The Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills has been busy figuring out the recipients of grants between £30,000 and £100,000 to network researchers. This news comes after one of the quangos it sponsors, Technology Strategy Board (TSB), announced that researchers are going to receive a funding of around £1 million to support their research on a technology that will enable broadband speeds of up to 10Gb.

TSB is positive that BT’s plan of providing 40% of UK’s population with up to 40Mb broadband by the year 2012 would pale in comparison to its own initiative, as it intends to cover the entire EU with a 10Gb optical fibre network by the year 2012.

TSB’s tops technologist, Mike Biddle spoke about the initiative, mentioning that the main hurdles, which were keeping such a network from implementation, were mostly technological in nature. He also said that European partnerships would play an important role in making this network a reality.

TSB is quite certain that the new network will completely change the way broadband is used by European individuals and businesses. There are huge benefits that can be derived from such a network, the most important being the competitive boost that it would give to European businesses. . To keep up-to-date on the latest developments and to compare broadband services refer to a dedicated broadband website such a Broadband Genie.

The Broadband Stakeholder Group had recently revealed that an optical network spanning the entire UK with the capability of delivering speeds of up to 10 Gb would cost an approximate £29 billion pounds. It is not clear yet how interested the government would be in making such an investment.