Why is the UK so far behind?

[Larkspeed]

ok I know different countries do things at different rates and with different priorities.

I read something the other day about some UK politician saying that they not only wanted the UK to have the best broadband in Europe but they wanted it to have the fastest by 2015.

Now in this article they termed "super fast broadband" at 24 Mbps and "Ultra fast broadband" at 80 - 100 Mbps.

If that is the kind of standards they are looking at how can they possibly expect to have the fastest within 3 years?

Now to my original question using my own as comparison.

I currently have a connection of 120 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up totally unlimited.

I pay 77 Euro a month and this includes a full HD digital TV package and telephone with unlimited long distance to 15 countries in Europe and North America

And they are currently in the process of running fiber to house around our town and when it hits our area I will be able to get a connection of 500Mbps down and 500Mbps up also totally unlimited. this would come in at 87 euro a month with TV and phone.

Sweden on the other hand can supply home connections up to 1Gbps

Given the fact that the average I see posted on these forums is somewhere between 20 and 30 Mbps with a few well above that and a lot below it I just do not understand how the UK can be so far behind.

[abaxas]

Inner city speed != availability outside the city and in reality anything >8mbps is useless to almost the entire population.

[shaithis]

Sweden on the other hand can supply home connections up to 1Tbps

Sure you don't mean Gbps?

The problem is with all these things "certain areas only".

As for UK pricing.......we are all aware it's a rip-off but I guess we have to pay for doleys, career breeders and immigrants to live well..........

[Larkspeed]

you are correct i'll fix that.

I'm not on about prices or social issues, we have all those here as well as do all other countries

i'm on about why are UK speeds so far behind other countries

[dek100]

Your lucky you have that speed. I am currently with Sky broadband and the top speed any provider can offer in my area is 7megabits.

It all basically comes down to money. The companies want to invest but it will cost billions, the government promise to invest, then say they do not have the money in the present economic climate.

So, I think it all comes down to money and politics.

[technodean]

I'm getting 5mbs down, and 0.3mbs up. and I have the fastest connection within a mile of my house, yet my mate in getting 1.7mbs download, and when he told me he was moving asked me to find out what speed was in that area, didn't have the heart to tell him it was 0.4mbs and no fibre optic broadband available. Ignore the fibre optic people, this is from about 1/2 mile from me.

[Larkspeed]

see this is my point exactly there is no reason at all for speeds that low.

When I worked for NTL they did a study into viability of converting their network to fiber to house.

Now this was about 10 years ago and they scrapped the idea due to the cost.

But we are not on fiber we are on cable here and NTL is cable as are other suppliers in the UK so I am confused why they cannot offer the higher speeds when cable networks are perfectly capable of carrying them.

[capt_cornflake]

As I understood it although we do lag behind in headline speed, the UK does pretty well in comparison with other countries, in terms of broadband penetration we do pretty well in comparison with elsewhere.

As I understood it you can only get 1Gbps in very specific locations in Sweden.
There are a very small number of FTTP housing estates in the UK, not sure what speeds they get, but I wouldn't expect it to be representative of the rest of the country.

As noted above for most households FTTP is complete overkill at this point in time, and even 10Mbps is probably sufficient. Of course that position probably won't be the case in 5 years.

[deejayburnout]

Close to where i stay, one of the villages cannot get Virgin and therefore not get Fibre as the council will not let the companies dig up the road.

Some people are unhappy with this as they want better services but the other people are not wanting there nice little village all dug up.

Simple things like this can cause major problems.

[capt_cornflake]

Close to where i stay, one of the villages cannot get Virgin and therefore not get Fibre as the council will not let the companies dig up the road.

Some people are unhappy with this as they want better services but the other people are not wanting there nice little village all dug up.

Simple things like this can cause major problems.

Unless something has drastically changed in the last few years most villages (and an awful lot of towns) do not have the option of cable (which is only FTTC anyway).
This is generally virgin's decision rather than the local authority. Given the state virgin tend to leave the roads in, I'm not surprised the local authority may not be than keen though.

[vettieboo]

It's a combination of money and lack of interest as I see it. A lot of the population are happy with anything over 8 meg, so I guess companies don't see the point in investing in it. Now there's been government funding I've been able to upgrade to a connection that supports a heavy download use family, but that was only recently and had a few snags along the way.

It also doesn't help that certain areas skipped over for Virgin cable are also seen as 'non-profitable' for FTTC installation, so a few areas (most likely small villages) desperately crying out for faster speeds are missed completely and lag horribly behind the rest of the country. I do feel for those areas, luckily I live in a town that got FTTC (no cable though).

[Sputnik]

I'm on about why are UK speeds so far behind other countries

Because the government won't put any money into the pot for upgrading the infrastructure. The British governments solution to the problem was to enforce a £1 increase on the line rental for telephone customers.

When I worked for NTL they did a study into viability of converting their network to fiber to house.

Now this was about 10 years ago and they scrapped the idea due to the cost.

But we are not on fiber we are on cable here and NTL is cable as are other suppliers in the UK so I am confused why they cannot offer the higher speeds when cable networks are perfectly capable of carrying them.

Again, All down to companies not wanting to spend money on improving the network. Where I lived before I was with Telewest for years, Those cables were put in the road in 1986 and they never upgraded them. Then when it fell under Virgin, They started increasing the speeds. They exceeded their contention ratio 10 fold in the area and in the evening when everyone was using the internet the speeds were slower than a sleeping tortoise.

When you look at countries like South Korea, It shows how a proper infrastructure works, With proper investment in it.

My biggest gripe with the UK is the get out with the word 'upto' it is about time the trade description act made it change to 'Minimum'.

[shaithis]

My biggest gripe with the UK is the get out with the word 'upto' it is about time the trade description act made it change to 'Minimum'.

You cannot have minimum......that would be a far worse scenario from a customers standpoint....as minimum would have to be zero.

What I would like to see is any metering or throttling to be present in the service name. i.e. "Upto 24MB (10GB limit plus throttling)"....let everyone know immediately that they need to read the small print..........

[capt_cornflake]

What I would like to see is any metering or throttling to be present in the service name. i.e. "Upto 24MB (10GB limit plus throttling)"....let everyone know immediately that they need to read the small print..........

The worst thing about the current situation is that often this isn't actually in the contract, it will just say "subject to FUP". Then in the event that you can actually find the FUP as it stands at that point they can still change it as they feel like it without notifying you.

[scaryjim]

One main difference between the UK and the Netherlands is pure, simple, size. The Netherlands is less than a quarter of the area of England, let alone the UK. The logistics of getting high speed connections across that much area is quite complex and pretty expensive. I'd be interested to see the comparison with France and Germany, for instance. I'd also be interested in the overall population density, and the variance within that - my gut feeling is that a higher percentage of the UK population live in rural areas and small towns (as opposed to large urban areas) than somewhere like Sweden.

[Sputnik]

You cannot have minimum......that would be a far worse scenario from a customers standpoint....as minimum would have to be zero.

What I would like to see is any metering or throttling to be present in the service name. i.e. "Upto 24MB (10GB limit plus throttling)"....let everyone know immediately that they need to read the small print..........

Of course you can have a minimum! When I signed up with 2 different ADSL providers both gave me an expected speed based on a line test and both were cautious assumptions on the speed.

The other thing that should be automatic is when there are say upto 10 or 20 mbps packages, If they cannot provide more than 10% over the lower package they should suggest you are downgraded to the lower cost package.