In the early days of the Internet, many connections were made via a direct copper wire connection – the same copper wire that carried your voice calls before mobile phones became ubiquitous.

If you were at home and you wanted to surf the net, you would have to plug your computer into the telephone socket thereby blocking any voice calls that might be made to you.

You would have to sacrifice one form of communication in order to take advantage of another.

Since then, the world has moved on and so has technology.

Demand for faster broadband speeds changed the way we live, work and do business.

And so, enter, The Gigabit!

In the simplest terms, 1Gbps is 1,000mMbps – which is a huge amount of data.

Traditional broadband is delivered via copper cable which has its limitations in terms of the data it can deliver.

Broadband speeds can slow depending upon how many people are accessing the broadband at any one time.

Another determining speed factor is the length of the reach of the cable.

Longer cables can mean slower speeds.

If you are a parent with children who are technologically active, then you will be familiar with cries of “why is this film buffering again?” or “this broadband is too slow for my games.”

Gigabit technology does not rely upon copper cable to be delivered.

This new generation of broadband technology uses fibre-optic cable to deliver superfast speeds. To put that into context, you can download an HD movie in seven seconds. Wouldn’t that keep the children happy for even longer?

What if you live in a rural area? It is still possible to benefit from Gigabit technology or is it just for the larger towns and cities?

Subject to certain conditions, individuals living in rural communities can also apply for vouchers which can then be added together and used towards the full cost of installing the full-fibre network.

Whether you are seeking to expand your business, enhance your existing business through greater speed and efficiency, or you need faster technology, now is the time to make enquiries about Gigabit broadband.

But there’s more to Gigabit technology than just providing superfast broadband speeds into the home.

More and more businesses are switching to Gigabit broadband and it is revolutionising communication and trading opportunities.

Over the past 20 years, telecoms companies have found new ways to make our internet connections go faster and faster.

It’s amazing to think just 20 years ago speeds of 128 kbps were considered blazingly fast. To put this in some perspective, that is roughly 10,000 times slower than a Gigabit line!

A lot of these developments were focussed on consumers rather than businesses, and to save money the existing telephone wiring was used. This meant that installation costs were kept to a minimum.

Superfast broadband is an example of this.

Using existing cabling, either your phone line or your cable line, it is the current state of the art in this type of technology. Offering speeds of up to 80 Mbps, it certainly is more than adequate for the demands of end-users, and even some businesses.

Gigabit technology though offers the prospect of more.

The price point for Gigabit technology is now becoming competitive and with government grants for the installation costs, there is no huge up-front expenditure.