Why is the UK so far behind?

[scaryjim]

Yes, you can have a minimum, but can you guarantee it? And how do you police it? Internet speed is dependent on the entire network between your computer and the server you are connecting to, so most of that is out of your ISPs control. Before I moved to FTTC, I don't think I ever saw my modem sync at less than 8mpbs, but that doesn't mean I always got 600+KB/s downloads - it all depends on contention throughout the network. So if I only get 4KB/s download (~56kbps - which happened when downloading drivers from ASUS once) is that my ISPs fault? And if not, then how do I know when my ISP isn't delivering the minimum promised bandwidth, rather than "the internet is being slow today"?

[Sputnik]

I still think it would be better to be sold a service with a minimum speed than to be unfairly sold 'upto 20mbps' and in reality get 0.5mbps.

I agree that you can still have speeds restricted by other factors but, The restricting factor should not be that your ISP has sold most of your bandwidth to the neighbours.

Most people would object to paying for a pint and getting just half, Yet when it comes to broadband they seem happy to blindly carry on paying for something they can't / aren't getting.

I fully understand the problems with living in Rural areas etc. but, Where I lived before was in a built up area of London and the Virgin infrastructure there was appalling, It was almost as bad as their customer services.

[scaryjim]

I like your beer analogy, but there is a point where it breaks down. I can get a minimum spec internet connection - it's called a leased line. It's ridiculously expensive for even entry level connections. It's so expensive it's nigh on impossible to get a quote online, but this site: http://www.hso.co.uk/leased-lines/ has a trend tracker which suggests a 2mbps leased line will set you back £387 a month on average. So, now you have a minimum. In fact, you have a guarantee - 2mbps. No contention - that's all yours (and its bidirectional). Of course, the vagueries of the internet means you're unlikely to ever see that speed in practice, but that's still not your ISPs fault.

I'm not sure you can get 2mbps domestic broadband any more. Let's assume that you sign up to a standard ADSL line - it'll probably offer "up to 8mbps", and cost you about a fiver. That's around an 80th of the cost. It will have slower upload speeds than the leased line, and it will suffer from conention, but it could also be potentially 4 times faster for downloads - so it's a bit swings and roundabouts.

So, to go back to the beer analogy, the leased line is like buying a pint of beer. You will get exactly a pint of the beer you asked for, guaranteed, every time. Let's assume a pint of beer costs £3.20 (it makes the maths easier ). If you could hypothetically buy "up to a pint of beer" on the same basis that you buy "up to 8mbps broadband", it would cost you 4p. Personally, I'd happily take the risk of getting much less than a pint of beer if I was only paying 4p and could end up with a full pint.

[Saracen]

Why are we 'lagging'?

My bet is that it's a blend of a number of factors.

First, I'd bet most people aren't that bothered about their broadband speed, provided it's "decent" .... and that, of course, is highly subjective.

Second, most people certainly aren't bothered enough to pay a lot more for it, and that won't change unless you give them a convincing reason why they should be prepared to pay.

Take, as an example, well, me.

My theoretical speed is 16MB. In practice, I'm lucky to get 4MB .... despite being promised 13MB-ish. Am I bothered? Not really. And if someone guaranteed getting 1GB for a tenner a month more, I'd decline. Why? Because I'd rather have the tenner a month than the extra speed.

Then there's licensing issues, competition rules and laws, standard market forces (i.e. pressure of competition), dubious ROI, and so on.

What would get me to pay that extra £10 a month? Nothing I can think of, that's actually realistic and reasonable, in anything like the near future.

And that's a large part of the problem .... "most" people just browse the web, collect their email, maybe watch a few daft clips on YouTube and do a bit of shopping/banking. You do not need a megafast connection for that. Hell, most of it (obviously excluding video clips, etc, and what was then non-existent banking, which in fact, I still do not do, though not because of speed issues) I used to do on a dial-up link.

[G-STAR01]

Rolling out fibre is expensive and businesses want to make money.
It would take a huge investment for a full cover fibre in the UK, if businesses make an investment they expect a return and there is only two ways to do this.
They either stick to cheap prices and get a slow return of investment, maybe 10+years or they raise prices to get a quicker return but then which households would pay huge sums for faster internet.
This in itself is a put off for businesses to invest and ultimately it requires big government funding which is unlikely in todays economic situation.

I've no hope in the UK getting fastest speeds in Europe any time soon although I am very happy that BTs Open Reach fibre is reaching us in October.

