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British Broadband (Finally) Jumps

Posted by timothy on from the net-meters-replace-gas-meters dept.

seldo writes: "The BBC is reporting that BT's previously-announced cuts in broadband prices are having a rapid effect, and demand for broadband in the UK is suddenly taking off. Finally!"

4 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. 'Broadband Britain' is somewhat a sham. by wackybrit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As you can see by the hundreds of people rushing to post on this topic (not), we're not excited or really interested in this story.

    Why? Because BT, Cable & Wireless, NTL, and all of the other British telcos have spewed bullsh*t like this in the past without actually delivering.

    It's nice that BT is dropping the wholesale price of DSL, but that doesn't actually mean their installations will get any quicker, that the DSL will remain reliable, or even that large swathes of the country will ever get DSL.

    In the mid 90's, we were told that cable modems were a 'year away'. Funnily, we were told this in 96, 97, 98, and 99, when the trials started to roll out. A similar thing occured with DSL.

    But let's face it, BT is a lumbering giant, and not particularly interested in 'broadband for all'. Unlike Canada, our government won't fork in some $$ to help them out, so we're stuck with their patethetic inefficiency. The UK is a tiny country, but even places like Finland, Sweden, and Canada have better coverage than us.

    Wi-Fi = Non Existant

    To compound these problems, WiFi is not taking off in the UK at all. I know of a few trials around London, and they want to hook some stuff up in Wales, but as a whole, it's not available. Unlike in the US, we don't have any small local WiFi providers.. why not? Because in remote areas that would benefit from WiFi.. the ISP can't get the affordable bandwidth to hook all of the customers onto the Internet anyway!!

    So, Broadband Britain is a sham, and I fear it will remain that way for some time. Move on from this story. Nothing to see here.

    --
    mogorific carpentry experiments
    1. Re:'Broadband Britain' is somewhat a sham. by seldolivaw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's nice that BT is dropping the wholesale price of DSL, but that doesn't actually mean their installations will get any quicker, that the DSL will remain reliable, or even that large swathes of the country will ever get DSL....

      ...In the mid 90's, we were told that cable modems were a 'year away'...

      I'm posting this from a computer sitting behind a BT ADSL connection. My friends across town have one too, and my friends in the next town over have a cable modem from NTL instead (much better than BT, and only £25 a month, but not available here).

      I wholeheartedly agree that Britain lags behind in broadband, and I also agree that the fault lies mainly with BT for maintaining an effective monopoly on the last mile, amongst other things. But the same was true of dial-up access in the first place, and it is now almost ubiquitous. Britain will get its act together -- a few years after the rest of the world, as usual.

  2. Re:Belgian version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Similar things happened in Canada a few years ago when we had our broadband "goldrush". ISPs had a hard time keeping up with the sudden increase demand. But now that things have settled down, service quality has increased. Expect a year or two of crap service.

  3. Availability is another thing by cheekymonkey_68 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't think this is BT being generous though they're just trying extend their mononoply position over the local loop into the broadband area.

    BT's competitors buy access to the network through BT, so when BT cuts their prices they price their charges so that the minnows can only compete on wafer thin margins.

    BT has competition from the cable co's for sure, Telewest and NTL mainly but they are both heavily in debt and have not spent the resources upgrading their networks for broadband access.

    For example, I've got a cable phone line and for I live in Parkstone on the Poole/Bournmeouth border and for over 5 years NTL have been promising broadband is coming soon.

    I could go to BT but that would mean changing my phone line, and paying BT's higher prices, as for cheap broadband NTL offer a basic 128k service for £15 a month, which would be good if they actually provided across the country (yeah I know 1 meg would be better, but try getting the wife to agree !)

    NTL took over the old C&W franchise and have dragged their feet over introducing broadband to all us C&W customers.

    The only competition in the sector is really from the small indepedents biting at BT's ankles.

    Better stop before I go into rant mode!