BT and Virgin Media might offer some of the fastest broadband speeds in the UK but they are about to face stiff competition from Vodafone. The UK mobile network has just announced an extension to its blisteringly quick Gigafast Broadband which can pump the web into homes at speeds of up to 900Mbps.
That’s around the same rate as BT’s Fibre 1000 and slightly slower than Virgin’s Gig1 service which boasts speeds of over 1,000Mbps.
Vodafone says that this new upgrade is being rolled out in Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool, meaning Gigabit speed broadband is now available in 15 towns and cities and is set to become available in three million homes and businesses across the UK over the next year.
Unlike most home broadband services based on old telephone lines, Vodafone is boasting that its full-fibre broadband uses all optical-fibre cables at every stage of the connection. This should give users a more reliable connection and offer download speeds which can reach a maximum of 900Mbps – that’s 14 times faster than the average fixed broadband service in the UK and means a full HD movie can be downloaded in under a minute.
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Speaking about the update, Nick Jeffery, CEO, Vodafone UK said, “Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool now have some of the fastest mobile and broadband speeds in the UK. Great news for consumers with the latest 5G devices but also for each city’s future Vodafone Gigafast Broadband and Vodafone 5G will form crucial foundations for the cities’ continued economic growth. Gigafast cities are the cities that will proudly play their part in shaping the future of the UK.”
Although Vodafone’s news may sound impressive, even bigger and better things could be on the horizon.
A new technology being tested by engineers at University College London (UCL) could push broadband speeds to a whole new level.
In fact, the team at UCL has just recorded the world’s fastest ever internet speed which is capable of beaming 222 Ultra HD films to your living room every second or the entire library of content on Netflix downloaded in the time it takes you to blink.
The transmission rate of a ludicrously quick 178 terabits a second was achieved by transmitting data through a much wider range of colours of light, or wavelengths, than is typically used in standard optical fibre.
Not only does this make things faster but there’s also another benefit of the technique as it can be deployed on already existing infrastructure.
