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In-Reply-To: <1280219638.9090.19.camel@subbass-desktop>
On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 09:33:58AM +0100, John Williams wrote:
> How about making the national telecommunications backbone public again,
> out of the hands of a private company. Paying shareholders is most
> likely the reason we have no/little fibre network.
So far the Governments have taken the view that private companies paying
profts are cheaper, faster and offer more choice than the Government
themselves doing it. Certainly everything I have seen is that monolithic
public enterprises have not been well known for their customer service and
efficiency. Your experience may be different.
However if the Government wants broadband access for all, it is easy: pass
a regulation that it has to be provided.
The cost however has to be recovered from somewhere:
- The cost of resolving that people are unhappy with the new cabinets for
fibre optic cable
- The cost of digging up the roads
- The cost of connecting peoples house
Now I agree that there are long term advantages to this and I am sure that
there will be an increase in productivity that pays for it. In the short
term these can be financed:
- By charging individuals who use the service
- By increasing taxes for all
- By borrowing money at ~4% (that is the long term cost of Government
borrowing)
> > - What will be the benefit? And when?
> Internet TV, Video on Demand, Video Calls (at a reasonable quality),
> more/multiple simultaneous streaming services etc etc.
>
All nice to have. I am %%^&** if I can put a financial value on this. In
the meantime, given that most people live in cities that have good
broadband, I can place a much stronger emotional value on:
- Building transport links to the South West
- Better NHS care etc
>
> The state of UK broadband has been a pet hate of mine for many years now.
> Broadband Britain is nothing more than a joke, the plan to offer a
> minimum of 2Mbit to everyone has now been discarded and the ambition for
> that was 2012.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7098992.stm
>
> An old article, from 2007; but take time to note the speeds countries
> then achieved against good old Broadband Britain, in fact compare many to
> what we get now even 3 years further on.
>
> For now, here is a IRC quote from a good friend in Sweden...
>
> 22:26 <@XXXXX> anyway, yet another isp is offering gigabit internet here
> now
>
> The cost is about 100E and do you want to bet they have no bandwidth
> management or quota on the line. I was talking with that same friend a
> few days ago when my ISP decided that a business grade account (£40pm)
> decided that not only should it impose a limit of 100GB per month, but
> if you exceed that you are limited to 128kbps for 30days. Superb
> business approach! Sadly 100GB per month is actually generous for the UK
> so there is nowhere that I can find to move to with having ADSL2 in the
> exchange. My Swedish friend manages hundreds of gigabytes per month in
> traffic and ISP's over there seem to manage just fine.
>
> For £40 here in the UK I almost achieve 2mbit (200kB/sec) with a quota.
>
> Other UK fixed line ISP's have insanely low quota's, saw one of 3gb a
> couple days ago and I imagine there are lower. Internet TV and many
> other services have little chance of finding success in the UK.
>
I agree with the sentiment and if I look at "emerging" countries then their
internet speeds are faster still. South Korea as an example.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/31/broadband.south.korea/index.html
Personally I would like a law passed that says:
- Any new houses / buildings must be connected to fibre optic cable
- Any ISP / telco must have a simple webpage that provides MAC codes on
demand and switching must be simple and automatic. The page should also be
linked to lists of alternative suppliers who meet "quality" standards.
ie increase competition and to quote "pick any two: quality, service or price."
--
Henry
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