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On Tue, 2010-07-27 at 11:24 +0100, Henry Bremridge wrote: > In-Reply-To: <1280219638.9090.19.camel@subbass-desktop> > > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 09:33:58AM +0100, John Williams wrote: > > How about making the national telecommunications backbone public again, > > out of the hands of a private company. Paying shareholders is most > > likely the reason we have no/little fibre network. > > So far the Governments have taken the view that private companies paying > profts are cheaper, faster and offer more choice than the Government > themselves doing it. Certainly everything I have seen is that monolithic > public enterprises have not been well known for their customer service and > efficiency. Your experience may be different. I have never understood how paying an extra layer of "wages" to stockholders is better. Competition and efficiency can surely be achieved without that, but that is another issue entirely ;) > However if the Government wants broadband access for all, it is easy: pass > a regulation that it has to be provided. > <snip snip snip snip> Lots of good points some of which I don't know enough to argue against and most of which I agree, it has to be paid for certainly. How its paid for? I don't know. I do know however that other nations have managed it and are reaping the benefits while we move backwards (I say backwards as we just abolished the idea of minimum 2Mbit by 2012 for all) > I agree with the sentiment and if I look at "emerging" countries then their > internet speeds are faster still. South Korea as an example. > > http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/31/broadband.south.korea/index.html > just after posting previously I found http://www.speedtest.net/global.php#0 Lists the fastest results from various nations, an interesting point to note is in this article: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsId=3224977 It mentions the UK as being 33rd in the world in terms of average speed. Take a peek at today's position however and since the article was posted in May, we have dropped two more places already. > Personally I would like a law passed that says: > - Any new houses / buildings must be connected to fibre optic cable Unlikely to happen imo, isn't there a house shortage at the moment so the Govt isn't going to put things in the way of building for a few years. > - Any ISP / telco must have a simple webpage that provides MAC codes on > demand and switching must be simple and automatic. The page should also be > linked to lists of alternative suppliers who meet "quality" standards. A good idea, but again isn't going to happen imo. The outcry from having to "advertise" competitors would be febrile, to say the least. End of the day, in simple terms the Government has abandoned plans for even a moderately low speed that everyone should be capable of having. We seem to be falling further behind every month in terms of worldwide comparison, Lativia, Romania and Lithuania have much better speeds than "Broadband Britain", thinking what Sweden, Japan and South Korea have just makes me want to weep with regard to broadband :[ -- John Williams My linux blog of notes and guides http://subbass.blogspot.com/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq