OFCOM - Push for faster net 'premature'

[dangel]

Or move to a country where the speeds are both high and cheap
I wonder how things will look in five years time when that's even more the case than it is now. Sobering thought.

[pumpman]

Whilst I can see the arguments for not increasing speeds, the increase in speeds is without doubt one of the best things that can happen to this country.

The upgrades are mainly happening in the most populated areas which is understandable from a business point of view, but it is also very short sighted.

I can understand BT being unwilling to get things going in their own right due to the restrictions put on them by ofcom in regards to LLU and offering the same prices to competitors as they do themselves to a point.

But my main point is to think of the many benefits of Ultra High Speed Networks.

A lot of people who are office based could work from home.
Benefit , workers can be with their families, kids don't get shoved into creches all day, less traffic on the road, less of one area dominating the jobs market, so you wouldn't have areas of large unemployment and areas where jobs could not be filled, which then has an effect on house prices costs of living in certain areas.

Enviromental, all we hear is reduce carbon emissions etc., if less people travel to work that's a good thing, especially with the price of fuel now, you would save money and the air gets cleaner

Workers would be more productive, think about it your at home with a set amount of work to get through before you can take that cycle into the park on a nice sunny day , are you going to browse the net or wander about the office yapping like you would do at work, nope ( of course there will be plenty of jobs that require to to be available for the whole shift but then your super wireless equipment can go to the park with you.

Imagine you don't feel that well and need a visit to the quack, you need to book an appointment and travel there, wait with the rest of the sick people until you are seen.

Now all you need to do is connect to the NHS video channel, be seen within the hour
plug your self into the bio med device so they can check your blood pressure etc, and be told to take an aspirin as you have man flu you big woos,
or actually we would like to see you now, and go straight to a specialist as you have already seen the doctor.

The NHS would be better as there would be less money spent on treating people for having traffic related accidents, and work related stress.

Localised channels for information on demand and in real time,

National network of Hi Def channels for business , save a lot of business travel abroad, even locally, you would be able to call at a time that suited your customer ,
and bot be delayed by traffic, car breaking down etc.

Apart from the intitial costs there are no downsides in my opinion

oh yes and real time streaming of Hi Def pron ftw

[acrobat]

Acrobat, Spud1 said it's possible to get a really fast line and you replied with:



If you want speed, you pay for it. You mentioned Ferraris and Porches - if you want the best and fastest, you have to pay for it, most indivduals also can't afford these types of cars and have to accept something more average.

No, you buy a decent fast car for a good price, which is perfectly quick enough, and the same is not true for broadband. My analogy was about choice not speed.

Fact is, my traffic is about 50gig a month, which i consider abnormally high, this is due to too many images of applications (MSDN + keeping pace with unix... the latter eats bandwidth) but the 16mbit i get when thames water aren't digging up my street is more than enough. I've been happily surviving on my 5mbit thanks to the digging, and i still think £20 is a very fair price for this.

Well good for you, living in the capitol city.... I live in a city too, but I was told by BT that the fastest they OR ANY ASDL provider can give me is 2mbit!

24 Mbit will be available to a select few - the majority will be well below that and that's true even in cities. I get 8mbit (the max I can at my exchange as it's a few hundred metres from me and no LLU will exist for the forseeable future) on MAX, whilst a friend in the city gets just 4.5mbit out of his '24mbit' connection. 21CN won't change the inherent limitation of a copper line, so we'll still be broadband-retarded (or special needs if you prefer it) in 2008/9 regardless.

exactly

We would do well to remember how BT has had to been dragged kicking and screaming into offering broadband *at all* (remember the insanity of the ISDN charging?) and that saying 'it's enough for now' is a bit short-sighted when dealing with the realities of what we'll need in years to come. Sure, there aren't too many services needing massive bandwidth now, but that's just chicken and egg - if the bandwith isn't there then.. why build the service?

exactly

There is a seperate issue on how things are then sold - the 'up to' problem. That I don't really have so much of an issue with as the 'unlimited' thing which is plainly a lie in my eyes - broadband is not narrowband and so 'unlimited connection time' is a poor excuse. Clever bastards.

They are both as crap as each other imo. The unlimited thing on Virgin Media has a little cross to indicate that you are meant to read below to see what the cross means, and it explains about "Fair Usage Policy".

Also for what its worth, when I was looking for a new ISP earlier this year, I actually called BT and I specifically asked them, "Do you have a fair usage policy", and she clearly said, "No". Which is a horrific lie! I then went on their website because everybody else told me they did have a fair usage policy, and I couldn't believe BT didn't.. and there was no mention of it anywhere. So I ran a search on the website and it found a tiny mention of it on a specific page called Terms and Conditions, which wasn't accessible from anywhere else on the website. I think I called them back to confront them and the person on the phone couldn't find the page and knew nothing about it... and kept telling me they had no fair usage policy!

[Stoo]

okay, for the quip about leased lines etc..

sure, I can have a leased line running at 8Mbit.. for £16k per annum, wonderful.

Yet many places around the world will install a 10-100mbit symmetrical line, for approx £10-40 per month or £120-480 per annum.

On top of that there are no limits and no traffic shaping.

So how can OFCOM or BT sit there and say they're doing a good job?

FYI, in Hong Kong you can already get 1Gbit internet lines for around £75 a month - time for people to wake up and smell the coffee methinks.

[Lucio]

It wouldn't be so bad if the subscription model in the UK worked a little differently, if you paid per GB of bandwidth used for example, at a rate designed to ensure the average customer saves money, the chances are all the people putting heavy load on the system would help fund faster and faster systems and upgrades.

Or perhaps as an alternative, you have an increased per hour cost for getting a big boost to your bandwidth whilst you download a large file, which then drops back to normal when you're done.

[TheAnimus]

okay, for the quip about leased lines etc..

sure, I can have a leased line running at 8Mbit.. for £16k per annum, wonderful.

Yet many places around the world will install a 10-100mbit symmetrical line, for approx £10-40 per month or £120-480 per annum.

On top of that there are no limits and no traffic shaping.

So how can OFCOM or BT sit there and say they're doing a good job?

FYI, in Hong Kong you can already get 1Gbit internet lines for around £75 a month - time for people to wake up and smell the coffee methinks.

Our hong kong office pays about £6k a month for their least line. I must tell them that we could get a 1gbit one for only £75. Hell we might as well move the farm there too, as in singapore its costing a lot more than that too.

I'm not saying for a second i wouldn't apprechate a faster connection, but first we need to get a buisness need, if people who are basically degenerate freeloading pirates speak up, they will ruin it for the rest of us, as there will be no economic benefit. If people who can deliver quality services, even 'free' ones through a legitimate model on the other hand get involved this might happen.

But I shore as hell don't want to subsidise someones broadband at any residentual location. Do you?

[acrobat]

But there is a business need already. And its hardly going to boom, when there isn't the quality of service to supply them. You can't expect people to start up businesses that rely on fast and cheap internet access, in the hope that they will one day get it in the future..

The phrase is, "Build it, and they will come". Not, "Lets hope they come, and then we'll rush and build it at the last minute".

[TheAnimus]

The phrase is, "Build it, and they will come". Not, "Lets hope they come, and then we'll rush and build it at the last minute".

I wish i could remeber the exact simon pegg quote, but its something like your basing your business plan on a film about ghosts playing baseball?

Thing is if virgin could see an easy way of making money from it, they would.

[dangel]

Or "Don't build it and they'll go elsewhere" (admittedly not as funny as pegg, but just as true).

Thing is, BT didn't see the need for ADSL, and so were reluctant to roll it out. How wrong they were..