What is broadband going to be like in 2050

I know it sound silly to post this thread. I just wondering what is our UK broadband going to be like in 2050?

Will UK get Fibre To The House finally?

Will UK get 1Gig download/1Gig upload?

Only time will tell.

Edited by adslmax (Wed 19-Feb-14 18:54:54)

That's 36 years in the future, and the pace of progress is continually accelerating.

We can therefore anticipate the change between now and 2050 will be far greater than the change to today since 1978.

How long before broadband is no longer a tradable commodity, almost on par with oxygen or sunlight?

Call me crazy, but it's basically already happened to other things, e.g. Freeview TV!

So my prediction is broadband will just 'be there'. Let's see

Most people will be stuck on copper based tech still, new housing/estates will get fibre and with BT and the tax system in its current state (rates on fibre) I cant see a lot coming - its only 30+ years and its taken this long to get a almost working VDSL service.

That's underrating the last 30 years of progress isn't it?

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I find being able to get 50+ mbps over copper cables designed purely for phone calls pretty amazing.

Oh, and would love to read this in 2050 when 50 meg is like dialup haha

Are you aware that you can get 1 Gbps at affordable prices in some locations already, and via leased lines if you pay the price you can have Gigabit almost anywhere

"If you pay the price"... You can buy anything but immortality

Am sure someone will try to sell it to you, just trying to claim on the warranty might be difficult

But Freeview has evolved into a debate about getting a 3mux or 6mux transmitter

Very good!

I reckon Virgin Media going to be the first 500/250 with no traffic management by the time in 2050 and BT FTTPoD will be struggle on 330/30.

That sounds more like 2015, not 2050 .

By 2050 people will be directly online themselves. No device will be required and human level AI will have been available for a generation. I think people are seriously underestimating the rate of change in 35+ years.

In reply to a post by smouty:

By 2050 people will be directly online themselves. No device will be required and human level AI will have been available for a generation. I think people are seriously underestimating the rate of change in 35+ years.

What you say may be true in principle, but even today there's a difference between what's possible and what's practicable- eg it's not inherently difficult to give anybody who wants one a direct fibre connection to the internet.

But it's not cheap and even if it were, when you look at replicating it up to 60-70 million times the magnitude of the problem alters.

I don't really see that aspect changing, whatever technology advances come up.

Well google are already talking about rolling out 10Gb connections to some cities within the next few years
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/14/google_will_...

And Huawei are already predicting 10Gb 5G connections by 2020 ish .....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/07/huawei_to_in...

BT already have run successful backbone tests at 1.4Tbps over a 410Km fibre cable using their existing fibre cable! so no need even to dig up and put in different fibre.......
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/23/alcatellucen...

So by 2050 .... who knows - but at 10Gb - I can't currently think of anything where you would end up needing more bandwidth in your house...

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I know it sound silly to post this thread. I just wondering what is our UK broadband going to be like in 2050?

Will UK get Fibre To The House finally?

Will UK get 1Gig download/1Gig upload?

Only time will tell.

At my prior house I went from 9600, to 19k2, to 28k2 (roughly 1997 to early 1999)
I was on 56k when I moved into my current house in 1999. (bong....bong....)
I had Homehighway for a while so that was 128kB max.
ADSL arrived in 2002 so that was a maximum of 2Mb.
ADSL max arrived in 2006 so there's 8Mb/s.
I joined Be a couple of years before 21cn so 2009 for 13Mb/s ?
FTTC arrived in 2012 and I jumped up to 67Mb/s.

Someone with more love for Excel than me could prolly knock up a graph but last time I did that it was accurate enough to predict FTTC for me 2012.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 20-Feb-14 11:41:06)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I know it sound silly to post this thread. I just wondering what is our UK broadband going to be like in 2050?

Will UK get Fibre To The House finally?

Will UK get 1Gig download/1Gig upload?

Only time will tell.

Depends how much oil is left inside the planet, if any.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I know it sound silly to post this thread. I just wondering what is our UK broadband going to be like in 2050?

Will UK get Fibre To The House finally?

Will UK get 1Gig download/1Gig upload?

Only time will tell.

It's quite impossible to predict. However, as always, it will depend where you live in the UK.

People say the rate of progress has been remarkable in a short space of time, but actually I've seen no progress in 10 years, which in itself is remarkable given the technology advances so oft-mentioned.

