"Fast broadband for all by 2020 pledged by David Cameron"

Caged

Caged

Caged

Man of Honour
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
26,749
Mr Cameron's latest announcement is aimed at ensuring consumers have access to a broadband connection with a speed of at least 10Mbps, no matter where in the country they live or work.
"Access to the internet shouldn't be a luxury, it should be a right - absolutely fundamental to life in 21st Century Britain," he said.
Mr Cameron, who is expected to set out further details next week, added: "Just as our forebears effectively brought gas, electricity and water to all, we're going to bring fast broadband to every home and business that wants it.
"We're getting Britain - all of Britain - online, and on the way to becoming the most prosperous economy in the whole of Europe."
Click to expand...

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We want to upgrade the universal service obligation to provide fast broadband speeds of 10Mbps for the very hardest to reach homes and businesses. Those at the end of the line, the last 5% that we are desperate to get to.
"So we're putting in place this regulation, that we're going to consult on at the beginning of next year, to make sure that if you're in that last 5%, you can demand, and you'll get it."
Click to expand...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34753331

I'm not sure how I feel about this. If we're on target for 95% coverage of 24Mbps+ connections by 2017 through commercial developments, BDUK and community altnets then is it really necessary to cover the final 5%? What provider has to deliver the 10Mbps service, and who decides what the price should be?

Let's assume it's tacked onto the existing USO that Openreach / KC are covered by. If you live in a house 8 miles from a telephone exchange then is it really reasonable for Openreach to run fibre to your house and pass the costs onto the government (e.g. us) to pick up (I assume that's what would happen - it's even less reasonable to assume Openreach should fund it).

If it costs the same amount of money to get the last 0.1% of the country up to a 10Mbps service as it would cost to fibre up a small town then surely it's better to upgrade the town?

The proposal is due to go for consultation next year, and I think if it goes through we are going to end up with remote communities waiting for 5 years, only to be handed a 4G dongle or a satellite service and told that the letter of the law has been adhered to, and to get on with it.
 
Didn't he promise it by 2012? And then again by 2015? Its pretty ridiculous that in 2015 everyone who wants fast bb isn't already able to get it.
 
Physics dictates the reason why not everybody who wants fast internet is able to get it for a price they would be comfortable paying as a home user.

Political promises don't change the feasibility of certain technologies, or bring down the cost of deploying them.

What if the only way to get a 10Mbps service to a customer is to cross land owned by someone who won't give a wayleave agreement? Would the USO not apply in that instance, or would the provider be required to make an 8 mile detour? Who pays for that?

The actual wording of any legislation will be really interesting.
 
Last edited:
The only thing getting in the way of a proper roll-out is the government giving all this taxpayer money to BT, known for investing teh very minimum.
 
Caged said:
Who should the money have gone to instead?
Click to expand...

Not BT. :p

They should have encouraged smaller providers like Gigaclear and Hyperoptic to bid for the taxpayer money. FTTC is a cheapskate technology, should have been blanket FTTP. The government should have put FTTP converage obligations onto BT before giving them a penny, similar to what was done with the 4G spectrum auction. I know it would have been more expensive to roll out FTTP, but it's WAY more future proof than FTTC.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like another by pay cheque for BT. Rather than invest the money to alternative providers they we'd rather throw money at BT to burn away increasing speeds of the already enabled.

Broadband doesn't have to come down a copper cable from a monopolised system. There are much more viable options that would not only get better value for money but would also help drive the economy.
 
thebennyboy said:
Not BT. :p

They should have encouraged smaller providers like Gigaclear and Hyperoptic to bid for the taxpayer money. FTTC is a cheapskate technology, should have been blanket FTTP. The government should have put FTTP converage obligations onto BT before giving them a penny, similar to what was done with the 4G spectrum auction. I know it would have been more expensive to roll out FTTP, but it's WAY more future proof than FTTC.
Click to expand...

How would you break that news to the people who would have been left out that have been covered by BDUK's FTTC deployments? Or would you just spend 10x as much?

Gigaclear have won BDUK contracts anyway - http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500256876/Gigaclear-breaks-ground-on-BDUK-FTTP-networks

Altnets are not necessarily the answer to the problem that you can say BDUK money should have gone to them instead of Openreach. Just look at Fibre GarDen and their horrific financial situation. At least by awarding BDUK contracts to Openreach you can be reasonably sure that the work will actually get done, and residents that you represent will have a choice of services once it's all done. No it isn't perfect, but short of laying a publicly-owned open-access fibre optic last mile across the country I really don't know what would please some people.
 
Last edited:
demonix said:
Isn't what virgin media been offering for ages the same thing since that cable that comes into your property doesn't have any fibre optic cables in it at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but Virgin don't rely on the crappy phone cable to do the work at least.

