£830m to improve broadband network

[Ice Tea]

http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/news/uk/2010/12/06/830m_to_improve_broadband_network

The Government is to spend £830 million in a drive to give the UK the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

An action plan entitled Britain's Superfast Broadband Future, published by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, sets out the ambition to create a "digital hub" in every community in the country by the end of this Parliament.

Linked to the nearest exchange by high-speed connections, the hubs would allow communities to extend the internet network to every home.

Mr Hunt said the plan aimed to stimulate private sector investment and cut barriers to business investment in the reliable and secure superfast network which ministers regard as vital to the UK's economic growth.

Ministers will invest £50 million in a second wave of pilot projects to test how digital hubs can be extended to all communities, including those in remote rural areas.

And there will be moves to cut the costs of access to communications infrastructure and new awards of 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum to allow the development of next-generation mobile services.

Already, more than 70% of UK households have broadband and nearly 50% have access to a superfast 50 Mbps service.

Mr Hunt said: "A superfast network will be the foundation for a new economic dynamism, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and adding billions to our GDP.

"But it is not just about the economy, around the world there are countless examples of superfast broadband helping to build a fairer and more prosperous society, and to transform the relationship between Government and citizens."

Rural Affairs Secretary Caroline Spelman said that rolling out superfast broadband to the countryside is "probably the single most important thing we can do to ensure the sustainability of our rural communities in the 21st century".


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[Naphta]

When we can get 100/100 Mb/s for the same as sweden ill be happy.

[StuartyB33]

where is this 50% that get 50mb i mean i live in glasgow city centre basically and i cant get that!!!

[Ice Tea]

Must be gutting when cable is available across the road or when the last box stops a few houses away. :D

[theelusiveyoda]

where is this 50% that get 50mb i mean i live in glasgow city centre basically and i cant get that!!!

I can get 50mb broadband but i dont like the idea of paying £50 a month when people in other countries pay less than half of that for faster speeds.

[Bigian88]

I can get 50mb broadband but i dont like the idea of paying £50 a month when people in other countries pay less than half of that for faster speeds.


I suspect the price will slowly decrease the more common it becomes (IE, when 80% of the UK is 50mb compatible and most are signed upto it) and not to forget the UK's very high TAX rate compared to other countries

[andyn]

When we can get 100/100 Mb/s for the same as sweden ill be happy.

Not likely to happen any time soon, the Scandinavian countries have always lead the world on broadband. It would be nice for us to not suck compared to countries like France and Germany though.

[NickCPC]

Scandanavia and east Asia - Korea and Japan put us to shame. Agree that it would be nice to beat our neighbours though. Heck, I'd be pleased even with 8Mb/s at my non-uni house, but 1Mb/s it is unless we win this "race to infinity" thing which seems unlikely.

[michaelkenward]

Ministers will invest £50 million in a second wave of pilot projects to test how digital hubs can be extended to all communities, including those in remote rural areas.
Ministers will invest? Tosh.

It is our money, we will invest, or, at a push, governments will invest.

Then again, they do like to treat it as their money to spend as they see fit. (Who gave that Gove idiot keys to the money box?)

But what is the point of touting maximum speeds when there is only so much capacity there?

In theory I can get 6 MB/s but there are times of the day when I am lucky to get 2 MB/s.

[NickCPC]

In theory I can get 6 MB/s but there are times of the day when I am lucky to get 2 MB/s.
You're on a 48Mb/s line? Nice.

I think the point is the capacity and associated infrastructure would naturally expand anyway - the kit BT are using for Infinity is capable of going over 40Mb/s. Hell, VM introduced 50Mb/s on equipment capable of well over 100Mb/s - indeed, all they need to do is effectively flick a switch and 100Mb/s could be enabled tomorrow.

Not only that, but we have paid our taxes into the government's kitty, and ministers are investing it on our behalf (well, that's how I see it).

[michaelkenward]

You're on a 48Mb/s line? Nice.

Er, no. 8 MB/s. Or was that a typo at your end?

I run a set of tests at different times of the day when I remember. Three different speed testers, including BT's. They usually agree to within a few percent. (And no, contrary to a silly suggestion somone made her a few months ago, BT's results do not usually come out the highest.)

You can almost see the load coming on and off.

But I am with Pipex, now a part of the infamous TalkTalk, which must be one of the crappiest ISPs on the planet. Their customer services certainly gets a lot of stick in the media.

It is usual practice, even in government, to talk of "government spending", or, as you accurately put it, investing on our behalf. They rarely describe it as "ministers spending". In that way they can avoid taking the can when things go belly up.

[NickCPC]

No, it was actually a rare typo on your end. An 8MB/s line would be equivalent to 64Mb/s (there are 8 bits in a byte, and there is a b capitalisation to indicate bytes). This is what annoys me about ISPs advertising in Mb/s when everyone knows that you're really interested in downloading in MB/s or, more appropriately given current infrastructure, KB/s - which companies or individuals label their files as 200Mb when everyone really would rather it be referred to as a 25MB file?! It's just marketing to make their speeds sound 8 times faster using a naming standard which is rarely complied with elsewhere in IT.

TalkTalk's customer service rightly gets ridiculed - we use them at home and they will extort you for every penny they can, from charging for an engineer visit when you have been forced to change contract since they've bought out your old ISP and then magically your connection speed cripples to well under the advertised 1Mb/s (or, for the sake of consistency of my rant, 128KB/s [OK, if we're bein pedantic 125KB/s but that's another story]), to forcing you to stay on hold for over an hour.

Interesting that they can find a crapload of money to advertise their "services" in primetime evening TV with partnership with the X-Factor, yet their CS appears to be overwhelmed and in dire need of investment. Their one saving grace was the recent refusal to hand over customer data from requests by ACS:Law, but who's to say they'd adopt the same mentality with a different "lawyer firm" in the future?

Anyway, end of rant.

[michaelkenward]

I see. Very cryptic of you. I was just recycling numbers used around here. Must be careful next time.

Anyone wanting to look into broadband usage around the world could look at this:

OECD Broadband Portal (http://www.oecd.org/document/54/0,3343,en_2649_34225_38690102_1_1_1_1,00.html)

New report, just out. Loads of spreadsheets for people to pore over.

The UK ranks 11th in "Fixed (wired) broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, June 2010".

But the UK is ahead of the USA.

We are lower down the league when it comes to "Terrestrial mobile wireless broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants".

One reason for the UK's poor position may be because we are cheapskates. We are number 1 in the league for "Price range, monthly subscriptions (Oct 2009)", number one as in cheapest, with monthly subscription prices ranging from $7.57 to 56.57. In the USA prices start at $19.99.

Then again, the "mean" and "median" numbers show that not many people get the lowest prices. Both are about $30 in the UK. Not quite the lowest in the OECD list, but near it.

We don't do well on fibre penetration:


"Fibre continues its growth relative to other fixed broadband technologies with fibre accounting for half of all broadband connections in Japan (55%) and Korea (52%). Other leading countries include the Slovak Republic (28%), Sweden (24%) and Denmark (12%)."
We seem to be at 6.4% cable and 0% fibre in the UK.