Top UK Cable Firms Scrapping DSL

jeffreyporter was one of a number of people who sent in the BBC story that's running about the hold-up of DSL in Britain, and the situation with the companies investing in it -- but the cable modem companies are quite pleased about this.

Comments

Availablility

[CarlFairhurst]

I'm one of the lucky few who actually has a high speed link via a cable modem. Even if I did want a DSL link, I can't even get an estimated date of when it would be available in my area. To make matters worse, BT cannot easily install DSL to anyone who has a IDSN link, they need to disconnect this first before they can even check to see if the line is suitable for DSL.
This has the unfortunate effect however of removing a lot of the competition that cable modems should otherwise have, which means there is little or not competition in the UK at the moment for high speed home internet connections, which in turn means we are paying more than we should, so it is in everyones interest for DSL to roll out as soon as possible and by as many people as possible.

State of the UK

[rf0]

Well to be honest I am not that surprised.

There are a number of things that hold up broadband access in the UK but the main one is Local Loop Unbundling (the last mile from the exchange to people) if owned by BT. Now OFTEL, the regulator is working to undo this but even though it should happen in the next 12 months BT are still dragging their feet by saying "there isn't enough room" in the exchanges. It isn't however all doom and gloom. There are cable companies like blueyonder and ntl trying to get cable out. Also there are a few wireless companines. But if you are like me and live in the sticks there isn't much help. For someone outside the UK you can get a good overview at broadbandhelp.com. Even though there are now quite a few ISP's offering DSL BT is still providing the bandwidth and of course it is their best intrests to take their time :(

Same problems in UK and USA....

[trims]

I work for one of the big CLEC DSL providers in the USA (Covad - perhaps the only one in about 3 months....)

I can state out loud, scream it from the treetops, and sign my life away as to the one reason DSL companies (both in the US and the UK and probably elsewhere) are having such a big problem:

The Monopoly Regional Telephone companies are being assholes.

That's the jist of it. The ILECs (or RBOCs, or just "The Telephone Company") are making it as miserable and as costly as possible for anyone else to install DSL in their COs.

All the ILECs here in the US consistently take far longer than need be to fix problems with loops (the wires from CO to house), run down normal problems in COs, install basic equipment in the CO, etc. Of course, they'll whine about being understaffed (oh, but you just laid off 30% of your wire techs? OF COURSE YOU'RE UNDERSTAFFED!), or that there's no room in the CO (but they're busy plopping in new equipment of their own...). In many places, they require that CLEC have the ILEC's people install anything into the CO, and require only their people to make changes. Of course, they happen to be fairly slow about this stuff...

I'm to the point where I'm seriously pissed off. The FTC/FCC in the US (and I'm assuming OFTEL in the UK) need to start seriously levying fines on the ILECs until they get their shit in gear. Right now, the ILECs are just making it miserable for the competition, simply because they can get away with it, and know that they have the $$ to do it later, while delays will kill their competition.

Fundamentally, I think the only real solution is to strip the local loop ownership from the ILECs. That is, force them to spin out a company that actually owns the "last-mile" physical plant (including COs), but doesn't do any telecom. That way, this new company has equal incentive to provide good service for everyone, ILEC and CLEC both.

I thkn that's the biggest flaw in the TeleCom Act of 1996 here in the USA - not forcing the ILECs to give up control of the local loop before allowing them into other areas. Hopefully, we can fix this soon, but for now, they just fucking piss me off, the wankers.

-Erik

There are other options

[Hanzie]

Being one of those disenfranchised many who can only get about 20K on a really good day with the lights out and the gods smiling...

Starband is offering high latency, high bandwidth 2-way satellite access, and a bird should be in geosynch over europe fairly soon. This means no modem connection, true 2-way to satellite communication.

The problem is that all packets have to travel 44,600 miles one way. At 186,000 miles/sec that means a .24 second delay one way, and a half second is added to any ping.

Internet gaming is out, but e-mail and surfing will rock.

I spent a couple of hours on the phone with a very clueful guy who runs their tech support. He said that they dont mind linux (he runs it himself) or server hosting. The upstream bandwidth is limited to about 50K, and a popular server would probably be frowned upon, but a personal website wouldn't be any problem.

Also, since this is mostly owned by Gilat (an Israeli company) there should be European coverage pretty quickly. According to my source, Gilat has planned on 3,000,000 people in the US using the service.

Anyway, there are 3 options.

1. Microsoft + Radio Shack (yeah, right)

1. Dish Networks ($100 for 150 channels + net)

1. Starband alone