Virgin have begun rolling out their super-fast 100Mbps broadband service to select areas of the UK.

The first areas connected to the network will be Hackmondike, Farnborough, Colchester and Barry in South Wales, with the network set to expand over the course of the next year and on into 2012.

Speeds that fast dont come cheap though. Also offering 10Mbps upload speeds, the subscription costs £45 a month, or £35 with a phone line package. You do get a flashy new wireless router thrown in though.

With BT announcing a similar service in October, Virgin are keen to keep their network ahead of British Telecom's growing fibre-optic infrastructure.

Out and about and stuck for a web connection? Then keep an eye out for Three Mobile's "Human Hotspots". Armed with MiFi Wi-Fi hotspots, they're offering free mobile broadband to anyone in their vicinity.

Dressed in skin-tight white jumpsuits, it'll be hard to miss the Human Hotspots, and, for their own safety, I urge them to avoid some of the rougher spots in Soho when they step out in london today.

Matthew Halfin, marketing manager for Three Mobile Broadband explains why they're sending the creepy ghost ninja dudes out: "People are now using mobile internet as part of their everyday lifestyle, and we think it's important that we're able to support our customers by providing them with reliable and fast connectivity for wherever they want to go online".

"Three's 3G network was designed for the mobile internet, so we can give people the very best online experience with their mobile gadgets. This will be particularly important over the Christmas period as a third of people head online with their new mobile toys".

The human hotspots will be lurking about in London on 19th November, Cardiff on Friday 26th November, Bristol Saturday 27th November, Nottingham Saturday 4th December, and Newcastle Saturday 11th December. We'd love to see some pics of you guys with one of these scary looking dudes, so if you spot one, grab a photo, send it in, and you might get a coveted spot in a Tech Digest gallery!

Three Mobile Broadband users will today be offered free subscriptions to The Times newspaper's raft of web content.

Now sitting behind a paywall, Three Mobile Broadband subscribers will get three months free access to the news sites, including the Sunday Times and iPad app.

Three's Head of Customer Propositions Mobile Broadband, Alys Mathew spoke of the new deal, "As more people consume news online, a partnership with The Times is a perfect offer for our mobile broadband customers. Three's network has over 97% population coverage for 3G services, so we're happy to expand the reach of The Times online readership across the country to more mobile devices."

Once your three month free subscription is up, PAYG users can continue reading providing they top up within 30 days, while contract users will ahve to cough up £2 a week.

Hoping to see your broadband exchange get upgraded to a fibre-optic service? Well you may be able to fast-track the process thanks to Eclipse Internet.

They've been given the opportunity by BT to nominate 5 exchanges to get a super-fast makeover, and they're looking for your suggestions.

Head on over to www.eclipse.net.uk/vote-fibre before 5pm on Friday the 12th November and you'll able to vote for your local exchange to get an upgrade.

Clodagh Murphy, Director at Eclipse Internet said: "We're delighted to be given this opportunity and rather than us selecting 5 exchanges for nomination we felt our customers and potential customers should be the ones to decide by voting."

If you all want to do me a favour, put a couple of extra votes into the Stepney Green exchange in East London. You'd make my blogging life far, far easier. I think it pre-dates Stone Henge though, so maybe it's a heritage site or something like which may explain why they wont tamper with it and GET IT WITH THE BLOODY TIMES.

Sorry about that, it'd been building up for a while that one...

Broadband information site www.thinkbroadband.com has launced a UK broadband map website, bringing together a useful number of data sources.

As well as being able to carry out a test of your own broadband connection (which is now a pretty standard option) you can also see speed test results carried out by other users in your area. There are also estimated speeds throughout the UK based on data from independent broadband research company Point Topic.

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband says: "This map helps you visualise broadband speeds and availability in a way that has not been possible before. You can choose which layers to view on the map and easily see how the roll-out of BT's fibre-optic broadband network is taking shape."

"We hope that by including community broadband projects, we can help increase awareness of what broadband services are available in your area or nearby, enabling users to make more informed decisions about which broadband service to subscribe to, or where to go for help if they can't get broadband in their area.

The broadband map is a free tool and now available at:

http://maps.thinkbroadband.com

The county of Cornwall are set to get a broadband infrastructure boost, as BT outline plans to roll out their fibre-optic network to the area.

