More news from the frontiers of technology

New research has found that internet use is growing faster than expected. The fifth in a series of annual surveys shows that usage has doubled in ten months.

About 14M people in the UK now log on from home regularly Ð and more frequently - primarily for work or education reasons. At the same time, e-commerce is growing steadily, with nearly £2bn spent online last year.

Not blind to the numbers, BT has announced big plans for upgrading its internet protocol (IP) backbone network.The intention is to make it 60 times faster, with a capacity up to 300 times greater than the current network.

BT expects IP traffic to grow at around 400% each year. Already, one in every four calls across the BT system is an IP call.

Consequently, it is rolling out high capacity routers, multiplexing optical fibre systems and numerous extra dial-in ports as fast as it can.

Elliott Chase