Any rollout programme in the past, so far, has never addressed the "final x%', so it depends if this attitude changes and whether there is going to be a nationwide replacement of legacy communication infrastructure.

Err, yes, anyone can get a gigibit connection right now if they can pay for it. In the same way that anyone could get a private road built or buy a helicopter, while waiting for the council to fill in potholes, if they have the money to do so. It depends what is considered as luxury and what its considered as essential utilities that should be made available to everyone.

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Feb-14 12:05:58)

I think for certain fixed line comms will be obsolete by 2050.
For perspective, at the current rate of growth, CPU power will exceed the human brain by 2025 so by 2050, A.I.s will be fairly common and humans will have some cybernetic enhancements.
A data feed will be essential for most people as TV/Film/Radio etc will have been replaced with a direct sensory medium.

This is for those that want or can afford it of course

Edited by smouty (Thu 20-Feb-14 13:17:17)

In reply to a post by smouty:

By 2050 people will be directly online themselves. No device will be required and human level AI will have been available for a generation. I think people are seriously underestimating the rate of change in 35+ years.

Which implies that this TB forum will no longer be needed as we will all have had every possible manual, scenario and solution posted to our personal brain-link.

Having said that, I imagine there will still be some out there with a secondary logic device located between their buttocks

haha that made me laugh

unfortunately that will still be a very high percentage of the population lol

by 2050 i think people will be more connected to the world and each other that's about it really, cant have everything because there is always someone who says its unethical or against religion in fact without religion we would probably be way more advanced now than we could be in 36yrs time

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I reckon Virgin Media going to be the first 500/250 with no traffic management by the time in 2050 and BT FTTPoD will be struggle on 330/30.

Once the fibre is to your premises you don't have to 'struggle' with 333/30, upgrades are easy thereon

In reply to a post by Ripley:

Once the fibre is to your premises you don't have to 'struggle' with 333/30, upgrades are easy thereon

Very true but I ain't paying over £1,000 installation fee plus £99 a month (BT quoted both install and monthly charge are excluding VAT)

No way cannot afford it

Prices will come down in the long run.

Maybe one day BT will just bite the bullet and change the local loop to fibre. When you think when has been spent on the ADSL. ADSL2 & FTTC rollouts it just seems crazy to me. Fibre to the premises is just a once in a lifetime upgrade and whilst it would cost a fortune to do how many more years are they going to keep ploughing millions into technologies that are outdated before they have finished installing them.

I think the prices will come down once BT had completed roll out FTTC in UK.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 20-Feb-14 16:56:16)

Yeah when you think of all the resources they have working on the FTTC rollout why not keep the ball rolling and get the teams working on fibre on demand

Which means at least post 2017, since bduk work is going to keep them busy well into 2016 and the next %'age into 2017 and maybe 2018

If take-up in native FTTP areas was higher than in similar demographic FTTC areas, then might be easier to convince a board that FTTP is worth the money.

Mr Saffron - do you know an estimated figure of replacing the entire local loop with fibre? Ive never read this anywhere but would be curious to find out.

Edited by Ripley (Thu 20-Feb-14 17:19:05)

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

That's underrating the last 30 years of progress isn't it?

A bit - but I've been involved in the industry for a number of those years and I have to say the rate of progress has been slow and certain providers have made such a meal out of it the costs and hoops to jump through are way OTT..

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I find being able to get 50+ mbps over copper cables designed purely for phone calls pretty amazing.

Over 50 feet of cable yes 50mbit is wonderful. Anyone with a longer run than that won't get anything good to speak of.

We might see BT fully populate there FTTC cabs (288 pairs) by 2050 and they may even upgrade the MSANS to 10GigE backhaul but that will *only* come if they start to offer EFM & *managed* services from the same FTTC POP's

Prices will go up, service will still be as bad with traffic management building a 2 tier internet where you either have to pay for CBR access or the content providers have to pay the ISP's to pass there traffic in a non 'shaped' way. (Love Film, YouTube etc.)

Given I was working on dark fibre years ago and we could already do 10x10 CWDM and now we can do 160+x10 DWDM we are being killed by the tax on fibre, and the prices people want to light it/POP it.

People like Gigaclear or the mob which had *some limited* sewer access in London and a few other places might stand a better chance, but how many people on here would/could afford *real* connectivity especially when you will be stuck with 1 provider.