90% of Cornish homes will be able to get high-speed connections by the end of the program, which is expected to take 4 years to complete at a cost of £132 million. £78 million of the funding will come from BT's own coffers, whilst the EU's European Regional Development Fund will cough up the remaining £52 million.

The announcement follows communication minister Ed Vaizey's desire to make the UK a European broadband network leader by the middle of the decade. "The government wants the UK to have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015, so today's announcement is a big step towards that goal," he said.

Two different fibre optic technologies will be used in Cornwall, both fibre-to-the-home technology (FTTH) and the slightly slower fibre-to-the-cabinet technology (FTTC) which makes use of existing copper wiring.

If successful, the roll-out will be used as a blueprint for other rural area network expansions from BT.

Via: BBC

If you're a Virgin Media broadband subscriber, you'll soon be able to enjoy the befits of a free service upgrade that will give a boost to your upload speeds.

Subscribers to Virgin Media's 10MB, up to 20MB and 50MB packages will get the upgrade, and will not have to do anything to have it applied to their connection.

Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media, explains: "We're once again pushing the boundaries of UK broadband with a true next generation broadband service that vastly outperforms struggling DSL-based services.

"With the huge growth in social networks these new upload speeds will help Virgin Media customers share their most precious moments and keep up with what friends and families are up to, whether it's uploading to YouTube or even hosting a live videochat to show off baby's first steps in high-definition."

The news is offset by the announcement that Virgin Media will also be applying a new traffic management system, capping some connections, which they claim will "improve the performance that over 95 per cent of customers receive."

Heavy P2P users will likely be most affected, though those streaming online TV content may find the traffic management will work in their favour. Regardless, those subscribing to the premium up to 50MB service will find that "this temporary slowdown will only operate on upload speeds and an extremely heavy user will see this reduce from up to 5Mb to up to 1.75Mb."

Full details of the upgrade can be viewed by clicking here.

While it once seemed like an impossible pipe-dream, OnLive's game streaming service now has the backing of at least one heavyweight partner, BT.

BT have signed an exclusive partnership deal with the cloud gaming company, obtaining a 2.6 per cent share in the company and the rights to bundle it in with their BT Broadband packages.

"Entertainment is going to be at the heart of what we offer customers in the future," said CEO of BT Retail, Gavin Patterson.

"It's great for our customers - they'll have access to a huge catalogue of games, available instantly on their TV or PC without expensive hardware."

OnLive's CEO Steve Perlman also spoke of the potential of this new partnership:

"The UK market is extremely important to OnLive and our videogame publishing partners as we expand into Europe. We view BT as the ideal UK partner. As gamers are moving increasingly to online game distribution, OnLive delivers video games as a pure form of online media, playable instantly on almost any video-capable device attached to the internet.

"The implications are nothing short of transformative to video games and in time, all interactive media. OnLive is delighted to be pioneering this revolutionary technology in the UK together with BT."

Due to launch later this year, OnLive allows even modest PCs to play games with high specifications. It does this by housing the games on remote super-PCs, which send a stream of the in-game video back to the player at home. In effect, your button presses and mouse clicks are turned into a video stream of what is being generated on the remote PC, meaning all the difficult processing is done elsewhere.

If subscription fees are reasonable, OnLive could truly revolutionise PC gaming.

Sky have today announced plans to offer free 20Mbps broadband as part of its free Sky Everyday Lite package. If your line can handle 20Mbps speeds that's exactly what you'll be getting.

To be eligible for the service you need to already be subscribing to Sky TV and the Sky Talk telephone service. That'll see you qualify for the 20Mbps service, which annoyingly comes with a 2GB a month data cap. The service launches on June 1st.

Also launching on June 1st is Sky's new Unlimited package. It offers unlimited, uncapped broadband from £7.50 a month.

Sky promise that Unlimited subscribers will not suffer from "usage caps, fair use policies or traffic management", meaning that even data-intensive internet use like iPlayer streaming or file-sharing will not affect the download and upload speeds Sky are offering.

Click here for more info.

Villagers in Rutland, so fed up of their snail-paced broadband speeds, have taken matters into their own hands after service providers such as BT said that it was not economically viable to provide the area with a network upgrade.

After raising £37,000 and recruiting the help of a local ICT firm, the villagers formed Rutland Telecom, which now delivers speeds of up to 40Mbps to as many as 200 homes in the area.

"We found that any company could do, on a smaller scale, what Carphone Warehouse has done and take over BT's network," said Dr David Lewis, managing director of Rutland Telecom.

