2006 full of broadband promise

In the Chinese calendar the symbol changes every year. 2006 will be the year of the dog but in the world of technology, broadband has remained top dog for the last five years.

The trajectory for broadband has been on a sharp upward curve during that time.

Next year looks like continuing this trend, with more people turning to broadband, even more increases to the speeds available to people and a wider variety of broadband-enabled services.

Speed alone will not be enough and the key things will be to develop the services that broadband allows, say analysts.

Jupiter analyst Ian Fogg predicted it will be a year of conflict in the two key areas of broadband development - TV and telephony.

"They will be the battlegrounds for 2006 as tensions rise between what internet service providers and third party organisations will offer," he said.



Technology on tap

There has been concern about a second wave of the digital divide, with those in remoter areas stuck with slower speeds, and this is one issue that will be need to be closely watched as speed springs up in more urban areas.

The limitations of super-fast broadband were highlighted in a report in November by analyst firm Point Topic which cast doubt on how much the technology could offer.

Even for those living in areas enabled by the technology, the performance of ADSL2+ is related to how far people live from their local telephone exchange and what quality their telephone line is.

Point Topic calculated that as few as 5% of the UK population would actually get speeds above 18Mbps.

The lesson for consumers in 2006 appears to be not to believe all the hype that is bound to surround so-called superfast services.

Lines should be tested before they buy into any new service to check what speed they can support.

Despite this, 2006 should prove yet another definitive year for broadband.

Consumer's appetite for the technology shows no signs of abating. According to research firm Datamonitor, demand for high-speed services will not slow down until the following year, by which time around 60% of households will have the technology on tap.