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iPhone brings 3G network close to collapse

OVERLOAD - 3G network is stretched
OVERLOAD - 3G network is stretched
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By Sophy Ridge, 29/11/2009

AN astonishing surge in smartphone users watching TV and YouTube on their mobiles is helping drive Britain's creaking internet to the brink of COLLAPSE.

The iPhone-led revolution has snarled up 3G broadband and crashed networks across the country, we can reveal.

Mobile provider O2 - which had exclusive rights to the iPhone until recently - has had to spend £½ BILLION to cope with web usage 18 TIMES higher than it was last year.

Vodafone has suffered blackouts and other networks are also struggling to keep pace as users complain about snail-like download times.

O2 technology chief Derek McManus explained: "Watching a YouTube video on a smartphone can use the same capacity on the network as sending 500,000 text messages simultaneously.

"In the past 12 months the mobile industry has seen an unprecedented change in demand."

Streaming video downloads have also dramatically increased on home computers - and IT giant Cisco warns that by 2013, video will account for 90 PER CENT of all consumer web traffic.

Internet service providers believe by then that sites like the BBC's iPlayer will simply grind to a halt unless Britain's creaking broadband network is upgraded, with old copper wiring replaced by fibre optics.

Research shows Britain is not ready for tomorrow's technology. Cisco claims it is 31st out of 66 countries - including Taiwan and Latvia - when it comes to speed.

Charlie Ponsonby, chief of broadband comparison company Simplifydigital.co.uk, said: "There is a clear pattern emerging, with Scandinavia, eastern Europe and the Asian tiger economies having far better developed broadband infrastructures."

Britain's average download speed is 4.75 megabits per second - but this will need to rise to 11.25 to cope with high definition video downloads from sites like iTunes.

But the growing popularity of watching live TV online through the likes of iPlayer and YouTube is the biggest headache for networks now.

Watching 30 minutes of streaming video is equivalent to sending 78,000 emails.

Rob Barnes, head of broadband at moneysupermarket.com, said: "The BBC thinks it's improving its services by broadcasting live on the internet.

"But licence fee payers will ultimately lose out because it's just going to add more pressure to what is already a creaky network."

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This article has 5 comments

I bought an O2 Dongle in march, and I got excellent 3G signal, now I cant get it all, just GPRS, no point even using it now, fell completly ripped off

By mark cook.. Posted November 30 2009 at 9:01 PM.

Dave: I'm sure everyone would have been overjoyed if o2 charged them for web on their iPhone.. Let's say they didn't offer unlimited web with the bundle, but as with other tariffs had it as £1 per day if used.. That's still a minimum of £30 per month. Say it's the £10 per month Web & Wifi you choose instead.. Fine in theory, the network may still buckle, but think of the uproar. NOTW would then report that as "Greedy o2 charges a massive £10 for Internet on their exclusive phone!!!".

Fair enough, Orange may have their 750mb fair usage, but I go through that in about 2-3 weeks.. It'll happen to them too, and Vodaphone in January.. All the networks need to pull their fingers out and make it blanket HSDPA throughout the UK, not just London, sorry, major cities.

By Stu.. Posted November 29 2009 at 10:21 AM.

Broadband speed throttling is a big issue here too. How can companies like BT get away with reducing customer speeds to little over 1 meg speed at peak times. Sometimes it's impossible to watch streaming video during the evening, let alone if you have more than one person in your household who wants to use the internet. It's disgraceful. Other providers use BT's own network and do not throttle at all!! How can they explain that??

I know, let's blame the BBC, not to mention channel 4, five. Pretty much everyone is streaming online these days.

By dav.. Posted November 29 2009 at 9:26 AM.

I agree, I am a student doing a dissertation web based uasage and its certainly one of the key areas I am focusing on.
Technology is always changing, and at the moment the focus is on downloadable and streamed content. Consumers dont think about what happens behind the scenes, they just want the information available.
Companies should consider this more often and invest more in these areas.

By Lee.. Posted November 29 2009 at 8:03 AM.

o2 should have thought about this before they offered unlimited Internet on the iPhone deals...if your going to sell a phone with YouTube as an app what do you expect

By Dave.. Posted November 29 2009 at 1:30 AM.

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