There will be 8K HD or even 12K HD by the time in 2050. You tubes had a trial of 4K HD here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrdgDdPApQ

Edited by adslmax (Thu 20-Feb-14 18:39:54)

In reply to a post by IamQ:

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

That's underrating the last 30 years of progress isn't it?

A bit - but I've been involved in the industry for a number of those years and I have to say the rate of progress has been slow and certain providers have made such a meal out of it the costs and hoops to jump through are way OTT.

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I find being able to get 50+ mbps over copper cables designed purely for phone calls pretty amazing.

Over 50 feet of cable yes 50mbit is wonderful. Anyone with a longer run than that won't get anything good to speak of.

tbb speed test.

BT:-
Download speedachieved during the test was - 57.87 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 46.01 Mbps-57.51 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 57.51 Mbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 12.56Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps

That's at ~ 600 metres ~= 2000 feet = 40 x your 50 feet suggestion.

We might see BT fully populate there FTTC cabs (288 pairs) by 2050

We've seen several filled and additional cabinets added to them as a result, just from the tiny subset of users we get here.

I don't put much faith in your forecasting ability. May I suggest applying to the Met Office for a job, where that doesn't seem to matter .

Thank you for writing my response for me!

With regard to adding additional cabinets, I can add one more case study from the tiny subset, as work is about to begin on adding another cabinet next to the one I'm connected to, which I believe will be number 100-and-something. That's a lot of cabinets for one town!

Heh!
When on these forums, and in particular on the subject of broadband changes over the next 36 years, with me having drawn attention to the changes of internet connectivity over the last 36, we need to remember that a large number of the posters on these forums have never experienced the non-existence of mobile phones.

Never mind the advance that 300 baud audio-couplers were for connecting a teletype remotely to a mainframe. (Though that was a bit earlier still).

They have simply no idea of how much things have changed since 1978. It's possible their parents hadn't even been born then. (Not the poster in question, but he probably hadn't been).

True -- but I'm going to guess I'm a lot younger than you think I am! I mean, did people actually use dial-up? Gawd... the horror!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

When on these forums, and in particular on the subject of broadband changes over the next 36 years, with me having drawn attention to the changes of internet connectivity over the last 36, we need to remember that a large number of the posters on these forums have never experienced the non-existence of mobile phones.

Oh heck.

Never mind the advance that 300 baud audio-couplers were for connecting a teletype remotely to a mainframe. (Though that was a bit earlier still).
They have simply no idea of how much things have changed since 1978. It's possible their parents hadn't even been born then. (Not the poster in question, but he probably hadn't been).

LOL. I'm old enough to remember Prestel at 1200/75 and my father having a 300/300 baud acoustic coupler connection to the office occasionally. But I really got into comms around when my family bought an Amstrad portable (PPC512) with built in modem which did 2400bps! Then things started moving when I got to uni and parents got a Compuserve account, and a new computer/modem at 9600 then 14,400, then 28.8kbps. After that the floodgates opened, 56k was brilliant, until I rented a flat and had NTL cable modem trials. 512kbps

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

I mean, did people actually use dial-up? Gawd... the horror!

My first modem was a Hayes 1200 baud with a high-speed option: 2400 baud!

(I've still got it upstairs� no idea why, I couldn't use it if I wanted to, none of my computers have got an RS232C serial port )

No idea what that means...

"Smile and wave, boys. Smile and waaaave."

20 to 30 billion pound is an old BSG estimate, with FTTC running at 5 billion for same national coverage

In reply to a post by smouty:

By 2050 people will be directly online themselves. No device will be required and human level AI will have been available for a generation. I think people are seriously underestimating the rate of change in 35+ years.

I hope not, that is one thing we don't need. i will be a old man then if I am still alive.

Ah, but! Dialup with computer >> modem >> phone socket was good. The number to dial was stored in your connection settings on the computer like your broadband username and password go in your router.

But acoustic couplers were computer >> coupler which sits next to the phone. You picked up the phone and dial the other end's modem number, and when you get the whistles and bumps of it trying to connect to your brain, you put the (corded as that's all there were) handset into the coupler's microphone and speaker cups.

I've never seen one as posh as this one. I just watched the video right through - he loads a (text-only layout) wiki page!

This sort of thing was more typical.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I hope not, that is one thing we don't need. i will be a old man then if I am still alive.

"then"?

The scary thing is one day a photo of a standard FTTC install taken today will look as archaic as one of these modems!!!

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

True -- but I'm going to guess I'm a lot younger than you think I am! I mean, did people actually use dial-up? Gawd... the horror!

