, speed promise and affordable rates.
