Guess something more interesting would be listening to the findings, as well as a few real life experiences of the chief broadband analyst of Broadband Suppliers UK, Chuck Doherty. Can’t blame Doherty for starting with an excoriating invective on the claim of BT that its network was in a strong position to tackle the anticipated demands in home working. Doherty criticises the ISP’s claim directly weighing it against its aged and dilapidated copper lines, which had been the main reason for a levy proposal on the UK commoner, in the Digital Britain report. He questioned, “How can BT bear robustly a surprise influx in the number of users, when it is apparent that you just cant increase the number of copper strands in the line to cope up with an increase in the usage? Doherty further stated that BT could have been genuine in its claim, at least to an extent, if it already had a considerable alternative fibre network, besides a generous mind for charity.

Doherty also lamented on the discriminative, as well as prejudiced approach of certain bodies of certain countries that did not bode well at all for a synergistic global movement against an intimidating disaster looming over. “ A couple of weeks back, I had been to Chennai in India to attend a broadband seminar as an invitee. I found it pretty humiliating (but only until I was told the precise reason behind it), when I was given a piece of paper at the Chennai Airport to fill in against some top priority questions similar to -

• Do you come from a Swine Flu infested country?

• Have you been infected by Swine Flu previously?

• If so for how long were you bed-ridden?

• Do you have any Flu symptom at present?

• Did you have any sickness a month prior to this travel?

• Are you infected with the Swine Flu virus at present?”

Doherty continues, “to me the final question was the most sensible one in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, the act of the airport authority was justified when an airport staff revealed the real thing to me that hitherto, the Indians were subjected to such acid tests in the airports of the West, and it was payback time for them, and is that not an explanation worth giving”. Whatsoever, he hoped that the foresightful ISPs like BT, never resorted to some of these great innovations in disaster management, akin to the glorious questionnaire pioneered by the Chennai Airport authority.

Assuming BT had spoken for the nation’s broadband network as a whole, it would also be fair to lend an ear to the viewpoint of Andrew Ferguson, the editor of Think Broadband, a broadband news website. According to him the issue would be critical for those companies that are required to ensure the robustness of their own computing systems, if people were going to access their office machines remotely, and in great numbers. He stresses that the uses can be marked by both downstream and upstream capacity, which evoke the chances of a peak spike during the evenings, and even at day times He points to this as a factor that makes those providers with little spare capacity struggle, hence giving a widespread impression that the infrastructure was failing.

So coming back to Doherty for the concluding session. “BT has played a blind optimism card, which can only be reasoned by the fact that after the initial burst, the world has somehow managed to put a leash on the extensive spreading of the disease. However, watching the ISP’s determination while declaring that, I felt that they had invented a potential vaccine, or at least had secured a good stock of Tamiflu. In the circumstance, what I find practical is BT distributing the hotcake swine flu masks, even while sincerely hoping that they would refrain from punching their logo on them.”

So far, the pandemic has claimed twenty nine deaths in the United Kingdom, besides infecting around 55,000 persons every week.

This fact has been revealed to the chiefs of emergency services and businesses at a Whitehall meeting that took place last day. Meanwhile, specific fears have been put forth about the capability of the broadband network of the country as well, to endure in the extremely hostile conditions by operating effectively.

The news of the dying of the first British person of swine flu, with hardly any underlying health problems had trigerred the panic sort of state prevailing presently. The patient who died at an Essex hospital on Friday, was the fifteenth swine flu-related death in Britain. This death have brought forth the intimidating fact that the virus was severer in certain cases, although it was generally proving mild in most people.

Technical director of the Business Continuity Institute, Lyndon Bird was sceptical on the capability of the digital infrastructure of Britain including the broadband sector to effectively hold the hundreds of thousands of people who are forced to work from home.

BT, the predominant ISP in the United kingdom, also could not give determinate assurances that the broadband network of Britain would function fully, bearing the vast numbers of people logging on from home.

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