Orange begins rollout of Bright Box routers to home broadband customers
Posted by Jeremy in Latest Broadband News on January 26, 2012
New customers of Orange’s home broadband services will be receiving wireless routers supplied by technology company Bright Box from today Wednesday 25 January 2012. The routers are designed to boost signal strength and connection speed and Orange will be supplying them to home broadband customers free of charge.
Normally costing £95, the Bright Box routers will give customers a wireless signal that will have a range of 250 metres as soon as it is set up. Boasting two antennas and Bright Box’s ‘N’ technology that helps lessen the effect of interference from other electrical appliances. To ensure the connection is secure, the routers, which are roughly the size of a paperback novel, feature WPA2 encryption technologies and a selection of SSID network IDs, each with a different password.
With an abundance of electrical appliances in homes these days, wireless broadband signal can sometimes get lost amongst digital television and mobile phone signals. The technology Birght Box provides ensures that the wireless signal is consistant and strong enough for multiple machines to connect to it and run online tasks simultaneously by moving the broadband signal to an available fequency that is the least affected by interference.
Sylvain Thevenot, director of marketing and propositions for Orange Broadband said: “We’re constantly looking to evolve our home broadband offering to ensure our customers enjoy the best possible experience across multiple devices in the home – including smart phones using Wi-Fi. With this in mind, we’re pleased to be introducing the Bright Box, our most powerful wireless router to date – providing yet another reason why with Orange, you really do get the best value home broadband in the market.”
Windows 8 to feature simple mobile broadband connection
Posted by Jeremy in Latest Broadband News on January 24, 2012
In a post on its ‘Building Windows 8′ blog, computer powerhouse Microsoft has released details of how Windows 8 will offer improved wireless broadband connectivity. Devices and networking team program manager Billy Anders wrote about how the company has been improving mobile broadband connectivity management to provide users with comprehensive access to wireless broadband.
Anders wrote: “We looked at the fundamentals of wireless connectivity and re-engineered Windows 8 for a mobile and wireless future, going beyond incremental improvements.”
The company included mobile broadband connectivity functions in Windows 7 but third-party software and drivers for USB broadband devices made connecting a chore. To solve this, Microsoft worked with mobile broadband hardware producers to develop a driver that is compatible with all mobile broadband devices, allowing the company to integrate mobile broadband alongside the more commonplace Wi-Fi. With connectivity to both Wi-Fi and mobile broadband available, Windows 8 customers will be in the enviable position of having almost unlimited broadband access available to them.
Ander also said: “We knew that if we were to give you true mobility, that Wi-Fi alone would not be enough. Therefore, for Windows 8, we fully developed and integrated mobile broadband (MB) as a first-class connectivity experience within Windows – right alongside Wi-Fi,”
A major improvement will be in the managing of mobile broadband connections. Users will be able to easily monitor their data usage, which in turn will help to keep costs down as users will be able to see when they are at risk of exceeding their data allowance.
Windows 8 Task Manager will also allow users to see how much of their mobile data allowance each open application has used. This will help users learn which programs use the most of their data allowance, which will also help user to keep the cost of browsing and downloading as low as possible.
South Yorkshire broadband scheme investigated after £9m losses
Posted by Jeremy in Latest Broadband News on January 22, 2012
A fibre optic broadband scheme in South Yorkshire has come under investigation following an announcement that it had recorded losses amounting to £9 million within its first year of being operational. Launched in 2010, the project is tasked with making super-fast fibre broadband coverage available to the whole of South Yorkshire and has so far built a fibre optic network totalling more than 350 miles across South Yorkshire.
The project was launched independently of the fibre broadband rollout schemes that BT and Virgin Media are currently undertaking, with investors hoping to offer to sell use of the network to internet service providers (ISPs) at wholesale price. However, reports are suggesting that the scheme has attracted little interest from the targeted ISPs, leading to the announcement of £9 million losses over the last year.
Funding for the scheme was provided by Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster town councils and Sheffield City Council, with agencies such as the European Regional Development Fund and Yorkshire Forward also contributing to the £92 million bill. Despite this impressive budget, according to figures filed with Companies House the scheme has so far only brought in £167,000 worth of revenue.
The BBC reports that Rotherham Council is leading the investigation into why the project has failed to entice more custom on behalf of the other authorities involved. Concerns were first raised by a scrutiny panel working for Barnsley Council in September 2011 who noted that the rollout of the new network had taken more time than had been expected.
Leader of Barnsley Council Steve Houghton said the scheme had not “been as effective as we hoped”. He also added that the investigation was being carried out to: “see what the pressures and issues are and to see if we can make sure we deliver the outcomes we are looking for”.
A report is expected from Rotherham Council in the next six weeks.