The roll-out of fibre-based broadband will be essential
for the UK to run the next generation of web applications, the
founder ofSecond Lifesaid today.
Philip Rosedale, creator of the virtual world Second Life, said
there was a very real danger that the take up of next-generation
web applications by businesses and consumers could be stunted for
want of fast fibre-based broadband.
He said the maturity of applications such as YouTube and Second
Life that people run on the web today is down to the increase in
internet speeds since the late 90s.
Rosedale said that there will be a need for a faster broadband
as more multimedia-rich internet applications become available.
At the beginning of this month, Ed Richards, CEO of Ofcom,
announced that the telecoms regulator would study the
practicalities of rolling out fibre-based broadband and said that
current broadband may be insufficient to support the future needs
of businesses.
"[Current broadband] is fine today for many uses, but perhaps
less so in future with the growth of home working, peer-to-peer
traffic and the needs of small and medium-sized businesses," said
Richards.
Richards said the growth in usage of services such as the
iPlayer was bringing more users into contact with their ISP's
policies on restricting bandwidth usage.
"In the longer term, it may be that some consumers will be
willing to pay a premium for higher download limits and higher
speeds," he said.
