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Murdoch-owned BSkyB is apparently carrying out secret tests in east London that could potentially allow it to increase its average broadband speed and stand a better chance of challenging Virgin Media, O2 and BT.

According to The Mail on Sunday, the tests involve bypassing phone exchanges and connecting the fiber optic cables straight to the green kerbside street boxes.

By doing so, BSkyB hopes to increase its broadband speed dramatically and a much faster turnaround while at the same time minimising the cost of upgrading the cables.

This in effect, puts a virtual telephone exchange on every street, hence the massive speed bump.

Sky is expecting to achieve speeds of up to 50Mbps, which is on par with what Virginmedia is expecting to introduce later this year.

Although the company's top advertised speed is 16Mbps, end users never experience anywhere near this.

Furthermore, Sky's own 8Mbps broadband package, only managed to reach a puny 3.59Mbps in a recent survey, far behind Telefonica-owned O2.


Source: itproportal

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