Report lays out UK digital future

[Phage]

@Kalniel
I understand that. But they should be. And the prices for stringing any sort of cable are similar...The points I was making were,
1) This isn't going to raise enough cash for a <strike>2nd house</strike> good lunch, never mind a new network of whatever format.
2) Anything less than a leapfrog to a fibre-to-the-curb is pretty much a waste of time.

[kalniel]

I undertsand that. But they should be. And the prices for string any sort of cable are similar...The points I was making are 1) This isn't going to raise enough cash for a <strike>2nd house</strike> good lunch, never mind a new network of whatever format. 2) Anything less than a leapfrog to a fibre-to-thecurb is pretty much a waste of time.

Again you seem to be hung up on the idea that it's about some kind of new network. It's really not - it's simply about getting broadband to either places in the country that don't have it yet, or people in the country who can't afford it yet. As much as possible it's going to be using the cheapest existing technology available, which in the case of the latter is going to cost peanuts if they're already in an area that can get it.

[Phage]

Again you seem to be hung up on the idea that it's about some kind of new network. It's really not - it's simply about getting broadband to either places in the country that don't have it yet, or people in the country who can't afford it yet. As much as possible it's going to be using the cheapest existing technology available, which in the case of the latter is going to cost peanuts if they're already in an area that can get it.

Apologies, but I seem to have fundamentally misunderstood. I had assumed that the purpose was to deliver more than the stated 2Mb service as it would not be fit for purpose by 2012. Which means that we will be being taxed to provide something that we will have an intrincisc value of nearly zero in 3 years time.
Another masterstroke of strategy.

[scaryjim]

we will be being taxed to provide something that we will have an intrincisc value of nearly zero in 3 years time.

2mb broadband has significant intrinsic value. For most people's internet use it's more than sufficient. My 3G dongle rarely gets above 1mb peak but is currently my only home internet connection and is proving more than sufficient for light browsing, email, and even iPlayer Radio (I doubt it'd manage iPlayer video, but I can live without that!) and game downloads (legal ones, before anyone gets in a huff ).

Besides, compared to no internet connection at all, it's lightning quick...

[Saracen]

Apologies, but I seem to have fundamentally misunderstood. I had assumed that the purpose was to deliver more than the stated 2Mb service as it would not be fit for purpose by 2012. Which means that we will be being taxed to provide something that we will have an intrincisc value of nearly zero in 3 years time.
Another masterstroke of strategy.

As scaryjim says, 2MB BB might have zero intrinsic value in the years time, or even now, if you have 8MB BB (or faster) already ..... but if your only available internet connection is a dialup modem, 2MB isn't going to be zero value. It might not be ideal for video on demand, downloading films or huge amounts of music, and it might struggle a bit with "content rich" websites, but it does at least make almost almost everything else perfectly viable. I had 8MB BB until fairly recently, but I turned it down to 2MB because I didn't need anything a faster and couldn't see a point in paying for it. But a 56k modem would drive me up the wall these days, and some people are stuck with them.

As for this digital future report, there's a lot in it I don't like or agree with.

[Phage]

As scaryjim says, 2MB BB might have zero intrinsic value in the years time, or even now, if you have 8MB BB (or faster) already ..... but if your only available internet connection is a dialup modem, 2MB isn't going to be zero value. It might not be ideal for video on demand, downloading films or huge amounts of music, and it might struggle a bit with "content rich" websites, but it does at least make almost almost everything else perfectly viable. I had 8MB BB until fairly recently, but I turned it down to 2MB because I didn't need anything a faster and couldn't see a point in paying for it. But a 56k modem would drive me up the wall these days, and some people are stuck with them.

As for this digital future report, there's a lot in it I don't like or agree with.

I agree that it's better than 56k, and providing that to those who don't have it is a worthwhile goal, but 2Mb is struggling now, and it's going to get exponentially worse as time goes on.
In short this is a tactical move, not a strategic one.
I'm half tempted to start a community ISP/Cable company.

[Mr JB]

Like it will change anything, apart from waste more money.

They'll end up taking someone to court, only for them to lose the disk containing all the evidence the day before, while it was actually their nextdoor neighbour that was doing the downloading over Wi-fi anyway.

They've missed the boat anyway. Most services are moving to 128bit encryption. Good luck on them monitoring that.

When does the government ever do anything that isn't a waste of money.

[Phage]

Not really. It's strategic in that it's setting a common baseline.

As for whether 2Mb struggles or not, it depends entirely on usage.

If you're expecting to be downloading movies or other high capacity stuff, yeah, it struggles. But that's not what most people do. And for browsing the web, email, etc, 2Mb is fine. I had faster and turned it down to 2Mb, and except for the occasional service pack or Linux distro download, I don't miss it.

So, if the idea is to set a minimum standard that reflects our growing reliance on the web, does 2Mb meet that baseline? Does it put us in touch? Does it provide email services? With ever more government departments offering web services either for info or actual services (like renewing your tax disk), does it provide adequate baseline capability? Yup. Does it provide essential facilities that so many small businesses and even home businesses require? Yup, since you can run a proper email capability that isn't relying on diallup to receive anything at all, and you get the "always on" benefits. It's also fast enough to do your banking, online shopping and buy/sell a few bits (or a lot of bits) on eBay, etc.

As I understand it, this review, or that part of it, is not so much about setting the leading edge, as about ensuring nobody is (or at least, needs to be) disenfranchised from the digital era by not having access to a broadly sufficient minimum level of service.

Agreed it's very important to bring todays benefits to people who are limited in their access to dial up. It is a noble goal to ensure that no-one is disenfranchised. However, this is not a plan for the future. It may well be that we will view 2Mb in the same way as we now view 56K within 10 years.

Setting a baseline /= a strategic response.
Does 2mb cover most uses today. Yes.
Will it cover most uses by 2012 ? Unknown. But unlikely given that traffic is growing at approx 60&#37; pa. http://www.dtc.umn.edu/mints/home.php

I can see that you are currently happy with your 2Mb, but extending that to the general public and over the next decade is a step too far.

[Phil]

Setting a baseline /= a strategic response.
Does 2mb cover most uses today. Yes.
Will it cover most uses by 2012 ? Unknown. But unlikely given that traffic is growing at approx 60% pa.

I can see that you are currently happy with your 2Mb, but extending that to the general public and over the next decade is a step too far.

It might not necessarily be that baseline = strategic, but of the object of the exercise is to provide a general provision adequately fast to support the services seen as essential, then it does. If access to necessary services, rather than video and music downloading are the objective, then a speed that sees everyone able to access those services does the job. I'm not extending what I'm happy with to the rest of the population. I'm extending what speed is necessary to provide non-media-heavy services, like NHS Choices or DirectGov.

The report makes clear that next generation broadband is a strategic objective too, and that in 20 years or so, current minimum BB levels, assessed as 3.3Mb, will be similarly restrictive to the 14.4k of years ago. But the assessment is that market pressures will see NextGen BB installed for around two thirds of the population without government intervention. Therefore, their intervention is concentrated on the exclusion areas to get the Universal Service provision up to a minimum standard. They're concentrating on bread and butter today as their strategic objective, not jam tomorrow, because that will happen without government intervention.

It is therefore strategic to aim at a universal 2Mb availability.

[Phage]

Hi Phil, not arguing against you.
have you seen this ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8105068.stm

If that's strategic...it's based on a false premise.

[Butuz]

We would have had a fiber optic phone network 20 years ago if it wasn't for maggie!

Butuz

[Funkstar]

We would have had a fiber optic phone network 20 years ago if it wasn't for maggie!

Butuz

But would it have been any good?

Or would we now have a fibre infrastructure that couldn't cope with what we want it to handle?

20 years ago we would have been pioneering this kind of network, however now we (as a country) can learn from the development mistakes discovered by other countries.

[peterb]

We would have had a fiber optic phone network 20 years ago if it wasn't for maggie!

Butuz

Tosh. It was the de-nationalisation of BT that ended years of under-investment by successive governments since the 50's. If that hadn't happened we would still be on rented telephones, with rotary dials and shared party lines, and peak time telephone call charges (charged by the minute) from 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon. OK, slight exaguration, but I doubt we would have the broadband penetration we have now if BT was still a nationalised industry.

As it is, the majority of the telephone network is fibre. One of the reasons for NOT having fibre to the home is that it erequires mains powered equipment to terminate it. The wired telephone system will still work in the event of a mains failure because exchanges have battery and generator back up systems, and the reason for that is that the phone system forms part of the civil defence network.

That requirement has been partly diluted by cable company operation, but I believe it is still a statutory requirement on BT.

However, high speed BB could be provided by having battery backed up Customer premises Equipment (CPE) or (more likely) fibre to local distribution cabinets, with copper over the last few hundred yards.

[Ross1]

Although I and everyone here would love FTTH, nobody's willing to pay for it. I do wonder how FTTH was paid for in Japan, Korea, HK, etc. Also, I think at the moment at least >10Mb broadband is a bit overrated. 10Mb is enough to stream compressed 720p video, and the average joe probably wouldn't notice the difference between 2Mb and 10Mb.

[Funkstar]

Most of Japan is incredibly densly populated, far more than the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lation_density 34th vs 52nd). They are also far more incluned to demoish a building and replace it. I don't know the numbers, but I believe an office block in Tokyo in the '80s had one of the shortest life spans in the world. Most of this was due to the incredibly high value of the land (in many cases, the land would cost more than the millions of Yen the actual building would cost).

We also have an incredibly old infrastructure. Modernising this is expensive, it's something else we pay dearly for being world leaders in this regard to begin with (same goes for our rail network). Japan however did suffer terribly in WW2, a couple of Hydrogen bombs will do nasty things to your infrasctructure. So much of it probably got re-designed and re-built. Making it easier to update it in the future.

Add to that the fact they are probably the most technologically rich countries in the world, and it makes sense they have FTTH (though not every home I bet).

What are their BB connections like in the more rural locations?

[Peter Parker]

...
We also have an incredibly old infrastructure. Modernising this is expensive, it's something else we pay dearly for being world leaders in this regard to begin with (same goes for our rail network). Japan however did suffer terribly in WW2, a couple of Hydrogen bombs will do nasty things to your infrasctructure. So much of it probably got re-designed and re-built. Making it easier to update it in the future.
...
What are their BB connections like in the more rural locations?

As well as the atomic bombs (not h-bombs, but still dreadful things) Japan has an even longer history of having to deal with earthquakes. I visited Japan a few years back. A friend's brother in Kyoto (lovely place) said that many domestic buildings were largely wooden because they flexed better in earthquakes, did less damage if they collapsed and were cheaper to rebuild. Geography has a big impact on a nation's infrastructure.

It seems they can get 48M in the rural areas - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8068916.stm - though I'm not sure if that's common or just an innovation being reported on by the beeb. Anyway, it's better than my 8M in the middle of London!

I work for an ISP and I'm quite conscious of the limits to commercial coverage. I do think the government should make sure there's cheap basic broadband available places like the Hebrides and to mountainous areas of the UK. I don't want to live in a world where we all end up living in completely urbanised 'Megacity One' blocks.