Virgin is trialling 200Mbit/s broadband here in the UK. That sort of speed is amongst the highest in the world, but falls short of Japan’s eye watering 1 Gbit/s capabilities started in 2005.The additional speed is down to a technology called Docsis 3 which makes better use of the fiber connections which Virgin currently use. There’s a problem however, most websites connect to their data centres at speeds of less than 100 Mbit/s so having a 200 Mbit/s connection might seem a bit pointless.
It might seem pointless but in terms of future-proofing the digital infrastructure of the United Kingdom it’s important to overshoot our current needs significantly so we can kick back and not worry about it for a few years. Just six years ago people were dropping their pants at the idea of a 1Mbit/s connection for home use, it was marketed as “super fast broadband” and people paid top dollar for the privilege. Being lukewarm to the idea of a 200Mbit/s connection on the grounds of it being “needlessly fast” isn’t the best angle from which to consider this development, in ten years time we’ll be moaning it’s too slow.
The standard connection in Japan and South Korea has been 100Mbit/s for as long as we’ve been quivering in our knickers over our less than savoury broadband speeds so I for one am glad that Virgin are putting in the resources to drag the UK kicking and screaming into the future.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8036086.stm
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