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Re: [LUG] Possible solution for faster broadband to rural areas

 

On 29/07/10 20:21, Gordon Henderson wrote:

Which are typically those in rural areas... )-:

I think there's something of a lack of understanding regarding the
nature of some of the areas that currently have poor quality of
internet access amongst some people (though probably not so many
on this particular list who I imagine must be in the same boat).

Where I live is less than three miles from the nearest town centre,
about ten miles from the centre of the county town and if I'm in a
hurry I can be on the M5 in less than 20 minutes.  It doesn't sound
exactly rural, let alone in the middle of nowhere.

Yet my house is probably almost three miles from the nearest BT
cabinet (or the exchange -- I don't know if there is a cabinet
between us and the exchange at all) and most of the houses in
the parish are further out than that.  No-one in the parish has mains
gas or mains sewerage, some don't even have mains water, and the nature
of the land means that unless you're in one of the three small clusters
of houses in the parish, you probably can't even see your neighbours.

We're not just talking about a few people stuck on Exmoor, or Dartmoor
or Bodmin who have poor internet access.  We're talking about a far
larger number of people in the less densely populated areas of the
country who actually live quite close to centres of population.  I bet
there are loads of similar places all over the entire country.

I'm not expecting sympathy; I've made my bed and I'm exceptionally happy
to lie in it.  It just irritates me when I hear some people talk about
"a few people in rural areas who can't get high speed internet access"
as if it were just a handful of people in the Scottish highlands and
halfway up Snowdon or in the middle of the Peaks when they've no real
idea what they're talking about.

As to whether people in such situations should pay more to get high
speed internet access, I'm not really sure.  If it's regarded as
sufficiently important that the govt mandates that everyone who wants
it should be able to get it, I think perhaps not.  I'd argue that where
provision of a service is deemed to be to everyone's benefit or is
considered essential then the cost should be the same for everyone.
Sometimes that means some people subsidise the cost of some services
for other people, but it's far from a one-way street.  That's the way
civilised societies ought to work as far as I'm concerned.  I realise
that others may not share this view, but by definition they're clearly
inadequately civilised :)

James

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