Ten gigabit home broadband tested in UK

[Arthur]

With 10 Gb/s broadband you could theoretically download a 60GB PC game in just 48 seconds.

 

Source: BBC News

 

Broadband speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) have been tested in a home in the former Olympic village in east London.

 

Broadband operator Hyperoptic conducted the test, claiming it is the first time such speeds have been brought to a UK home using an existing ISP network rather than a dedicated line.

 

Firms are now looking to roll out full-fibre technology in the UK.

 

Ofcom boss Sharon White said higher speeds were becoming more necessary.

 

"The amount of internet data used by people in the UK is growing by around half every year. So we'll increasingly need full-fibre broadband services like this to provide faster, more reliable connections and capacity to our homes and offices.

 

"We're seeing real momentum behind full-fibre, with bigger and bolder commitments from companies of all sizes to build broadband that can support the UK's digital future."

 

Dana Tobak, chief executive of Hyperoptic, said the test was about proof-of-concept: "We have carried out this trial to push the limits in terms of what's possible for residential broadband.

 

"It wasn't long ago that people asked if 100Mbps connections are necessary. However, as we've seen with the advent of 4K media services, gaming and a dramatic proliferation of multiple connected devices in the home, it has fast become the minimum many consumers demand."

 

Hyperoptic provides a full-fibre network in 30 cities across the UK, and is available to 400,000 homes.

 

The firm said it would roll out 10Gbps services if there was "customer demand", suggesting this is likely to start with businesses and pointing out that there are currently very few computers on the market capable of coping with such speeds.

 

Ms Tobak also took a swipe at BT which has been slow to adopt full-fibre technology - also known as Fibre to the Home.

 

"While other players are just considering how they can upgrade their infrastructure to enable gigabit speeds, we are already working on a path to 10Gbps consumer broadband," she said.

 

[...]

 

A 10Gbps connection allows users to:

 

• Download a standard HD movie file (5GB) in 4 seconds, compared with 6 minutes 40 seconds on a 100Mbps connection
   
   
  
• Download a 25GB Xbox game in 20 seconds, compared with 33 minutes 20 seconds on a 100Mbps connection
   
   
  
• Download the latest full 4K ultra high definition movie (75 GB) in just 1 minute, compared to 1 hour 40 minutes on a 100Mbps connection
  

[ZeroHour]

I am on Hyperoptic and I thought my 1GB connection was fast!

[2ilent8cho]

Let me guess, 20Mb upload?

[ZeroHour]

Nah they do symmetrical connections thankfully, my 1GB is 1GB both ways. Upload rate is one of the most annoying things with most ISP's tbh. Edited February 13, 2018 by ZeroHour

[Davit2005]

Nah they do symmetrical connections, my 1GB is 1GB both ways. Upload rate is one of the most annoying things with most ISP's tbh.

 

 

On Virgin I had 60Mb down and 5Mb up. Now on BT Infinity I get 46Mb down and 16Mb up but as I'm mostly just browsing youtube the down is fine for me, I'd rather upload for backup/cloud be quicker.

[ZeroHour]

On Virgin I had 60Mb down and 5Mb up. Now on BT Infinity I get 46Mb down and 16Mb up but as I'm mostly just browsing youtube the down is fine for me, I'd rather upload for backup/cloud be quicker.

 

Yeah 1GB is pretty crazy fast tbh but at the time they were either 1GB or 100MB and I figured I would have few few chances to have 1GB. ISPs really need to get upload speed up to 50MB though for the higher speeds. It's backups etc that really need it and if you have a decent upload rate a lot of things become possible.

[Arthur]

I am on Hyperoptic and I thought my 1GB connection was fast!

Time for an upgrade!

 

Personally I would be happy with anything between 250Mb/s - 1Gb/s (currently limited to ~20 Mb/s download and about 2 Mb/s upload ).

Edited February 13, 2018 by Arthur

[Grey-gear]

From the article it seems it will take two years to roll out, it would be nice to have that sooner though.

[abillybob]

Time for an upgrade!

 

Personally I would be happy with anything between 250Mb/s - 1Gb/s (currently limited to ~20 Mb/s download and about 2 Mb/s upload ).

 

You think yours is bad! I'm limited to 6Mb/s Downloads and 0.7Mb/s upload (Live out in the country) BT will provide VDSL but it's actually slower as we're far from the exchange which will only achieve 2.4Mb/s. Ridiculous, they need to sort out the whole country first our broadband infrastructure is terrible. The joke is I get full 76Mb/s download on 4G on my phone! So annoying.

[Michael]

I know this is just an example of what can be achieved, but it's still a slap in the face to those on less than 10Mb/s for example.

 

Technology and speed are only part of the issue. It costs lots of ££££ to remove the old copper infrastructure and install fibre. I was under the impression BT and others were now pushing for G.fast, capable of 100Mb/s or more on existing copper/fibre to the cab setups.

 

Dare I say it, I think fibre to the premises (for many) is still a 'pipe' dream

[MatthewL]

B4RN 1GB to the home, fibre laid themselves.

[john]

B4RN 1GB to the home, fibre laid themselves.

 

B4RN is great have many friends and former customers from back home in the Dales using it now its a great thing.

 

I, like @ZeroHour, am a HyperOptic user in London and cannot complain about them the perofmrance is great, I only have the 100Mb symmetric connection (now its sold as 150Mb) and its great wouldn't be without it, when I go back to my family that don't have B4RN its rotten old ADSL Max and even trying to have a Skype call its a co-ordinated effort to stop others using internet due to poor upload.

[XiJ]

I’m on 200 down virgin - started at 70 which was fine for us tbh. My upload has increased at the same to to a whopping 10mb. I’d rather have 100/100

[dhicks]

With 10 Gb/s broadband you could theoretically download a 60GB PC game in just 48 seconds.

 

It's the reduced latency part of fibre connections that I find potentially interesting - with near-local response times, you can offload the computing part of things to cloud-based hardware (see https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/blade-shadow-cloud-gaming-could-make-your-pc-obsolete, for example). The actual bandwidth needed for a 4k streaming cloud-provisioned computer is around 15Mb/s per connection, so on a 10Gb/s connection you could (in theory) fit around 650 connections, which should be enough for most schools to offload their classroom / office workstations into the cloud.

[Wales]

I'd love a tiny piece of that! I can only get 3MB/s down and 0.2MB/s up!! Its ridiculous

[john]

It's the reduced latency part of fibre connections that I find potentially interesting - with near-local response times, you can offload the computing part of things to cloud-based hardware (see https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/blade-shadow-cloud-gaming-could-make-your-pc-obsolete, for example). The actual bandwidth needed for a 4k streaming cloud-provisioned computer is around 15Mb/s per connection, so on a 10Gb/s connection you could (in theory) fit around 650 connections, which should be enough for most schools to offload their classroom / office workstations into the cloud.

 

A friend lives in York and is on that FTTP Trail there, he has his Gaming PC in Azure.... No issues at all so has a cheap PC at home blazing fast internet and off it goes

 

(He works for MS so gets a bucket of Azure Credits each month before someone says about the $$$$ so its free to him as he uses his credits for that).

[Meldrew]

I'd love a tiny piece of that! I can only get 3MB/s down and 0.2MB/s up!! Its ridiculous

 

Pah, I'd dream of 3Mb. I get 1.5Mb. Annoyingly there is superfast half a mile to the west and half a mile to the east, but I'm stuck in the middle with none.

 

Meldrew.