NTL and BitTorrent debut UK's first 100Mbits broadband

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 10 Feb 2006 at 15:55

Just two years ago, broadband providers were fighting over crumbs. The competition was in providing the lowest possible bandwidth that could still be described as broadband in order to offer cut-price services.

How things have changed. Most of us broadbanders enjoy a one or two meg services, often with the expectation of ramping up to 8Mbps any time soon. ADSL2+ is now in an exchange near you, bringing speeds nearer to 20Mbps.

But it's not enough, apparently. Cable company NTL is trialling 100Mbps broadband services from March.

In a partnership with network service specialist Arris and peer-to-peer giant BitTorrent and CacheLogic, the trials will take place in Ashford, Kent in April.

Making massive bandwidths available can only mean one thing: video. And NTL has plans to offer video downloads, multiple HDTV streams and voice alongside high-speed surfing.

It's all above board too - BitTorrent and CacheLogic's role is to enable this content to zip around the network to where it's needed as efficiently as possible, without causing bottlenecks and hogging resources. All the content provided in this way will be properly licensed and protected.

Kevin Baughan, director of network strategy at NTL, said: 'The trial will be a unique combination of BitTorrent's P2P client closely coupled with CacheLogic's network based content caching and NTL's deep fibre network in order to offer a transformational video downloading experience.'

'Through this partnership, we can jointly evaluate how p2p distribution can be a highly efficient mechanism to deliver truly compelling licensed content to broadband subscribers, while satisfying the economic requirements of the content owner and the network provider,' said Andrew Parker, CTO of CacheLogic.

More information is at the ntl website.