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We’ve taken it as a sad fact that the US tends to lag behind the rest of the world in terms of broadband speeds. There’s no choice but to accept it, but it still sucks, especially when headlines keep popping up telling us how great they have it in London. A while back, we told you that Virgin Media was rolling out 1.5Gbps services, but only to small number of high-tech business. Now, a new ISP named Hyperoptic is promising to bring 1Gbps connections to the residential masses. There’s a catch, though.
Stand-alone households won’t be able to sign up for Hyperoptic’s “Hyper-sonic” 1Gbps connection – at least not yet. Only locations that contain multiple homes – such as apartments or condo complexes – can sign up for the service at the moment, as it is all based around a system of central hubs. Individual home owners inside the complex can than pony up the £50/month to tap into the hub and receive 1Gbps speeds. A “Hyper-lite” 20Mbps connection and a “Hyper-active” 100Mbps connection are also available. Virgin Media’s 100Mbps plan is the fastest alternative currently available to residential customers. However, Virgin’s service costs £35/month, while Hyperoptic’s 100Mbps offering only sets homeowners back a relatively paltry £25/month. That’s how you hit the scene with guns blazing!
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bowei006
September 15, 2011 at 12:34pm
I just love how cheap internet is in the U.K. Our government(not just Obama) needs to seriously step up it's promise of a faster internet. I am paying very very good terms already for my 18Mb/s connection @ $55 a month
Morete
September 14, 2011 at 2:22pm
Well, fast broadband speeds are nice, but when ISPs charge $100.00/mo. for 50 Mbps speed it's kind of like," what's the point?" Higher speeds mean nothing to many people when they are unaffordable.
Biceps
September 14, 2011 at 1:19pm
Any word on what kind of bandwidth caps they will be imposing on these lucky few? I could hit by 250 GB cap with Comcast lickety split at 1Gbps.
Belboz99
September 14, 2011 at 12:50pm
That type of licence agreement with the ISP makes sense for London...
In london, only the very wealthy own their own home as an independant structure. Most of the wealthy simply own or lease really nice condo's. The average Jon's and average Jenny's live in apartments or condo's.
Heck, in London they have such bad traffic that the city charges £10 ($15.77 USD) *per day* to drive in the congestion zone.
duncansil
September 14, 2011 at 10:47am
"We’ve taken it as a sad fact that the US tends to lag behind the rest of the world in terms of broadband speeds"
Lol, try Canada ... complete with ridiculous caps.
Cregan89
September 15, 2011 at 2:43pm
No kidding. The state of ISP's in Canada makes me so angry. It's such an obviously corrupt system it's insane that these companies aren't shut down. The only thing we can do is tell everybody you know to switch to TekSavvy. Eventially Rogers and Bell will be forced to compete.
win7fanboi
September 14, 2011 at 10:46am
From what I remember UK has become a police state. US is not far behind but I would rather have crappy speed with some semblance of privacy then vice verse.
