British Broadband (Finally) Jumps

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!"

Comments

'Broadband Britain' is somewhat a sham.

[wackybrit]

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.