Yep, my first modem was a supra 28k, not used for the internet but for a BBS (bulletin board system) using my Amiga. i had to phone a computer in Scotland to send fidomail, and at night that computer phoned another, and the other phoned another one and so on. It took a day for my fidomail to reach it's destination

Then I updated to a 56K one, still a supra. so much better. I did try the internet, but it was not for me at the time, I went with Demon. i also got myself a Amiga 4000 second hand and that had a US robotics courier with it, 56K again, but a better modem in that it was approved for use in the UK.


it was only when I got my first windows based computer in 1996 with windows 95 that i started to bother more with the internet, went with back to Demon, paid a subscription and per minute price for the phone call, update, eventually in 1998 I went with Freeserve, owned by currys, but it was the first ISp that you did not have to pay a monthly subscription, just phone calls. Orange grabbed it eventually and it became Wanadoo. then over the years I went to different providers on dial up, world online being the best, but eventually ended up at BT at around 1999.

Around the middle of 2000, they sent me a email giving me free connection to what was then 512Kb/s broadband, as i had a lodger here at the time and we shard the network, it would be silly not to take up the offer. It still cost £40 a month mind you.

and the rest is history, broadband have got faster, so have computers, even my phone is faster than my first windows based PC.

I do know two households that still use dial up, one got little choice, and the other choose to use dial up. I got them a load of modems last year from ebay, so they have got a few to last them now.

I do miss the modem sound I must admit.

I used to have old dial up 56k with breathe, supanet, bt etc. That's time the internet was fast but take ages to downloading (took 20 hours) to download one software 700MB.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I do miss the modem sound I must admit.

I was thinking that a few days ago for some reason� you could immediately tell if there was a problem with the connection, or if the far end uprated their modems.

I can still remember the way my head went up when Compuserve replaced their 19.2k modems with 56k ones� I had a USR Courier at the time, and it picked up the higher speed immediately

I use to carry this with me 24/7
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/BT-EasyReach-Philips-Pager-/0...

http://www.unimobiles.com/savvyu.jpg

Edited by adslmax (Thu 20-Feb-14 23:34:15)

I remember those� a colleague at work had to carry one. Very reluctantly- as far as he was concerned if he wasn't in the office he wasn't at work.

For some reason the batteries kept going flat and nobody could reach him

Very odd ADSL router in abroad http://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3185914500_1325866980.jpg

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I use to carry this with me 24/7
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/BT-EasyReach-Philips-Pager-/0...

http://www.unimobiles.com/savvyu.jpg

I still carry & very much use one though via PageOne...

And why is it odd?

I did think about working for the Met office if only to get my hands on the super computer muhahahah...

The point I was making is that a bit of copper or ally cable is only ever so good for so much, lets not even get started with X-Talk and the like - you get a good speed (for now) but do keep in mind the BT USO is **ONLY** for a 28.8kbit connection over voice frequencies and *if* anything has ever been put in place for xDSL its only 160kbit. If your line goes south then you know 1st hand the problems you & others can have in getting it resolved or back up to 'the speed you used to have'

Take a look at the FTTC customers who have lost chunks of speed as the cab loads go up.

So maybe by 2050 the USO would have changed so that people can get a realistic speed (though not saying everyone will be on 100mbit connections)

I note that no one made comment about the more serious issue in my post, that of optical connectivity & backhaul. You can have whatever tech you like for the customer connection, but unless providers are willing to 'play fair on a level playing field' we are doomed.

No one picked up on my comments about a 2 tier internet even thought there has been limited media coverage and I'm sure a test case in the USA.

Looks like a Netgear to me.

**If** that was an engineer install then it should be used as an example to BT and Virgin!

In reply to a post by Brookzy:

True -- but I'm going to guess I'm a lot younger than you think I am! I mean, did people actually use dial-up? Gawd... the horror!

We used it & I used to run customer networks with racks of US Robotics & Ascend modem's all connecting to primary rate ISDN's (30 channels per span) If I recall the USR boxes did something like 120/240 connections per 3 or 4U box.

Dial was great - so simple so little to go wrong, nothing much for the EU to worry about.

Its also worth pointing out that we used to have BaseBand as well - in fact some ISP's back in the day would provide free baseband (4-wire) access to there staff from home.

We also had HomeHighway which was just a re-branded ISDN2 connection.

