The Ford motor company has produced a new and unique system for its range of future vehicles which integrates mobile broadband to create a broadband connection for drivers wherever they roam.

The SYNC system is one of the most advanced communications systems as yet to be installed in a car, capable of using a 3G mobile broadband receiver to connect the vehicle to the internet. In addition the SYNC system will broadcast a Wi-Fi signal, producing a wireless hotspot on wheels.

Obvious applications of mobile broadband whilst driving include the ability to receive live traffic updates, as well as accessing entertainment functions including music and video streaming to keep the driver informed and the kids happy.

The mobile broadband connection will also allow the driver to make voice calls without needing a mobile phone with them and when stationary they should also be able to browse the internet, check emails and even instant message.

The SYNC system has avoided the one major pitfall which it could have faced by allowing users to plug in their own mobile broadband dongles to get connected, rather than tethering them to a single provider with an expensive built-in connection.

Ford President Mark Fields spoke of the conveniences that the SYNC system would offer. He gave the example of a family driving to a grandparents house, with one parent at the wheel whilst the other shopped online for the groceries and the kids were kept busy by talking to their pals online.

The SYNC system will be made available to customers in the US purchasing new vehicles some time in 2010, although news of its migration to the UK is not yet forthcoming.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard added “this is a very interesting development from Ford and once SYNC is available in the UK, we should expect that a Vodafone mobile broadband USB dongle could be used to get online whilst on the road.”

BT has recently announced some fairly significant developments which will please shareholders in the firm as well as business and home broadband customers around the country.

The first piece of news highlights the fact that BT has just passed the five million customer mark for its broadband service. It sent the lucky 5 millionth customer, a chip shop worker from Glasgow, to see the Winter Olympics to mark the milestone which assures BT’s place as the UK largest fixed line broadband provider.

The second exciting development came when BT announced that it was currently ahead of schedule for the roll out of the latest fibre optic broadband technology. The intention now is to make fibre optic broadband available to 10 million customers around the UK in time for the 2012 Olympics and so far the £1.5 billion project is moving along swiftly.

In the last two years BT revealed that it has gained the custom of over one million new business and home broadband users and a spokesperson for the company said that the growth in the number of business customers signing up for broadband was set to continue as higher speeds become available across a wider area.

BT said that with the current work rate it would be able to connect 4 million customers to the internet using the new fibre optic network by the end of 2010 and the pressures of being official communications partner and sponsor of the 2012 Olympics are clearly helping BT to stay on task and stick to its promises.

BT CEO Ian Livingstone said that they expected to gain support from the government in order to ensure that businesses could have access to high speed broadband connections in time for 2012.

It is clear that by the end of next year people looking to compare business broadband packages will be faced with a much wider selection of high speed connections than those that are currently available.

A new survey from mobile telephone and broadband provider Orange has predicted a shift in the population densities within the UK as a result of broadband availability in the future.

The report asked many people how they would respond to the universal availability of broadband and whether they would consider moving further afield if they were guaranteed a high speed broadband connection.

A majority of the respondents believed that universal broadband availability, provided predominantly via mobile broadband networks in the most rural regions, would indeed encourage them to up sticks and leave their current locations.

The availability of mobile broadband in Scotland and the South West of England would attract many new residents to these areas according to the report. Conversely a small exodus from the Midlands and the North East is anticipated by the results.

The main attraction of high speed broadband connectivity in areas currently underrepresented by the technology is the opportunities for remote working it affords. A mobile broadband connection that was fast enough to enable someone to work from home with equal effectiveness to that achieved by working in an office could completely change the face of the UK’s largest cities.

Orange’s Robert Ainger commented that the survey anticipates this population shift and forecasts a revolution in the way that people work. The survey data has been used to produce an interactive map which is available to the public online. Visitors are able to select an area to which they might consider moving and find detailed information as to how broadband availability is likely to change there over the coming years.

The news not only suggests that some of the cheapest mobile broadband in UK rural areas could soon become available, but that the potential savings for businesses as a result of the change in working patterns could be in the tens of billions of pounds.

A small village in Wiltshire is playing host to a brand new super-fast wireless broadband trial as part of an exercise by Virgin Media to examine how feasible rural wireless broadband connections are for home users.

Chapel Plaister, near Corsham, has been chosen for the trial which will see Virgin Media team up with telecommunications company Vtesse Networks in order to offer high speed connections to properties within the isolated hamlet.

