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Mon, 26 Jun 2006 Macs and Xserve power UK's fastest net cafe

Jonny Evans

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Macs and Xserves will be the tools of choice at the world's fastest internet café.

The Visitors Centre at BT's Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, is to become the world's fastest internet café on June 27.

Computers there will be able to download data at speeds of up to 100Mbps – significantly faster than standard broadband.

The café computers will include 12 iMacs with the latest Intel Core Duo processors and an Apple Xserve. Routing, switching and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology has been provided by Cisco and headsets by Sennheiser.

Visitors to the Satellite Earth Station, which attracts more than 80,000 people a year, will be able to use the superfast facilities of the internet café free of charge.

Adrian Hosford, director of corporate responsibility for BT, who will host the launch, said: "This sort of technology will mean that people can choose to travel less, helping the planet to deal with climate change and creating a more sustainable future. We are pleased to work with world-class companies, such as Apple, Cisco and Sennheiser to deliver this wonderful 'must-see' attraction for the visitors centre at Goonhilly."

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station – located in a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), containing some of the rarest plants in the UK – is the largest station of its type in the world, with 60 antennas handling thousands of international phone calls, TV broadcasts and data.

It is also the world's oldest surviving satellite earth station. The first antenna, known as Arthur, was built to track the Telstar satellite and received the first live transatlantic television broadcasts from the US in 1962. Arthur today is a grade II listed building and is still in operational service.

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