The Info Fleamarket

The technology strategy board (TSB) is providing £1m for research on a 10GB broadband network, which it says, could be made available to the whole of the European Union. BT had recently come up with a plan to provide a 40Mb broadband connection to 40 percent of the UK population by the end of 2012, and TSB’s announcement has made BT look highly conservative in its vision.

TSB, which is sponsored by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, recently decided who it wanted to allocate funds between £30,000 and £100,000 to, and as a result, several network researchers have been brought on board to work on the plan.

The question that needs to be answered, as was highlighted by Mike Biddle who is the lead technologist at TSB, is how to address the technical issues that are bound to crop up in this ambitious plan, which could require installation of a massive optical network across the EU involving all the broad band providers.

Biddle said that now TSB has to work out how to collaborate with other European countries to develop the technology to the fullest.

The Broadband Stakeholder Group had recently conducted a study and predicted the amount of money that would be required to set up optical cables across the UK, which would be able to carry broadband speeds of 10GB. The cost worked out to a whopping £29 billion, and the hope would be that new research could provide a more attractive alternative.

TSB is quite determined to go ahead with the venture and is of the opinion that once such a network is functional, it would give a tremendous boost to the European businesses.