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1Gbps Fiber Optic Network For Rural Britain
cylonlover writes "Economies of scale mean that densely populated cities have generally been the ones to benefit from the roll out of superfast broadband networks, while those in rural areas have missed out. Following Google's recent announcement that it will build and test 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in selected cities with between 50,000 and 500,000 residents in the US, starting with Kansas City, Kansas, Fujitsu has unveiled plans to create a similar superfast FTTH broadband network for five million homes and businesses in rural Britain to bridge the digital divide between city and country."
Here in Finland you have to pay €15,000 just to have a wired connection in some areas.
Like the rollout to rural areas of the NBN in Australia, smart and powerful people are rolling out fast FTTH broadband so IT people can live the dream, move to the farm and give up on the city rat race. You don't need to live in the inner city to write code.
At least until the apocalypse.
...is that they want £500m from the government to build it, which is almost all of the money set aside to provide rural broadband. That may well be worth it (I know people in rural areas who would probably think so), but I'm not sure if it's a good idea for Fuijitsu to have no competition.
Ftth! Ftth! Ftth! Ftth! FTTH!
Damn hairball.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Don't they mean UPTO 1Gbps!
Unlimited usage*
*we will read every bit of data and stop anything we don't like.
Soon, as rural Britain discovers the entertainment value provided by LOLcats, Farmville, and Rebecca Black, they suddenly won't be bored anymore. Not being bored, they will no longer desire to work the lands. Crops will wilt, no longer be transported to cities and production will fall 90%, and Britain will be cast into the greatest famine since 1315.
Desperate for food, and with their rural counterparts still clapping their hands and laughing feverishly, city-dwelling Britain citizens will start flowing out of the cities in search of food. They will swarm around farms in hope of finding some left-over crops. Soon the survivors will build homes on these farms, and cultivate crops of their own. With cities left desolated and deserted, the new urban areas will be the previously rural areas. And soon enough, Fujitsu will unveil new plans to provide high-speed broadband to the now-isolated rural-urban areas. It's all part of their plan.
Can we get rid of this stupid meme about the British having bad teeth? It may have been true in the 1950s but an entire generation has been brought up on Fluoride toothpaste since then. As a result the old drilling, filling and extracting business has dried up to such an extent that dentists are desperately trying to stay in business by bleaching teeth to an un-natural #ffffff white, giving Botox injections etc. The meme may come from a Simpsons episode but the British can like the Simpsons without believing that Americans are all made of yellow plastic.
I live in Cheltenham, UK (a city of approximately 100,000) and my 5 year old flat block has over 150 units in it; but due to anti-competitive ISP consolidation (and very bad business decisions), companies haven't invested in modern internet infrastructure. I've seen my local exchange. It is a barely manageable mess of copper cables and dangling punch down blocks which isn't due an to upgrade to support ADSL2 for more than a year.
The fastest internet connection I can purchase is a mere 2.2mbps downstream/100 kbps upstream; I had faster internet access 20 years ago when I lived in Ottawa, Canada. Screw the villagers, put the money were the population is.
I've been told this by my last two dentists, both of whom have been very good. My present one says he prefers to feel good about his profession rather than promote unnecessary work, and recently spent an hour carefully rebuilding a tooth rather than fit a crown because he "wanted to keep as much of the original as possible, and besides crowns can take a long time to settle down". That's probably why, at well over 60, I still have all the teeth that I had at 18.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Which went like this:
I'd buy a dilapidated old gamekeeper's hut high up on the moor. Every morning, fortified by a heart-stopping fry-up I'd pull on my Wellies, don my tweed coat and cap, and grab my blackthorn walking stick for brisk walk down the moors to the village pub, we're I'd hear the news. Hour after hour, pint after pint I'd join in the general complaining about the state of the government, the weather, and the livestock. I'd then make my tipsy way back to my hut, falling exhausted into bed for nine hours or so of dreamless sleep, then wake up and do it again. This would go on until one day I drunkenly wandered into the fatal mire on the way home. Then, as I was sucked down to be preserved as a curiosity for future generations of archaeologists, I'd pull out my emergency hip flask of gin. I'd pour a stiff shot into the chrome flask cap, then toast a life of dogged utility crowned by one brief, glorious interlude of useless, low-tech pleasure.
Now I know I'll never get down to the pub, because I'll be checking Slashdot "before I go out". Soon I'd be ordering liquor off the Internet, because "it was more convenient". I might as well spend my declining years back here in the States in a high rise apartment block.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.