The Wesminster eForum has been an active platform for policy makers to discuss the vital issues with concerned people who belong to all walks of life including industry analysts, academics, leading industrialists and journalists. The recent discussion on ‘future broadband in the UK’ which was held on 21st November gave the participants an opportunity to exchange and share ideas related to broadband speeds advertised by ISPs and future broadband trends.

Future broadband or next generation broadband often refers to FTTH and FTTN network which can offer more reliable speeds up to 100 Mbps. Fibre based broadband (FTTH) is not a new thing in Japan or Korea but it is so in the UK. The network and infrastructure for this network needs a large investment, but it offers notable advantages in a time when high speed broadband is so much in need due to the larger bandwidth needs of the customers. However, the ISPs still rely on ADSL or ADSL+2 technologies which can offers speed up to 50 Mbps and the main disadvantages of these technologies is that the speed gets drastically reduced with distance.

It seems the mains issues that demand our immediate attention are the need of replacing the existing networks with FTTH technology as well as the huge difference between the advertised speeds by ADSL providers and the actual speeds that customers get. It is yet to be seen how the UK broadband providers will respond to this constructive criticism from many experts and broadband customers.