[scaryjim]

I've just done a quick bit of research on some of the countries already mentioned in this thread:

Sweden has 36% of its population concentrated in just 3 urban areas. The UK has less than 25% situated in its top 5 urban areas. So, as I suspected, Sweden has a much higher concentration of its population in a smaller number of urban areas - meaning there is less external infrastructure to reach that proportion of the population. In fact, you have to include the population of the UKs 20 largest urban areas to get up to 36% of the population, giving a much greater cost to provide infrastructure to all those areas.

The Netherlands has a base population density of 405 people per square km. The UK's figure is just 256. So people live much closer together in the Netherlands, which again will make it much easier to provide high speed broadband to a higher percentage of the population.

France and Germany, as far as I can see, both have generally better speeds than the UK - apparently France's copper cables are better quality than ours (!?). Germany is interesting, because it has a very similar population density to the UK but a tiny percentage of residents in large urban areas, suggesting the population is fairly evenly spread over the entire country! Clearly more research/thought required, but it's nice to see that some of my gut feelings on the difference between the UK and Netherlands/Sweden turned out right

[shaithis]

Perhaps UBI should invest in our broadband, they could make money selling high-speed connections to the billions of people illegally downloading their games

[Sputnik]

So, to go back to the beer analogy, the leased line is like buying a pint of beer. You will get exactly a pint of the beer you asked for, guaranteed, every time. Let's assume a pint of beer costs £3.20 (it makes the maths easier ). If you could hypothetically buy "up to a pint of beer" on the same basis that you buy "up to 8mbps broadband", it would cost you 4p. Personally, I'd happily take the risk of getting much less than a pint of beer if I was only paying 4p and could end up with a full pint.

I bet you'd change your mind if after 6months you got an empty glass 9times out of 10!

And for me that 'cheaper' offer was costing £37 a month from Virgin. upto 20mbps should have been upto 0.3mbps because it rarely got any better and eventually after many frustrating calls to India I ditched it.

[Larkspeed]

I've just done a quick bit of research on some of the countries already mentioned in this thread:

Sweden has 36% of its population concentrated in just 3 urban areas. The UK has less than 25% situated in its top 5 urban areas. So, as I suspected, Sweden has a much higher concentration of its population in a smaller number of urban areas - meaning there is less external infrastructure to reach that proportion of the population. In fact, you have to include the population of the UKs 20 largest urban areas to get up to 36% of the population, giving a much greater cost to provide infrastructure to all those areas.

The Netherlands has a base population density of 405 people per square km. The UK's figure is just 256. So people live much closer together in the Netherlands, which again will make it much easier to provide high speed broadband to a higher percentage of the population.

France and Germany, as far as I can see, both have generally better speeds than the UK - apparently France's copper cables are better quality than ours (!?). Germany is interesting, because it has a very similar population density to the UK but a tiny percentage of residents in large urban areas, suggesting the population is fairly evenly spread over the entire country! Clearly more research/thought required, but it's nice to see that some of my gut feelings on the difference between the UK and Netherlands/Sweden turned out right

ok one little flaw in your research.

I believe you have failed to take into account that a very significant part of the Netherlands is water (our area for example there are 2 very large lakes, 2 smaller ones and 2 major canals) which means less inhabitable land then the UK so that's when population density is higher.

Also a substantial part of that population is actually in villages and smaller towns and even in those villages and smaller towns we still have internet speeds upwards of 80Mbps.

for example one of the small towns near us already has the 500 Mbps internet speeds

the Netherlands just planned better when building and put a cable infrastructure in place instead of relying on antenna and phone line based services like the UK plus our government is obviously more dedicated to the broadband in this country so are willing to do what it takes to get the higher speeds.

[Funkstar]

I believe you have failed to take into account that a very significant part of the Netherlands is water (our area for example there are 2 very large lakes, 2 smaller ones and 2 major canals) which means less inhabitable land then the UK so that's when population density is higher.

This actually helps Scaryjim's arguments

Higher population density = cheaper to roll out infrastructure.

Something that comes up from time to time is how much a country was effected during WW2. This is especially true with roads and railways, but I'm sure it holds true for other infrastructure, like the phone network, too. For instance, so much of the French railway system was destroyed in WW2 that they had re-build from scratch. However because we were not invaded, and because the Vistorians had done such a bloody fantastic job of building our railways in the first place, we were able to patch it up and keep it running for decades after. Now we are paying for it because upgrades are far more difficult and costly.

Same kind of goes for comms. Not only do we have to upgrade our infrastructure, we have to add capacity as well, we've used up the spare capacity that was built into the system in the past. Other countries still have spare capacity so it is much easier to upgrade to newer technologies.

[shaithis]

Higher population density = cheaper to roll out infrastructure.

Or does it?