The trial will lead into a wider set of tests in which the next generation of broadband technologies are being provided to various customers around the country as the deadline for universal broadband availability draws closer.

Vtesse and Virgin Media hope that they will be able to offer customers connections that far exceed the 2Mbps minimum as laid out in the Government’s Digital Britain bill.

The trial in Chapel Plaister will begin in early 2010 and is complemented by a number of other trials taking place in Cornwall in which cheap cable broadband using fibre optic technology is being made available.

Vtesse CEO Aidan Paul commented that the new home broadband technologies being tested by his firm would ideally provide high speed broadband to those living in areas currently bereft of broadband availability.

Mr. Paul made it clear that he is not confident that the 2Mbps target will be reached in rural areas, with land line connections for home users either too expensive or limited by line length. Wireless broadband and the possibility of cheap cable broadband for residents in these areas could be the ideal solutions if industry backing and commercial success are assured, according to Mr. Paul.

Industry regulator Ofcom has revealed figures which show that the price of broadband in the UK is considerably lower than in the majority of other nations around the world.

The recent report analysed figures from various developed nations including Germany and Italy, identifying that the cost of most digital TV, home phone, broadband and mobile services is lower in the UK than anywhere else.

The figures concluded that a family of four in the UK could pay as little as £108 for mobile phones, broadband, home phone and TV packages to cover the entire household. This includes an 8Mbps broadband connection and mobile phones for every member of the family.

Deals covering all of these services in a bundle, which is usually the cheapest way in which families can pay for them, would cost customers in Italy 28 per cent more. In terms of value, Italy is the UK’s closest rival, although the gap in average prices is significant.

Ofcom’s CEO Ed Richards indicated that the low price of broadband in the UK was due to a highly competitive market. With BT broadband deals and bundles competing with comparable packages from Virgin Media and Tiscali, prices are likely to stay low and continue to fall in the UK over the coming months.

Mr Richards also cited innovation within the UK broadband industry as key to its continued success and the wide availability of digital services despite recent criticism of government plans for the future.

In other research from Ofcom, it was discovered that over 35 per cent of all UK households take advantage of BT broadband deals or similar in order to receive additional services including home phone and digital TV from a single provider.

Schools around the UK are being encouraged to introduce pupils to the extensive educational and informative power of the internet and mobile broadband is being proposed as one of the key technologies to provide the youngest members of society with suitable access.

In particular one school in Cheshire is focusing on mobile broadband for their students after seeking the aid of the e-Learning Foundation. The Alderman Bolton Primary School is now hoping to receive support from T-Mobile in order to provide the kids with a fast and flexible broadband connection that they can use at home as well as in school.

A senior member of staff said that the pupils had been given instructions on the basic principles and operation of mobile broadband technology. They had then been able to demonstrate the benefits to their parents and many families have now invested in mobile broadband as a result.

Broadband access in the home and at schools has become a very important part of everyday life according to a spokesperson for the e-Learning Foundation. The positive elements of mobile broadband, with its applications as a practical, educational facilitator for communication and socialising amongst youngsters are seen to be increasingly important by teachers, parents and government officials.

There might be some who would consider these seemingly benevolent acts by the big networks as little more than marketing campaigns to hook children who will the use pester power to get their parents to invest in mobile broadband. However, it might be useful to teach children and parents alike the best way in which to compare wireless broadband prices whilst they are learning the ropes using mobile broadband technology, as this will ensure that everyone is getting the most out of the technology.

LTE has been trialled by O2 at its Slough-based UK headquarters. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and refers to the planned next generation of mobile broadband technology that will hopefully be available to UK customers over the next couple of years.

On paper the trials sound very exciting indeed. O2 has partnered with Huawei, the firm that produces the majority of the mobile broadband dongles currently used by mobile broadband customers and it claims that the successful tests of LTE in Slough provided download speeds of up to 150Mbps.

Obviously this sounds to be very good news for everyone, although the roll out of LTE networking technology around the UK is not expected to begin in earnest for a couple of years. When it finally arrives it will mean better download speeds without a fixed line connection and many consider mobile broadband to be the most financially viable next generation broadband technology because it does not require that streets are dug up to lay cables with the associated disruption.

If this is indeed the case, traditional fixed line broadband ISPs could face stiff competition in the coming years and an all-out exodus to the more convenient and faster LTE services might even be on the cards. BT broadband options will be seeing improvements over the coming years with fibre to the cabinet technology providing faster broadband speeds to many customers, but it is the flexibility of mobile broadband’s next generation that could see it dominating the marketplace.