It took two years of work, but Rutland Telecom customers now are supplied their internet connections completely independent of the local BT exchange.

With the government scaling back plans for nationwide super-fast broadband in the run up to the election, it's possible that more independent broadband providers may pop up in remote areas following this precedent-setting service.

However BT Group Strategy Director Olivia Garfield stressed the importance of opening similar networks up to multiple service providers. "Otherwise there is the risk of a local monopoly developing, which is never good for consumers," she said.

I'd translate that comment as "DIY broadband has us quaking in our boots", more like.

Via: BBC

A poll carried out by www.broadband-expert.co.uk has revealed O2 to be Britian's favourite broadband provider.

Over 100,000 broadband users voted in the poll, with 6,676 giving O2 the highest average satisfaction rating of 77%. View the full list of results in the table below.

Rob Webber, Broadband Expert's commercial director, said:  "O2 is consistently a top performer in our broadband speed tests and receives great feedback from its customers for ease of installation and because is has a responsive, nationally based call centre."

He continued,  "It is encouraging to learn that the overall average ISP rating has risen by 7% compared to the same period last year and that providers are beginning to take customer satisfaction more seriously rather than focusing solely on offering the cheapest prices. Greater transparency provided by the internet and media in recent years has given consumers more power to name and shame the poor performing providers. Conversely this has presented a huge opportunity to those companies who are willing to deliver a good quality, well supported service."

Felix Geyr, Head of Home Broadband at O2, said, "I am delighted that our customers have rated O2 Home Broadband higher than any of our competitors. We believe that we have a great product and results like this from Broadband Expert prove our customers value the service and quality we provide."

AOL fared the worst of all the major providers. It's users only scored the service with an average satisfaction rating of just 56%.

Do you agree with the poll results? Or are their key providers missing from the list? Let us know!

Related Stories: UK super-fast broadband tax scrapped at the last minute

The controversial £6 per year super-fast broadband tax has been dropped as the government races to push through key legislation before Parliament is dissolved next week.

The tax on all households with a land-line was to raise £170 million a year in order to speed up the growth of the fibre optic network infrastructure across the UK.

However the tax quickly raised opposition, with the Conservatives vowing to drop it should they be victorious in May's general election.

Andrew Ferguson, editor of ThinkBroadband, said that dropping the tax weakens the chances of super-fast broadband going nationwide any time soon. "The dropping of the 50p per month tax will be welcomed by those that thought it was unfair, but it throws the current Labour plans to have next generation broadband to 90% of homes by 2017 in disarray," he said.

Despite the news, it is imagined that Labour will reinstate the tax, should they gain another term in Downing Street.

Via: BBC

Virgin Media are setting in motion plans to roll out a 100Mbps broadband service across the UK. Beginning with 50Mbps trails in the Berkshire village of Woolhampton, as many as one million homes could be set to benefit from the new service.

The six-month long Woolhampton trial will connect each resident's home to Virgin Media's 50Mbps fibre optic network using overhead telegraph poles. The village until now has relied upon BT's copper network for their internet connection, and could see villagers gaining a ten-fold increase in internet connection speeds.

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."

With the government currently considering altering planning guidelines to make large scale developments of overhead deployments possible, this could be the first major step towards a super-fast internet connection across the entirety of the UK.

For more info, visit www.virginmedia.com.

The Conservative party have vowed to deliver a super-fast broadband network to UK homes by 2017. Is this a case of pre-election carrot-dangling or do the Tories have some concrete plans up their sleeves?

The Tories plan to end BT's "local loop monopoly" by making changes to the regulatory framework, giving private investors the chance to pay for improved cabling, an approach that has paid dividends in Singapore and South Korea. If investors did not commit to the service, 3.5% of the license fee currently used for the digital switchover would be re-routed to the broadband cause, with aims to become the first European country to have speeds up to 100Mbps.

"In the 19th Century we built the railways. In the 20th Century we built the motorways," said Shadow chancellor George Osborne. "In the 21st Century let's build the super-fast broadband network that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Britain."

Jeremy Hunt, shadow culture, media and sport secretary said: "We are currently one of the slowest countries in the developed world for broadband.

"With the Conservatives we'll become one of the fastest. High speeds will be available not just in our cities but across the rural areas that have been left behind for too long. These regulatory changes will create the right conditions for sustainable growth and ensure that the digital sector plays a leading role in a competitive, balanced economy."