On the surface, I would agree.....but then when you think about logistics, I start to think otherwise.

Take London as the extreme example.....How easy/cheap do you think it is to dig up a load of roads and cause congestion in a city whose roads are already overcrowded? I would think there is a lot of red-tape to get through, a lot of bureaucracy to navigate and a lot of money spent before anyone is even hired to dig up anything....and that's before the daily fines council impose for digging up roads!

[Funkstar]

Do those roads need digging up though? In metropolitan areas, everything is usually in culverts or ducts. Granted some of these might need upgrading for more space, but that is something that would probably need to be done at some point in the future anyway because of capacity expansion, modernisation or simple replacement of old infrastructure.

There is the planning issue, I'll give you that. There have been a couple of councils in London that have refused permission for the large BT FTTC boxes on aesthetic grounds. Yes they are big ugly green boxes. BT have just turned round and said that's OK, other areas will just get the equipment sooner than planned, instead of fighting it and incurring legal expenses.

[scaryjim]

I bet you'd change your mind if after 6months you got an empty glass 9times out of 10!

I probably would, yes. My experience with telewest wasn't too bad, but this was almost ten years ago now. With plusnet I've basically been getting more than half a pint every time though, so I'm content with that

I believe you have failed to take into account that a very significant part of the Netherlands is water

I would assume that Wiki's population densities are based on land area not overall bounds, although I couldn't swear to it. And as Funkstar points out, if not that actually adds to my point of it being theoretically easier to serve a more dense population!

the Netherlands just planned better when building and put a cable infrastructure in place instead of relying on antenna and phone line based services like the UK ...

It's probably also worth considering that in the Netherlands a large amount of the land surface is man-made, and relatively recently. If you're basically building your own country then it's a lot easier to add these things from the start. The UK's communications infrastructure has been basically 'onioned' up since the late 19th Century, through a series of extensions and improvements - but some of the basic infrastructure is Victorian. Wholescale replacement of that - or simply abandoning it and laying a new infrasctructure - would be a phenomenally expensive undertaking. I think the government's probably got its priorities right - as Saracen (I think) said earlier the current internet speeds available through most of the country are actually more than fast enough for the majority of consumers. Sure, we should be planning long term for increased capacity and reliability, but I don't think targeting particular average speeds within the next 3, 5, or even 10 years is the way to go. Bottom line my broadband rarely drops below 10mbps at the busiest times on a very busy exchange, and usually screams along at just over 40mbps. Ten years ago I got my first broadband package and was amazed at the lightning fast throughput on my 512kbps line, and two years before that we were almost all on dialup and being very happy with 54kbps. So I've seen an almost 1000-fold increase in internet speed in 12 years. I'd say that's pretty impressive myself

[jim]

To come back to the original point, no, we haven't got a hope in hell.

It's probably just some politician trying to please some buddy of his with a pointless and vague suggestion of something that will never actually happen.

For the average person, 8Mb is absolutely adequate, and as much as it pains me to say it, it's probably better for the country as a whole to get 8Mb in every house than to get 1Gb in a few of them. I want 100Mb up and down as much as the next nerd, but it's hardly necessary.

[Funkstar]

Ten years ago I got my first broadband package and was amazed at the lightning fast throughput on my 512kbps line, and two years before that we were almost all on dialup and being very happy with 54kbps. So I've seen an almost 1000-fold increase in internet speed in 12 years. I'd say that's pretty impressive myself

I was one of the very first to get ADSL, BT were even issuing installer updates to the "stingray" ADSL modem via a FTP site. I think I had registered interest because I thought it would be cool, never expecting to get it. I was still living at home and organised the engineer to come round without even telling my parents, they didn't even really know what the internet was at that point. I think that was £30/month for 512/256Kb.

That went to about 7.5 when they released ADSLmax and I was in my own place, then it was 7.8 in another property. Upgraded to about 16mbit with ADSL2+ (very good connection through Zen). Now back to as close to 8mbit you can get as I can almost throw a stone at the exchange down the road. Shame it isn't on the 21CN roadmap yet

That's all I really want, ADSL2+.

[Sputnik]

Now back to as close to 8mbit you can get as I can almost throw a stone at the exchange down the road. Shame it isn't on the 21CN roadmap yet

That's all I really want, ADSL2+.

That's similar to where I am now, When I came here the local exchange was ADSL max only and about 6 months ago they changed it to ADSL2+ but, They said the maximum speed would be around 14Mb even though I'm only 700metres from the exchange. I'm not complaining anyway, It is the fastest Connection I've had.

I've noticed that ISP's are no longer saying upto 24Mb - Now they are saying upto 16Mb which is more realistic.