Now that we’ve cruised past 2 million broadband connections, I’m wondering what the speed demons will need next. Online gaming already needs more than 512Kbits/s to host a game, wireless LANs are operating at faster and faster speeds (keeping the pressure on the tethered connection to the network), media use online (whether legitimate a la iTunes or otherwise) will continue to increase (and we still haven’t really sorted video). And let’s not even talk about what needs to happen to upload speeds (I get 100Kbits/s on my connection at home, on a good day). Copper wires are going to take us so far. Large numbers of exchanges have been upgraded to take ADSL, some rural communities are using satellite (take a look at what they’re up to in Wedmore) but, pretty soon, the early adopters will be demanding the next level. I wonder if the telcos in the UK are provisioning for that now so that they don’t get caught on the hop when the next wave of capacity requirement comes in.
After broadband?
