Amazon’s launch of its new Music HD service comes at an opportune moment, at a time when superfast broadband (with download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps) is available to 95% of UK homes. Say goodbye to compressed music streaming. At a relatively affordable price of £12.99 for Amazon Prime customers, it offers true-CD-quality streaming of about 50 million tracks, with “millions of songs” available in better-than-CD-quality. Now even the most dedicated audiophile will be delighted with the sound quality […] . Click here to read the full article.
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Bufferbloat: Why it is Harming Your Broadband and How to Easily Fix It
In this article, we tackle one of the biggest issues facing broadband users today, known as ‘bufferbloat’. The good news is that you can fix it, and we’ll show you how. While this term will be rather meaningless to most people, its devastating effects are very widely noticeable. With bufferfloat, other devices or applications running on your network can disproportionately wreak havoc with delay-sensitive applications you may be using, such as online gaming, web browsing and voice telephony (e.g. Skype and […] . Click here to read the full article.
Review of Apple TV+: Apple’s Streamed Service Leads the Pack in Picture Quality
Apple launched its new TV streaming service in the UK on 1st November 2019, to compete with rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Pricing is certainly aggressive. Apple TV+ currently costs £4.99 per month although there is a cheaper way to subscribe for buyers of Apple products. Apple offers a year-long trial for buying a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac. Up to six family members can share an Apple TV+ subscription. Streaming of video content using broadband is […] . Click here to read the full article.
BBC iPlayer Ultra HD (4k) Demonstrates Amazing Picture Quality
Update (July 2020): Following a temporary suspension of the BBC’s 4k iPlayer trial due to the coronavirus pandemic (to reduce strain on broadband networks), the BBC has resumed! What a pleasure it was this Christmas and New Year period being able to watch the complete series of ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’ and ‘Dracula’ on BBC iPlayer in Ultra HD 4k quality. They looked absolutely amazing. Once you see the incredible detail, colour volume and dramatic specular highlights delivered by Ultra […] . Click here to read the full article.
Superfast Broadband Fuels Streamed Video-on-Demand Services
We enjoyed a fantastic Christmas period making the most of the large amount of Ultra HD 4k content that is now available across the streaming platforms in the UK, including ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’ from the BBC (shown above). High-speed broadband has been making a dramatic impact on television production and consumption. It is allowing a broader range of content to be delivered ‘on demand’ via streaming services, often with better picture and sound quality than conventional terrestrial TV broadcasts. In […] . Click here to read the full article.
Guide to Broadband Re-Contracting or Switching: avoid price comparison sites
Apologies if this article sounds a bit like a Martin Lewis TV rant, but if you are outside your broadband contract – and some 41% of broadband users are, according to Ofcom – then you could improve broadband speeds and/or save money by re-contracting with your existing supplier or switching broadband providers. However, if you’re looking for us to be like the many price comparison sites online, you’re in for a disappointment. Our advice is to dump price comparison sites, […] . Click here to read the full article.
Why Does the Take-Up of Superfast Broadband Lag Its Widespread Availability?
In its 2018 Connected Nations report, Ofcom found that “people do not always sign up to faster broadband packages when they are available”. Although at the time 94% of premises had access to superfast broadband packages (30 Mbps+), only 45% had signed up to them. Ofcom stated, “People should be given the choice to sign up to a fast broadband service but may not choose to do so for different reasons, for example where the slower service is sufficient for […] . Click here to read the full article.
Chart of ADSL and ADSL2+ Speed Versus Distance
While ISPs often advertise ADSL2+ and ADSL services as having maximum downlink connection speeds of 24 Mbps and 8 Mbps, respectively, very few broadband users can expect to achieve such speeds. As shown in the figure below, a broadband signal generally has to travel considerable distances along the copper cable from the exchange to the street cabinet (the so-called ‘E-side’), and then along another cable from the street cabinet to the nearby residential and business premises (the so-called ‘D-side’). The […] . Click here to read the full article.
Price Decreases in FTTP on Demand May Fuel FTTP Adoption
There have been promising developments that may stimulate the adoption of Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). Openreach has recently announced significant price decreases in its FTTP on Demand product from February 2018, which (with the help of a forthcoming nationwide gigabit voucher scheme) may fuel adoption of FTTP. This is a promising development and may mark the turning point in the fortunes of true fibre to the premises in the UK. FTTP on Demand was launched by BT in April […] . Click here to read the full article.
Fibre Broadband VDSL2 Vectoring Finally Arrives and How To Tell You Have It
Vectoring has just been switched on on my street cabinet and, in this blog, I discuss the substantial speed increase that has been achieved. I also show you how you can determine whether vectoring has been enabled on your own fibre broadband connection. Back in July 2014, I wrote an article entitled Early Deployment of Vectoring is Essential to Avoid a Crosstalk Crisis with FTTC Fibre Broadband. In my village, as the penetration of fibre broadband increased, speeds for many […] . Click here to read the full article.