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Tag Archives: networking

Malmesbury – fast broadband takes the slow route

Whenever your correspondent visits Malmesbury in Wiltshire, it has an unhurried air. This is in spite of some past events that happened very quickly but added to its history, such as Eilmer, the local 11th century monk at the local abbey who made an early yet unsuccessful attempt at a gliding flight using wings, or […]

Commission wants to deploy thousands of wifi hotspots

As part of the strategy to create a single European digital market, the European Commission is preparing to invest €120 mn. to promote access to wireless connectivity in public places under the heading of Wifi4EU. According to Le Monde Informatique, this could see up to 6,000 publicly accessible wifi access points deployed, whilst the Commission’s […]

Telford to apply for EU funding for better business broadband

Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet is set to approve a scheme to apply for European funding to provide better broadband for business, today’s Shropshire Star reports. If the bid is successful, the funding will be used to give eligible businesses grants for fibre optic broadband through the Marches Broadband Grant project. Telford & Wrekin Council […]

Somerset to receive £40 mn. investment in broadband

Broadband network providers are expected to bid for six contracts worth a total of £39.5 mn. to improve broadband connections in Somerset and Devon, yesterday’s Somerset Live (formerly the Western Daily Press. Ed.) reports. The investment will provide broadband services between 30 Mbps (sometimes termed “superfast”) and “ultrafast” 100 Mbps to customers, mostly to rural […]

“Fast” broadband to become “a right” in UK

Today the United Kingdom witnessed the annual, anachronistic, Ruritanian pantomime otherwise known as the State Opening of Parliament, an event performed by the unelected in fancy dress which marks the formal start of a session of the UK parliament. The substantial part of the ceremony is the delivery of the Queen’s Speech, written for her […]

Bristol & Lund universities set new world record in 5G wireless spectrum efficiency

New research by engineers from the Universities of Bristol and Lund (Sweden), working alongside National Instruments (NI), has demonstrated how a massive antenna system can offer a 12-fold increase in spectrum efficiency compared with current 4G cellular technology.

Campaigner accuses government of rural internet con

Friday’s Western Daily Press reports that it has come to light that almost half of homes and businesses in rural areas described as “live” on broadband maps are not connected for fast speeds, i.e. a minimum of 24 Mbps. Forty-eight per cent of rural premises – believed to be some 1.5 million people – have […]

Everest Base Camp has better internet than English villages

News emerged last week that Everest Base Camp in Nepal has better internet connection speeds than some villages in Somerset and Gloucestershire. Research by Cable.co.uk revealed that Brent Knoll in Somerset has a download speed of a mere 1.3 Mbps. This is easily beaten by Everest Base Camp’s satellite internet link which has an average […]

Bristol open networking solutions company receives major investment

Zeetta Networks, which focuses on the design, development and marketing of open networking solutions, has received funding of £1.25 million to commercialise Bristol University’s software-defined networking technology to smart enterprises and Internet of Things (IoT).

Cross-party group of MPs: BT should be forced to sell Openreach

The British Infrastructure Group (BIG), a cross-party group of 121 Members of Parliament dedicated to promoting better infrastructure across the entire United Kingdom has today released a report (PDF) entitled “Broadbad“, which has determined that some 5.7 million broadband customers (of whom 3.5 mn. live in rural areas0 and 400,000 businesses experience “dire” connection speeds […]

EU broadband prices down, but speeds still lagging

The European Commission has just published three broadband studies examining speed, price and coverage. The first study, on broadband quality, concludes that subscribers are getting 75% of advertised download speeds. The second study, on prices, shows that broadband access has continued to become more affordable, whilst the third report, on broadband coverage, confirms substantial deployments […]

Gigabit internet roll-out planned for Bristol

CityFibre, a company which builds, designs and operates pure-fibre networks across the UK and markets itself as “UK’s only nationwide, wholesale provider of dark fibre“, has announced plans to offer super high-speed services at speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s in Bristol, V3 reports. The company will partner with business internet service provider Triangle Networks […]

Bristol does well in broadband speed stakes

Back before Christmas, telecommunications regulator Ofcom published its Connected Nations infrastructure report (PDF) which examines connectivity in the UK in 2014 and 2015 and the media have just caught up from their festive torpor. According to Ofcom, “superfast” broadband (30 Mb/s and above) is now available to more consumers than ever before, with both industry […]

Server retired after 18 years & 10 months

As part of our network upgrade work, Bristol Wireless has recently retired a couple of Pentium III-powered Compaq Deskpro EN machines that were acting as network gateways and performing other roles too. As these CPUs were only produced for 4 years between 1999 and 2003, that means our hardware is rather long in the tooth. […]

Free wi-fi coming to Shrewsbury and Telford hospitals

Today’s Shropshire Star reports that free wi-fi will be provided at Shropshire’s two main hospitals – the Royal Shrewsbury in the county town and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. The overall scheme will cost some £400,000 with funding provided by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust and Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group. […]

HTTP status code proposed to report legal obstacles

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has as its mission “to make the internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet“. As part of this work, the IETF develops and promotes voluntary Internet standards, in particular the standards that comprise the Internet […]