Point Topic estimates 9.8m lines at end-2005 / 2006 the UK 's 'year of unbundling'

[-HF]

The UK has now overtaken France as the biggest broadband country in Europe - although the gap is still narrow. This is according to estimates by Point Topic which suggest that the UK will have 9.8 million broadband lines by New Year's Day 2006, while France will have 9.7 million.

....

Major changes in the UK environment should also help to drive growth forward in 2006. They include the development and proving of processes to support bulk migration of existing DSL customers to "unbundled" telephone lines, the creation of Openreach as a provider of broadband access to all service providers on equal terms, and the expected merger of the UK 's two big cable companies, NTL and Telewest, perhaps followed by the acquistion of Virgin Mobile.

http://www.point-topic.com/content/dslanalysis/ukbb051229.htm

[ApacheAnderson]

Don't know if that article mentions it but BT will more than likely be comming out with 8mb+ BB before the summer (though knowing BT it will probably be later). It's possible they'll offer upto 24mb, they have the technology but it's not very stable at the moment.

It should be a really intresting year for BB in the UK. I also suspect that prices will really drop.

[JT]

http://www.point-topic.com/content/dslanalysis/ukbb051229.htm


So we have more people on broadband and more women who shave under their armpits. This country rocks!

[gawdi]

Don't know if that article mentions it but BT will more than likely be comming out with 8mb+ BB before the summer (though knowing BT it will probably be later). It's possible they'll offer upto 24mb, they have the technology but it's not very stable at the moment.

It should be a really intresting year for BB in the UK. I also suspect that prices will really drop.

24Mb technology has been available for a few years its very stable, but requires a technology upgrade at the exchange... BT havent made their investment back from rolling out Broadband yet, and dont expect them to start to roll out 24Mb unil they have.....

[Scotty.T]

Don't know if that article mentions it but BT will more than likely be comming out with 8mb+ BB before the summer (though knowing BT it will probably be later). It's possible they'll offer upto 24mb, they have the technology but it's not very stable at the moment.

It should be a really intresting year for BB in the UK. I also suspect that prices will really drop.
I would be happy if they could get me the 2Meg at the minute. I'm still 'struggling' by on 1meg :)

[ApacheAnderson]

24Mb technology has been available for a few years its very stable, but requires a technology upgrade at the exchange... BT havent made their investment back from rolling out Broadband yet, and dont expect them to start to roll out 24Mb unil they have.....

It's stable if you're about 500m/1km from the exhange after that the speed drops significantly. Also stable in a test environment in a lab never quite equates to it being stable on the BT network.

Also BT are in the proccess of completly stripping out their entire network and replacing it all with new technology (IP based) they're currently being very proactive with new technologies. They'll start role to out 24mb way before you expect them too.