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John Hansen wrote: > Shaun Orchard wrote: > >> 2009/7/31 Neil Winchurst <barnaby@xxxxxxxxxx>: >> >> >>> Referring to the last sentence, exactly. Which I why I stay well clear >>> of BT. >>> >>> I still find it hard to believe that this country has its phone network >>> run by a private company. Crazy. >>> >>> Which probably explains why we are so far behind most other western >>> European countries for broadband speeds. >>> >>> >> To use a few of the bigger players as an example: >> >> The French government holds a 27% stake in France Telecom >> The German government holds a 15% direct stake in Deutsche Telekom >> The Swiss government holds a 52% stake in Swisscom >> The Spanish government doesn't own any (if very little) of Telefonica. >> >> The only real difference is that some other European telcos have >> minority ownerships by their respective governments, whereas we do >> not. Even so, these companies will be expected to maintain a profit >> just as BT is. >> >> Even in countries with "superior" phone networks, the likelihood is >> that they still rely on ADSL/ADSL2+ for rural areas (if not in more >> urban areas also), so the distance limitations still apply as much as >> they do here. I doubt France Telecom, for example have rolled out >> remote DSLAMs to the outposts of rural France. >> >> Those headline speed tables are perhaps a bit flawed, because when BT >> rolls out ADSL2+ in any significant scale (I'm on one of the few >> non-town exchanges to get it next year) we'll look better in the >> tables. But, as ADSL2+ doesn't really provide a huge benefit to longer >> lines (unless SRA is enabled so the speed can vary based on line >> conditions without resyncing), the problems we have now will still >> exist. >> >> Shaun >> >> >> > > The problem as I see it that BT and the electricity companies have been > allowed to continue > to distribute using overhead cables. They should have been obliged to > put them underground > in concrete pipes or the like. This would have facilitated the use of > fiber optics. > > John W Hansen > As someone has pointed out overhead is soooo much cheaper than underground and tends not to fill up with water - though I'm getting less convinced about that side of the argument... There is absolutely no reason why fibreoptic cant be strung overhead - in 1990 it was cheaper than copper but privatisation has changed all that. When it comes to provisioning of tech that develops we actually have it quite bad here because we had it good - we were one of the first with strowger exchanges so we were late with 'fully' electronic exchanges and as they came in along came broadband so we have to maintain service, rip out relatively new gear and put in modern stuff. I was working for BT when it was privatised and we laughed at how much it was valued at - idiot accountants from the US saying 'well we can do it so much cheaper in the US so you must be able to do it too so we're going to make a killing' without taking into account the fact that most of our towns aren't on a grid system, are several hundred years old and dont have sensibly laid out service ducts everywhere, and as the services were privatised over to idiot managers there is ZERO chance of them ever getting together and using the same hole in the road at the same time. But remember - we dont need faster broadband - we need compression - or rather less pointless expansion of data (PDF.Docs contentless flash content...) and a sense of reality. You want to watch telly - watch it on the telly - you want to download an HD bit of telly remeber to set it going long before you watch it! Tom te tom te tom > > -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html