UK Fibre Broadband Fails to Make it into the European Top Ten

A fresh research unearthed a bitter fact, at least for the people of the United Kingdom that their country’s fibre optic broadband connections were not up to par with many other European countries. The study report is all the more significant, as currently Europe boasts of a home fibre broadband user-base of two million. The fresh figures were announced last day by the Fibre to Home Council, which also showed that there was about 18 per cent increase in FTTH broadband connections over the year.

According to the president of the Fibre to Home Council, Karel Helsen, this complies with the estimations, which were held to line up with economic situation of the present. Helson sounded optimistic when she stated that thirteen million people over thirty five European countries could enjoy fibre optic broadband connections that delivered broadband internet access speeds of up to 100Mbps by 2012. He added that the development of more broadband services can be witnessed as technology would allow for lower latency and lesser delays.

Helson also stated that numerous new services depended on real time access, particularly those which pertained to communications such as conference and video calls.

The research results pointed to the fact that the European nations that topped the FFTH broadband connection list were Slovenia, Norway and Sweden. All these countries averaged between 8 to 10 per cent fibre optic broadband connections for their people. The irony here is that the European bigwigs such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France failed to enter into the top ten European list.

Meanwhile, Thomas Kallstenius, the chairman for the European intelligence and marketing committee at FTTH Council, has stated that the European list of the top ten fibre enabled countries, revealed that the smaller countries and economies within the EU were remaining at the top of the FTTH list, as many bigger countries were found struggling to move ahead as briskly per population growth. However, if the UK fibre broadband has something to salvage, it is for the upgradations effected by Virgin Media.

As a matter of fact, the leading cable broadband provider in the country had upgraded, for most of its customers, its network speeds to 50Mbps.