Slashdot Mirror
British Broadband Needs £1bn More Funding
judgecorp writes "A report from the London School of Economics says that funding for superfast broadband in Britain faces a £1.1 billion shortfall. It's a government priority, but rural areas are uneconomic to cable up. From the article: 'Britain is in danger of missing out on the economic and social benefits of superfast broadband due to a lack of government funding and e-skills, according to a new report.
Research by the London School of Economics (LSE) and Convergys claims a funding gap of £1.1 billion could cause the government to miss its target of having the “best superfast broadband network” in Europe by 2015.'"
How dare you call our little island cold!
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At a time when austerity is the word of the day and cuts are being made all over the place, I wonder whether "superfast broadband" in rural areas is the best way to use limited resources. Presumably, people choose to live in rural areas because they derive benefits from that (clear air, outdoors, less crime, community, etc.). Good for them! But why should city dwellers subsidize their rural lifestyle? If you choose to live in a rural area with low population density, you have to accept that perhaps your internet connexion will not be as fast as if you lived in bustling city.
Just before the 2010 general election, the now ex-Labour government shoved through (mostly) to BT, the main backbone company in the UK £10bn to upgrade switches etc. to enable spying on all phone calls and internet traffic in real time. Imagine what you could do for an economy instead of spying on people, you built a phone / data network that is faster than your competitors for businesses.
Oh well, you can dream on with politicians having common sense. They are more worried about themselves and what people are saying about them, than worrying about the economy.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
How amusing - our dear little con-dem Government reckons Britian will have the best superfast broadband by 2015, do they? Well, they might like to "encourage" BT to pull its finger out and upgrade all the exchanges to ADSL2 for a start. There are thousands of small exchanges stuck about 5 years in the past and no plans whatsoever to upgrade them.
Meanwhile all the effort seems to be going to towns and cities, the places that already have the choice of cable or ADSL2 or fibre to the cabinet. They really ought to splunk that cash on bringing everyone up to speed instead, but no, as it's all about money it's far more efficient for them just to push ahead where there's already fast broadband.
I think there's more chance of the Sun suddenly exploding than there is of the UK having the best superfast broadband by 2015.
Superfast broadband is great, but are there really economic and social benefits?
Fast broadband makes a difference to entertainment but hardly necessary for employment, communication or accessing public services. Unless the government has plan to put high end tech jobs out in the depths of the Scottish highlands I would have thought that 4 MBps would do just fine. I struggle to see why I should subsidise some farmers access to NetFlix.
Who commissioned this report again? Any danger of the LSE coming to the conclusions the client wanted?
We're not the power we once were, sun never setting on the British Empire and all that. But in terms of a ratio of political/economic power to geographical size, we pack a decent amount of power per sq. mile.
Also, biggest financial centre in the world, so suck it.
Then don't. Seriously, so much noise is made in the UK about universal access to broadband and the majority of it is people complaining that the speeds they get are terrible. Or that BT has told them they need to pay thousands if they want connecting. What do all of these people have in common? They live in rural areas often right in the middle of nowhere.
The papers love this kind of thing as it allows then to print headlines like "Rural Pensioner charged £90,000 for broadband setup". Ignoring what should be obvious to anyone which is if you choose to live in a remote location then you have to accept that there may be downsides to that decision. One of those downsides will inevitably be poorer access to services. Expecting any company (or government) to run miles of cable and install switching equipment for the sake of one house is ludicrous.
In the same way I can't move to the middle of nowhere and then complain that I have to walk miles to buy a paper in the morning, complaining about not having access to the best broadband speeds is hardly reasonable.
In that case the person needs to sit down and think hard about his choice to live where he does. The government subsidising roll out of broadband to every remote cottage in order to be able to claim 100% availability is a tremendous waste of money.
When you choose where to live you take into account a lot of different factors, nearby schools, sports facilities, local restaurants or amenities. Why is broadband any different from anything else? Last time I moved I checked likely ADSL speeds and availability of cable online when I was making a short list of properties.
I can't move to a remote location and then demand someone comes and builds a pub next door so I don't have to walk so far for a pint. Why should I expect someone to run miles of expensive cable to my door.
That works out to 16 pounds per person. That's less than one months revenue for the network operators.
We can raise that for them. C'mon slashdotters, start eating those hotpockets!
The problem isn't the places that have cables near them already, it's the ones that don't. Most major cities these days are fine and by 2015 probably will have some form of cable, FTTC or both, but it's the small towns and villiages (of which there are many) that are miles away and only have a few residents. If there's only 30 people there and the nearest telephone exchange is 5 miles away, then how much is it going to cost to lay that much cable and blanket the area in wireless? Now split that cost up by 30 and suddenly it's quite expensive.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill