Slashdot Mirror
Belfast Plots 1Gbps Ultra-Fast Broadband Network
twoheadedboy writes "Belfast is going to get ultra-fast broadband, as plans for a 1Gbps network get going. Belfast's City Council has been guaranteed £6m of the UK government's £100m Urban Broadband Fund, but could receive up to £13.7m if the Government approves its plans. The city plans to get the network up and running in three years, which will make it one of the best-connected cities in the world."
Seems like all of Belgium's neighbours are developing plans to roll out FTTx .
Meanwhile we're stuck in the dark ages and this country's telecom duopoly (Belgacom & Telenet) can't seem to care.
On one hand we have the semi-nationalised Belgacom, earning money on the network they were able to roll out using taxpayer's money.
They recently decided investing in FTTH is too soon, preferring to look into revitalizing DSL technology to support marginally higher speeds (50 MBit instead of 20).
Smaller providers resell their service with somewhat better pricing and conditions, but they are not big enough to make a dent.
Then there's Telenet which owns the cable market on the Flemish side of the country. They started advertising "Faster than light" 100/5 Mb/s connections to customers, but were forced to retract this ad due to false advertising because 1) It's not faster then light 2) Their product FibetNet is not actually FTTH but fiber to the neighbourhood and then distributed across DOCSIS 3.0 modems.
Bottom line: neither company has any financial intrest in rolling out FTTH, citing high costs and low potential returns. They seem to think their current products are more than fast enough for today's online applications and that technology firms don't need to invest in new technologies to remain in business.
Years ago a plan was hatched by politician Vincent Van Quickenborne called SuperFastBelgium. It aimed to promote fiber rollout with financial incentives to companies. Nothing ever happened. I wrote an e-mail to that politician's cabinet asking what happened and if there had been any meetings with industry leaders as promised. I only got a political bullshit answer, nothing concrete at all. (Never voting for you!)
So it is with a tear in my eye that I read this article and hope that one day, people in charge here wake up and actually get off their asses to do something for a change. Because I want my 1 Gbps FTTH!!!
...government renames Northern Ireland capital Belreallyfast, as Irish linguists protest.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Since liquids have been banned, only dry humour has survived.
1/3 of Ulster is in the Republic. Ulster is not synonymous with the North.
What'll really bake his noodle later on is that the most northerly point in Ireland is in the south...
Will consumers be able to transmit/receive a data throughput of 1 Gb/s?
Yes, but not on Sundays if the DUP have anything to do with it. FWIW I wouldn't trust our politicians to do anything but piss away the money. Mainly though I do wonder what the "problem" is. I'm on a low internet speed through Virgin Media of 20Mb, which I could upgrade to 60Mb for free but I just can't see the point (need to change the router - the hassle isn't worth it). The Internet speeds in Belfast seem fine, but the culchies are still using hairy string and baked bean tins - throw some money their way.
One of the best ways to go about this is to use the same approach as Stockholm, where we've had "ultra-fast" 1Gbps broadband for quite a few years now.
The city has founded and funded a city owned company with the sole purpose of putting fiber in the ground to every part of the city. The company then allows any ISP to rent space in the fiber, ensuring fair competion in the internet connectivity marketplace. Since the company has easier access to city decision makers whenever they need to dig up a street it is possible to coordinate the work and put more cable in the ground at a faster pace.
Since the company gets good revenue from the ISPs the city only had to use taxpayer money for the initial part of the network and has now regained that investment.
Everyone wins and the internet gets better!