However, Labour accuse the Tories of "playing catch-up" in regards to Britain's flagging broadband network. Financial Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms said: "On broadband it's not Britain but the Tories that are playing catch-up. Labour have already announced measures for rolling out broadband across the country - and the Tories have opposed the plans to make that happen."

BT have announced the launch of Infinity, the first consumer broadband package to use their new next-generation access (NGA) fibre-optic network.

For £19.99 a month, customers can get download speeds of 40Mbps and upload speeds of 2 Mbps. Data is capped at 20GB and a £50 installation fee is needed.

Alternatively, customers can opt for a £24.99 a month deal which has the same up and download speeds, but without the data cap or set-up fee.

Both contracts are 18 months long.

Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer of BT Retail, said: "The internet is essential to our customers' lives and they are demanding more and more as richer and even more compelling services become available."

He continued: "BT Infinity gives customers the capacity and reliability they need in an instant and at a great value price they can afford. We want to give our customers the best possible online experience and are committed to rolling out super-fast speeds across the UK."

BT's new NGA network is open access, meaning other providers will be able to use it to boost their own services.

The Infinity service goes live on 25th January. Check it out here.

As of March, network providers O2 will be offering landline phone deals to their broadband customers. It's a move the company hope will help bolster their trailing home broadband position.

"This is the most important launch for us in the home space since we entered the broadband market and is part of our strategy to evolve beyond mobile to a leading connectivity brand ," said Sally Cowdry, UK Marketing Director at O2. "We know how many of our customers value the convenience of paying for their home phone and broadband together with no hidden extra costs, and we will be bringing the same commitment to quality of service with our home phone service as we have successfully established with broadband."

The new offer will consist of two home phone packages available to O2 Home Broadband customers. 'Evening & Weekend' costs £9.50 per month, offering unlimited calls to UK homes on evenings and weekends. £12.50 per month bags you their 'Anytime' service, and offers 24/7 unlimited calls to UK homes, 0845/0870 numbers and landlines in 20 selected international countries. O2 mobile customers will be able to get O2's Standard broadband package and Evening & Weekend phone package for £17 per month, with line rental chucked in at no extra cost.

O2's landline services will come with a range of features. Hide My Number, Last Caller ID, and Last Number Delete will all be available to subscribers. A number of other services including Voicemail, Call Waiting, Caller Display, Call Barring and Ring Back will also be available at additional cost.

For more info, visit www.o2.co.uk/homephone .

The Consumer Electronics show, the behemoth of tech, the Valhalla of gadgetry, has come and gone for yet another year. But this time, rather than arriving with a bang, it slinked into sight with something more like a whimper.

CES 2010 had really had the wind knocked out of it before it had even got into the ring this year. All eyes were already on Apple and their rumoured Tablet in the run up to the event, despite the fact that Apple are traditionally a no-show at CES, instead planning their own top-secret unveiling at the end of January. Likewise, Google delivered a sucker-punch in the shape of the Nexus One, their flagship handset revealed at their own event on the eve of CES 2010's opening.

To make matter's worse, Microsoft's opening keynote speech (delivered by walking personality drain Steve Ballmer) was pretty darn dull. First a power cut, then a load of waffle on the 2 month old Windows 7, Ballmer hardly seemed to be trying to keep our attention. Though the Christmas release date for Project Natal was welcome news, it revealed nothing new about the device, whilst the partnership with Hewlett Packard for the new Slate device seemed merely like a case of keeping-up with the Joneses. Or should that be the Jobs-es?

But the Las Vegas event wasn't without its highlights. Far from it in fact. Maybe it's the recession, or the generally pocket-pinching mood in the air these days, but for once the most sought after tech wasn't in the realms of dreamy aspiration, but was actually fairly affordable.

Take for instance the brand new 3D TVs on show, of which the Sony BRAVIA XBR-52HX900 (video above, courtesy of Ashley) was the pick of the litter. Finally shaping up to the standards set by its cinema siblings, company reps promised that the average 3D TV will cost little more than a top-end Full HD set. Skype and video calling in many TV sets too will help turn your living room into somewhere the Jetsons could only dream of.

E-readers are also looking to be both big and affordable in 2010. As a comic book fanatic I'd have liked to have seen more attempts at a colour screened e-reader (I'm not including the MSI offering, which is really just a dual-touch screened PC, super-cool as it is). Plastic Logic's Que Pro e-reader looked great though, with a massive, durable screen, and was far lighter than the hundreds of books you'd be able to store on the tabloid-sized device.