LTE technology is already commercially available in Sweden, with network provider TeliaSonera having launched the service for customers only recently. For the moment, the UK is lagging behind with this cutting edge connectivity, but O2’s trials could well generate some sense of urgency in the broadband market, accelerating evolution.

According to an industry source, an unprecedented number of mobile broadband customers now utilise their service as their primary broadband connection.

Most industry experts and business users think of mobile broadband as a supplementary service, aimed at plugging the connectivity gap when users are on the road and assuming that a majority of customers have a fixed line service to use when they are at home.

Official figures released by Ofcom suggest that over 40 per cent of mobile broadband customers actually consider the service to be their main broadband connection. These results however require some context in order to fully appreciate their impact.

The figures released by the industry regulator show that just 6 per cent of all broadband customers have a mobile broadband contract and no fixed line alternative. On the other hand there are only 8 percent of broadband customers who have both a fixed line service and a mobile broadband contract for use when they are away.

Mobile broadband is one of the more popular technologies amongst the younger audience, with one in ten adults under the age of 35 using a mobile broadband connection as their primary means of gaining online access. Affluence is also becoming associated with mobile broadband as it is often comparatively expensive when considered against a fixed line alternative if it is to be chosen as the sole internet connection.

Although wealth and mobile broadband are associated, lower earners are also a growing element of the market with around 8 per cent of homes bringing in under £12,000 relying on mobile broadband alone to connect to the internet. Those with a tight budget who need to compare wireless broadband prices to ensure that they are getting the best deal are being enticed by the potential savings they could make and by the fact that mobile broadband does not require line rental payments.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has revealed statistics which place the UK in the bottom third of a list of global nations in terms of average broadband connection speeds.

The UK ranked just 21st out of the list of the world’s 30 most developed nations in terms of broadband speeds and infrastructure, which means fellow EU states including Spain, Greece and Portugal are higher placed.

The OECD said that the results proved that investment in fibre optic technology was key to improving average broadband speeds. Although the UK is ranked 13th in the list when the level of broadband penetration is considered, a majority of UK customers take advantage of BT broadband deals that utilise ADSL technology rather than the faster fibre optic cable connections.

Japan outstripped the UK significantly, topping the charts with a maximum advertised download speed of 1Gbps according to the report. A majority of Japanese broadband customers connect to the internet using fibre optic technology, whilst on average only one in ten broadband customers in the global market have such an opportunity.

Government subsidies are helping nations including the US, Sweden and Norway to install the next-generation of broadband technology. The report claims that health, education, transportation and electricity industries all benefit from faster broadband and that these economic benefits far outweigh the initial cost of rolling out the fibre optic technology.

The OECD report has shown that the UK’s broadband tax and the funds that it generates could well be the best way forward if the government is to fully implement next-generation broadband technology over the coming years. However, critics believe that this process is not occurring quickly enough and there is little doubt that the UK still has some way to go before its average download speeds achieved via standard BT broadband deals can begin to approach those of the top nations.

According to the pre-Budget report released this week by Alistair Darling, the 50p broadband tax levied against all UK customers with a landline connection will help to provide better broadband deals for everyone in the future.

There has been some controversy surrounding the tax, which will be applied to every individual line rather than just to homes and could cost some significantly more than others. However, most experts are in favour of the tax as it will ensure that fibre optic broadband is available to millions more UK residents over the coming years.

Money saving expert Julie Owens commented that although the telecoms companies were working to extend the reach of fibre optic home broadband, governmental backing was needed in order to make sure the new technology reached as many people as possible.

The so-called digital divide which separates certain rural areas of the UK from their urban-dwelling counterparts in terms of broadband speeds and availability should hopefully be closed as part of the new efforts.

The tax is also expected to extend the broadband market place, allowing for many more providers to compete for the custom of those seeking high-speed connections. This will lead in a fall in Tiscali broadband prices as providers who offer older ADSL connections are met with competition from low-cost, high-speed fibre optic services.

Not all providers are entirely enamoured by the planned broadband tax. TalkTalk recently expressed its concerns that the poorest families may find the tax too heavy, causing them to cancel their current broadband service.

There is no doubt that Tiscali broadband prices and indeed the cost of broadband in general, are set to fall lower than ever with help from the broadband tax. It is clearly a price that many are more than willing to pay.