Manx Telecom has given advance notice of a major new premium home broadband service which will offer speeds up to three times faster than those currently available on the Island. 1 October 2011 will see the new Very High Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) service, providing download speeds of up to 40Mbit/s and upload speeds of up to 2Mbit/s. Similar to current broadband, the new service is ‘line length dependent’ and will be available on all lines up to 2km from the VDSL equipment. “With our investment in fibre-optic technology through-out our Next Generation Network, we estimate that over 50% of Island premises will be able to benefit from the new service when it’s launched in October, putting the Isle of Man at the forefront of superfast broadband coverage. This not only involves fitting VDSL technology in our 12 exchanges around the Island, but also includes installation of remote VDSL equipment in many residential areas, effectively bringing ‘the exchange’ closer to the customer, ” said Mike Loundes, Chief Technology Officer at Manx Telecom. “The new VDSL technology really does offer significant improvements in broadband speed and through-put,” continued Mike, “with benefits in two distinct areas. Firstly, the increasing popularity of video on demand and online gaming require seamless and ever faster data connections. Secondly, more users within a single household want access at the same time to these applications from multiple devices such as Smartphones, iPads, games consoles, laptops and Internet-enabled TVs. VDSL enables a great online experience to be maintained when multiple people are using a single broadband connection. For those home broadband users who opt for the new VDSL premium service, the move could be as significant as the migration from an old dial-up modem to broadband, and we expect demand to be high.” Currently, the Isle of Man experiences broadband speeds which are, on average, higher than those available in the UK, and Manx Telecom claims that the forthcoming introduction of VDSL means Internet users on the Island will remain at the forefront of superfast broadband availability. Specific details of the new VDSL service are expected from Manx Telecom and participating ISPs nearer to launch in October. - Ends -