I have to say its been fun working in the Telecom & Data industry seing the evolution of KiloStream through to where we are today. (And I'm not as old as some might think)

In reply to a post by billford:

(I've still got it upstairs� no idea why, I couldn't use it if I wanted to, none of my computers have got an RS232C serial port )

I'm told these work well on Mac, our network guru uses a MBP, and uses one of these daily.
http://uk.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Serial-Cards-A...

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I've never seen one as posh as this one. I just watched the video right through - he loads a (text-only layout) wiki page!

I think that's Procomm Plus the software he's using on the laptop, and the text mode browser lynxis very popular on systems with no GUI (a lot of Linux and Unix powered servers don't run GUI's).

In reply to a post by IamQ:

We also had HomeHighway which was just a re-branded ISDN2 connection.

I've got a client still using ISDN30 and ISDN2 circuits, and my parents had HomeHighway - it was slightly cheaper than ISDN2 and had a wall mounted TA essentially.

(TA= Terminal Adaptor for those who haven't worked with ISDN)

I've still got lots of ISDN lines at work including old DPNSS links, along with some very old RLSC & ANUK lines

In reply to a post by IamQ:

I've still got lots of ISDN lines at work including old DPNSS links, along with some very old RLSC & ANUK lines

I recall DPNSS is voice related, don't know the others, but I understand ISDN30 and ISDN2 are very active for voice trunks, but a lot less likely to be used for IT data links.

ISDN2e (Home Highway in my office) was brilliant for coms links in pre-broadband days. It allowed phone and data on a single line, and the modem connection was almost instantaneous.

I used dial-up. used to pay NTL £10 a month for access on an 0800 number.

My employer at the time was thinking of recruiting teleworkers so I managed to get in on the trial so had ISDN 30e installed and then discovered that the NTL 0800 number worked with ISDN so had a nice 128Kbps connection. without running up my employers bill and didn't have my phone line tied up anymore.

Later my employer trialled teleworking using ADSL as the cost savings were quite large so got onto that trial as well and could drop my NTL dialup access and never paid for internet access again until I was made redundant in 2002.

Ooh - what a question.

I reckon the future will look different from the past. I've never before, in 30 years, had a data connection that I couldn't easily saturate in both directions. Now, on 80/20, I have a surplus available.

In the past, I'd have one main computer wired to the outside world. Now the family has umpteen devices, used indoors & outdoors, and the wireless connection tends to be the limiting factor. Yet the wireless side is what makes things easy to use.

The past has been a headlong progression of speed improvements, but I'm not so sure it needs to be in the future. My need will go up, certainly, but I think the future is about integrating wired and wireless better.

Those umpteen devices don't all need to connect to the internet down one pipe, so we could end up with multiple diverse connections rather than one gigabit route. The Germans are going for a hybrid 4G/vectored-VDSL solution, and I wonder if that pre-sages the future kind of connectivity we'll all see.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

... and I wonder if that pre-sages the future kind of connectivity we'll all see.

Only a sage would know.

What about the earlier 110 Baud - and Prestel(?), 1275/30 or such-like!

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

What about the earlier 110 Baud - and Prestel(?), 1275/30 or such-like!

Prestel (and Micronet 800, a sub group) used viewdata, 1200 baud to the user, and 75 baud from the user.
Similar concept to home broadband today, we send less than we receive.

I had a Prism VTX5000 modem attached to a Sinclair Spectrum to access Prestel years ago

They also work on PCs.

I have just replaced a VISTA PC with a WINDOWS 8.1 and was worried about the connection of our WeatherLink Meteorological Station, which we did have to resort to that DB9-USB Converter back in 2009.

No problems, connected immediately, when I had the software installed in the right directory.

Thanks for the Prestel correction. Remember some of the famous "hacks"?

---------------

Then there was the audio recordings from radio etc of programs for the BBC micro, the edge-printings in newspapers etc!

QuFi seems to be the answer to this question. Quantum Field Theory allows for the same electron to be in two places at the same time in the same state. Your QuFi enabled device will be hooked to a nearby QuTTC box (this needs to be anywhere in the universe, so this should be okay for Rural Broadband too). Data is passed by changing the position of the electrons in the QuFFC which are also changed in your QuFI enabled device (which will probably include your brain). Unlimited bandwith, great for gaming - no latency at all, if GCHQ/NSA tries to snoop schrodinger's cat will claw their eyes out and best bit is that BT and VM will go horribly bankrupt.

We'd better start getting friendly with The Mekon.