not that i know a lot of things but the government took over the roll out in sweden as most people have 100mb to home? up and down? or at the very least 10mb up down?
anyone explain?
also there are a lot of far poorer countries like lithuania? with better internet that us?
IIRC a lot of the countries (especially poorer ones) that are now approaching/beating the speeds we can get (nationally*), have basically bypassed about 70 years of infrastructure, and gone straight from little or no infrastructure, to infrastructure intended from the outset to deal with modern needs (as opposed to it being intended for basic voice, then fax).
If you're putting down the basis of a phone/comms system for the first time it make sense to do the best you can (the extra cost is relatively small if done during the initial setup), the cost of doing it later can be almost as much as starting from scratch.
We're at least partly at a disadvantage in that we've got a working system already in place, so there isn't a pressing need to replace everything (some councils for example make it very hard/expensive to dig up the roads/streets unless something goes wrong).
Just think of the complaints when NTL were digging up the roads, or when the Gas/Electricity/Water boards dig up the roads
If you don't have the service already, that inconvenience doesn't get anything like the complaints/opposition.
It's good to hear that BT are going to fibre up more houses than the initial bunch, although I suspect the ones they will be doing will be those where it's easiest/cheapest and will likely get them the best return for the money (not something anyone can really fault a private company for doing).
Caged, VM's network may still be copper for the last mile, but it's very different copper to the stuff used for phone lines, and largely in ducting already, so it's much better placed for high speeds to begin with, and probably considerably easier to replace with fibre when the time comes (assuming the ducting isn't damaged), not to mention they also have the option of many more powered local cabinets (so often the last mile is potentially much less than that).
*It is worth noting that a lot of countries that have higher "headline" speeds than we do, either don't have them nationally or possibly even a lower national average (it depends on how you compare the speeds, by what is available on average, in a single major city, or cities and towns).