There were, of course, tablets aplenty. The dual-booting Viliv P3 may be an underdog in the category, but seemed way more exciting than Microsoft's offering. The offer of both Windows and Android on the same device showed a respect for user choice not often seen in the back-slapping world of consumer tech.

There was still time for fun too. The Parrot AR Drone Quadricopter was fun and fresh, combining real-world toys with augmented reality controls. A little less high-tech but full of retro-chic was the Lasonic i931 iPhone dock/ghetto blaster mash-up. Odd's on its at the top of Flava Flav's Christmas list. And there was still some time for the weird and the plain old dumb, too.

Though less prevalent than other years, there were some great examples of brand new tech on show that were genuinely exciting. A real head-turner and my favourite item of the show was the Light Blue Optic Light Touch. Using a pico projection engine and a touch sensitive sensor, it'll turn any flat surface into a touchscreen. It works ridiculously well despite still being in the development stages, and has almost unlimited potential.

Some detractors say that, recession or not, CES looks to be on its last legs. It's sad, but not unlikely, when you consider the audiences that companies like Apple and Google can command for just a single product launch. However, for emerging companies like Light Blue Optics CES is still vital to gain some exposure, not to mention the fact that such a prominent date in the calendar forces the tech giants to have made some significant, competitive advances in their gear, year-on-year.

So here's hoping the old dog's got a bit of life left in it yet. Hopefully next year will kick off the recessionary cobwebs and kick the show back into high-tech gear. It wouldn't take much to tempt us back to the City of Sin once more.

Click here for full CES 2010 pre-show, day one, day two and day three round-ups.

BT have today announced that they are ahead of schedule for their super fast broadband rollout, and plan to have the network ready nationwide in time for the 2012 Olympic games.

BT aim to have a 100Mbps service ready for 10 million UK homes by July 27th 2012. The initial forecast had predicted the network would be ready for March 2013.

Ian Livingston, BT CEO called for further support from the UK government.
"If you look around the world, several governments are pro-actively supporting the roll out of fibre broadband," he said. "There's still a debate in the UK - which is fine - but we need our politicians to decide how much of a priority fibre broadband is."

The news comes with one stipulation however; only homes directly catered for with fibre optic cabling will receive the 100Mbps download speed. Anyone who connects via a BT hub-box somewhere nearby will receive a connection closer to 40Mbps instead, due to the copper cabling used.

Still, 40Mbps is hardly to be sniffed at. Virgin Media had better start watching their backs.

Via: BBC News

D-Link are set to launch the DWA-131 Wireless USB adapter later this month. Little bigger than a 50 pence piece, the tiny adapter connects to a Wireless 802.11n network and can provide download speeds of up to 300 Mbps.

The adapter uses what is known as "smart antenna technology". The device transmits multiple streams of data, which it bounces off walls to minimise interference and help eliminate Wi-Fi dead zones.

"With its sleek compact design and unmatched performance, this ultra-portable USB adapter is an ideal choice for setting up a secure, high-performance wireless connection" explains Andrew Mulholland, Marketing Manager for D-Link UK.

The D-Link Nano Adapter uses 802.11n technology to maximise the speed, strength and range of wireless signals to significantly outperform 802.11g devices, but will still be fully compatible with existing 802.11b/g wireless routers and access points.

The DWA-131 will be available on the 21st December from Play.com for £34.99.

TeliaSonera are today launching what they claim to be the world's first commercial 4G network.

Though their have previously been trials of similar services, this is the first time a commercial 4G network has been available for consumers to use.

The Nordic provider is hoping to deliver speeds of around a whopping 80Mbps. That's ten times the fastest 3G networks currently available.

"The use of mobile broadband in the Nordic countries is exploding and customers need higher speeds and capacity. This is why we launch 4G services in both Stockholm and Oslo," said Kenneth Karlberg, TeliaSonera's President and Head of Mobility Services ."Being first out with new technology gives us unique experience that we can use on all our markets. We will continue the roll-out to offer our customers new communication services for the future."

TeliaSonera are looking to deliver the service across all the major cities of Sweden and Norway, and also have a licence to deliver the service in Finland once they are ready.

Here's hoping someone picks up on TeliaSonera's initiative and rolls out a similar service to UK web surfers.