July 15, 2008 | posted by Michael Baxter in New Media |

Cast your mind back to those primitive days when you had only just started using the Internet. Logging on was a hit and miss affair, and involved listening to your modem singing to you. It wasn’t much of a tune, a high pitched whistle of ones and zeros.

What a difference broadband has made. But, imagine this. Imagine in a few years’ time, you will look back on today, and think, did we really suffer such slow Internet speeds? The Net is set to get a whole lot faster, and BT is putting in £1.5bn to make it happen.

If you are a shareholder in BT, it means the share buyback scheme is on hold. But at least you will be able to download the company report in a trice.

No doubt you are familiar with Moore’s Law. Defined by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1964, it said the number of transistors on a computer chip will double every 18 months to two years. Or to put it another way, computers double in speed every other year.

But there is another rule of that ilk: Butters’ Law of Photonics. Defined by Gerald Butters, the former head of Lucent’s Optical Networking Group, this predicts a doubling in the amount of data coming out of an optical fibre every 9 months.

So that means data will reach us quicker and quicker; mind you, we have got to lay down the optical fibre wires first, and this is where BT comes in.

The plan is to roll out what it calls fibre-based, super-fast broadband to as many as 10 million homes by 2012.

There will be two types: Fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) or fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC). BT says FTTP will deliver headline speeds of up to 100Mb whilst FTTC will initially deliver speeds of up to 40Mb, though it says it is investigating technologies that can increase those speeds to more than 60Mb.

The fibre optic network will be available to other suppliers, sold at wholesale prices.

Now, 100Mb really is fast. It means that Internet speed really will have increased at a rate which is on a par with, if not faster than, Moore’s Law dictates for computers.

What does it mean? Well, BT says: “Copper-based ADSL2+ will offer sufficient speed for services including HDTV but fibre will allow people to enjoy several such services simultaneously, so Mum and Dad can be watching the latest Disney movie downstairs, while little Jonny in his room watching Pulp Fiction, all downloaded from the net.”

Presumably, as we see 3-D entertainment take off – Journey to the Centre of the Earth is the latest movie offering, and Philips have announced their 3-D TVs, the faster bandwidth will surely help.

As for business, well, the applications are obvious. Maybe, we may even see 3-D video conferencing, eventually.

BT chief executive Ian Livingston said: “Broadband has boosted the UK economy and is now an essential part of our customers’ lives. We now want to make a step-change in broadband provision which will offer faster speeds than ever before. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Britain’s broadband story.”

But the story comes with a twist. The BT move is dependent on Ofcom creating a new regulatory framework.

Of course the BT move will put the company in an even stronger market position. And competition commissions don’t like monopolies. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how this infrastructure will be built, otherwise.