I'm so far from the cabinet I'm connected to that even though its a fibre cabinet, I can't top 5mb. I have to wonder if that might at least be a bit better if I could get the whole run replaced with a higher quality cable.

It's in the country anyway so its already mostly overground.

The issue with the new announcement as with all the others, is that people like myself in the boonies have no option other than 4g or Satellite. One is an ok speed but with bad latency and some bandwidth restrictions, the other is great but with huge restrictions.
 
Last edited:
It's a bit of a masterstroke played by Virgin Media that has convinced people that twisted pair copper cables are fundamentally inferior to copper coax. In reality the differences in attainable speed come down to the network design of the two systems.

I can honestly see a future where FTTP never happens (to existing properties at least, FTTP makes a lot of sense in new developments), but the fibre just gets closer and closer to people's homes and might split out at the pole to 10 users instead of at the cabinet to 100, keeping the final line length to well under 100m. There are huge advantages to this approach, cost being only one of them.
 
Last edited:
Aren't BT currently trailing fibre over the poles at the moment? The UKs existing copper network isn't the future. It needs a progressive swap out to fibre by BT or the money needs giving to people who actually CAN deliver what they say but importantly, in a timely process.
 
I think getting hung up on how a service is delivered is pointless. If technology can progress to a point where a more than acceptable internet connection can be delivered without having to go into people's houses to splice fibre together then what's the problem? If there's a fibre node in the ground 50m down your street, or 30m away on a telephone pole, and then some other technology provides 100Mbps+ over a copper pair then I don't think it matters that much.

I'd rather see less expensive options deployed that actually generate a sustainable income for the people who deployed it, than a bunch of bankrupt altnets getting peoples' hopes up and then collapsing. If you took BDUK money and gave it to a provider that was going to build a fibre network in a location where Openreach had already deployed FTTC then that provider would go bankrupt, because people aren't like us, they'd rather have cheap internet than the fastest internet.
 
Sitting on the end of a sub 2 meg connection when our exchange is fibre enabled I'm hoping we get seen as a 'quick fix' to hit up a good percentage of homes!

New build housing estate started 2 years ago, haven't bothered putting a fibre cab in yet but see that the postcode is recognised by BT now we're 'under review'...
 
IMHO, there needs to be an select MP enquiry as to why BT/Openreach can install copper cables to new builds but not put a fibre in while they're at it.
also in my opinion fttc is BT/openreach back end infrastructure and shouldn't be sold as fibre 'connected'. After all the IP back bones are fibre, smoke and mirrors, toothless Ofcom.
 
Last edited:
I raised this with my local MP at the time as she was all for 'faster broadband' for the area, although she sent one of her staff round to see me to actually explain how things worked :p

Nothing much happened, my main point was why allow the devs to be built without providing the necessary infrastructure to meet the governments own targets.

As mentioned though at least we now show up on BTs radar, before we were not showing up in any of their checks or plans as we weren't around when they were made, and the local 'connecting Devon and Somerset' group couldn't do anything as we fell in a BT covered area.

Just hope they can actually get a fibre cab in at somepoint in future as would be nice, although been living with 2.4meg just fine really (out of the box connection is about 1.7 but some SNR fiddling brings it up a little, and when you only have a little to start with it makes a big difference!).
 
I agree that new build should be FTTP (providing that the exchange is up to the task, the costs aren't obscenely high for whatever reason etc.) - but as far as I'm aware this is down to the developer. If councils don't ask about what a developer plans for a new estate in terms of telecoms then that's sort of their problem - some just build houses and then run away and let Openreach dig it all up again to install phone lines.

I think BT Retail are still the only ISP offering services on the Openreach FTTP platform though, or at least the only provider offering voice over it. That would need to change or half the estate would be enjoying their fast connections and the other half would be moaning that Sky can't give them broadband. I'm not sure if that's a technical limitation or just Sky etc. not being bothered about FTTP deployments since it's still a tiny number.
 
should have done Fibre to the street. Then combined with G.Fast it would be a easy rollout to get a street upto speeds of between 150Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s depending on your distance to the distribution point or aka FTTdp.

less than around 100 meters you could get anywhere upto 1Gbit/s obviously hardly anyone would get those speeds, it would be under this but should easily be over 500Mbit/s but between 250 to 500 meters from the distribution point you would be getting between 150 to 500 Mbit/s

a lot faster than what this FTTC is offering and will soon be outdated as times move on. When 4k becomes the norm a most streaming services and gaming moves on to UHD you will see most homes getting over saturated and not have the bandwidth for most users needs.

Fiber optic are a good company to invest in! Even try to get Google over here would be great!

Edit -

Not fiber optic sorry i meant Hyper optic!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom