The Telegraph is reporting that BT has concluded a trial run in Cornwall that offered high-speed fiber broadband to any home or business. They hope to make the technology, and speeds, available to the entire country by Spring of next year.

The current high-speed product is called “BT Infinity,” which upgraded the connection between a local telephone exchange and street telephone. The new process will upgrade the copper wiring between houses and street phones increasing the speeds.

BT makes the hefty claim that their new service has “the potential to transform the UK broadband landscape.” They will be able to offer speeds of 300Mbps to anywhere in BT’s fiber network area.

Those that want the service will have to pony up the upgrade cost for the new hardware. BT is also upscaling their existing broadband infrastructure so that those on BT Infinity will get 80Mbit/s instead of 40Mbit/s.

BT is currently upgrading its national broadband network and claims that two-thirds of the UK will have “superfast broadband” by 2014. With the help of government money, they can make that number rise to 90 percent.

The UK is investing £630 million in public money so that Britain will have “the best broadband network in Europe.”

For example, the suit alleges that both Android and Google Music infringe a patent “directed to systems and methods for accessing content in a mobile environment.” Another patent concerns “a navigation system which includes a fixed part and at least one mobile part to provide guidance information to a user,” and is allegedly infringed by Google Maps. British Telecom argues that Google has derived “substantial value from these products and services,” and that it is attempting “to recover the just compensation it is owed and to prevent Google from continuing to benefit from BT’s inventions without authorization.”

The complaint asks the court to grant a judgment against Google for infringement, and an injunction against Google preventing its “continued infringement.” The complaint also asks for damages “no less than a reasonable royalty, together with pre-judgment interest and post-judgment interest,” as well as triple damages due to the fact that Google’s infringement is “willful and deliberate.”

Thus far British Telecom has only filed suit in the US. There is no word on whether they plan to file additional suits elsewhere. Several European courts have shown a tendency to side with patent holders of late. Most notably in the Apple-Samsung battle, where German courts have issued an injunction banning the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. Apple has thus far failed to get such an injunction in the US, and a similar injunction in Australia was recently overturned.

When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson said, “We believe these claims are groundless and we will vigorously defend ourselves against them.” A request for comment from British Telecom has not yet been answered.

UPDATE: British Telecom has responded, and they have this to say: “BT’s constant investment in innovation has seen it develop a large portfolio of patents which are valuable corporate assets. This is about protecting BT’s investment in its intellectual property rights and innovation. It is a well-considered claim and we believe there is a strong case of infringement.”

[Hat Tip: FOSS Patents]

BT says the new broadband will have speeds of up to 100 Mb/s with the potential for speeds of more than 1,000 Mb/s.

The company says its broadband plan will only be rolled out if regulator Ofcom allows it to receive a good return on its investment.

"We want to work with local and regional bodies to decide where and when we should focus the deployment," said BT chief executive Ian Livingston. "Our aim is that urban and rural areas alike will benefit from our investment."

To pay for the project BT said it will suspend its share buy-back program on July 31.

BT says a fiber-based super-fast broadband will give users enough speed to run multiple bandwidth applications. The company says the new service will allow people to watch high definition movies while others are gaming or working on graphics or video projects. The service will allow users to have improved "upstream " speeds and to post videos, use hi-def video conferencing and interactive hi-def gaming.

"Broadband has boosted the UK economy and is now an essential part of our customers’ lives," said Livingston. "We now want to make a step-change in broadband provision, which will offer faster speeds than ever before. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Britain’s broadband story."
 

These three corporations are fairly huge in the UK, and Phorm indicates that its platform, the Open Internet Exchange (OIX), should lead to everyone receiving more money and fewer complaints.

"The OIX is a marketplace serving campaigns on the most productive inventory for advertisers and helping online publishers increase the value of their websites," according to a statement.  "It will also revolutionise current standards of online privacy and fully protect the identity of consumers."

We’re inclined to believe Phorm, at least on that second front, as it had Ernst & Young take a look at OIX’s privacy aspects.  Also, in another development that should boost onlookers’ confidence, FT.com, Universal McCann, and iVillage all signed up for the launch (though that last entity isn’t doing so well).

OIX’s ability to work well with Virgin Media, BT, and TalkTalk remains to be seen.  But Phorm seems to have succeeded in establishing its own united federation of ISPs, and that’s an impressive start.

Did that asterisk catch your eye?  Mine, too.  The corresponding note isn’t too damning, though; BT only states that its guaranteed results are “[s]ubject to a 12-month minimum term.”  So, on to the meat of the matter.

“BT Web Clicks’ customers get a team of experts at their disposal, ensuring that all campaigns are fully managed,” according to a press release.  “The team analyse the customer’s web site and current usage on search engines to choose the keywords that are going to generate potential customers.  In addition, professional copywriters will craft eye-catching advertisements.”

That sounds pretty reasonable, as do the service’s prices – things start at just £20 (or about $40) per month (they do range up to £1500, or about $3000, though).  Bruce Abercromby, BT’s general manager of strategy and development, believes that quite a few businesses will bite.

“BT Web Clicks helps by choosing appropriate keywords and gets traffic to your site, enabling small businesses to focus on converting enquiries into sales – and all for a fixed monthly budget,” he stated.  “We guarantee that you’ll get the results you want for the agreed price – or we’ll give you your money back for any undelivered clicks.”

Hat tip to Greg Sterling.

These statistics come courtesy of Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins, who analyzed Amazon UK’s traffic in a recent blog post.  In a broad sense, it may be useful to know that “Amazon.co.uk is the second most visited retail website after eBay UK based on UK internet visits and ranks #15 overall, just behind BBC.co.uk and ahead of YouTube,” according to Hopkins.

It seems that books have bested grainy videos, then, but Amazon’s traffic may be due to its other wares, as well.  “We’re often asked how much of Amazon’s traffic is books related and how much is electronics or other,” notes Hopkins.  “We can’t say for sure.  Because of the complexity of the site’s structure, it is near impossible to separate books from the rest.”

Yet the top term that sent visits to Amazon UK during the first part of July was “books,” and the second, “giles wareing,” is the main character of a novel.  As you might have expected, “harry potter” was also on the list (though I was surprised to see the boy wizard all the way down in seventh position, especially given an earlier report concerning Emma Watson’s popularity).

One strange thing about Hopkins’s report: somehow this may all be related to the entity formerly known as British Telecom – that’s where about 2.5 percent of people go after visiting Amazon UK.

Wikipedia calls traffic shaping “an attempt to control computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, low latency, and/or bandwidth.” 

And now that you know that, know this: a major British telecom does not favor traffic shaping.

BT Wholesale’s chief technical officer, Matt Beal, said in an interview with ZDNet UK that he found traffic shaping to be “quite Big Brother-ish.” 

Never mind this penalize-the-user stuff, he said – “It is up to us at the core of the network to make sure there is enough bandwidth for [our services and those of our competitors].”

This statement implies that BT is not trying to pass the figurative buck; equally important is the idea that it is not trying to monopolize anything, and Beal addressed that issue, as well.

“Beal said he did not care who owned the frequencies,” wrote ZDNet UK’s David Meyer. 

And while that was in reference to “the upcoming spectrum auctions,” rather than some existing technology, it’s still a good sign.

In fact, assuming that no one else from BT “clarifies” Beal’s statements within the next few days (that’s corporate-talk for denying something and/or applying damage control), net neutrality in the UK appears to have taken a relatively big step forward.

If BT would care to share its views with its American telecom relatives, we’d be much obliged.