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The UK Decides 10 Mbps Broadband Should Be a Legal Right (engadget.com)
British homes and businesses will have a legal right to high-speed broadband by 2020, the government said Wednesday, dismissing calls from the network provider BT that it should be a voluntary rather than legal obligation on providers. From a report: Ministers originally considered adopting BT's voluntary offer, which would have seen it spend up to 600 million pound ($804 million) giving 1.4 million rural residents access to speeds of at least 10 Mbps. However, in a statement today, the government confirmed that it now will go down the regulatory route as it provides "sufficient certainty and the legal enforceability that is required to ensure high speed broadband access for the whole of the UK by 2020." Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said: "We know how important broadband is to homes and businesses and we want everyone to benefit from a fast and reliable connection. We are grateful to BT for their proposal but have decided that only a regulatory approach will make high speed broadband a reality for everyone in the UK, regardless of where they live or work."
snip...
and whats with the red TARDIS it the title?
I heard the next Doctor was going to be a female - does she change the colour?
It is red phone box, red was the default colour for the telephone boxes provided by what it now BT (formerly British Telecom and prior to that the General Post Office), the Tardis is a Police Box.
No, that is incorrect. This is the government deciding that, in the 21st Century, access to broadband Internet is a fundamental part of national infrastructure as the electric grid and telephone, and that there are minimum standards that must be met by providers as per the law.
You aren't getting a 10 Mbps connection for free, just like you aren't getting electricity for free. What they are saying is if you elect to purchase access to those universally available services, there will be a minimum standard available to you.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Who is going to pay for the infrastructure?
I know what you want people to answer... "The government, it's a free hand-out, socialist state", etc.
And whereas, initially that is true, in the end, the person using that connection will pay for it. It will just take longer for the IPS to get their money back from installing the cable for a rural route not already served, than it would in a densely populated urban cluster. If it takes a company 10 years to recoup an investment they will be less willing to invest than if it takes 5. Sometimes they don't want to invest, or take risks in a longer term investments. The government is forcing their hand here.
Some of the really rural, out of the way, places, they may never make their money back. They will most places eventually though. Most of the UK is fairly densely populated. Even rural areas in the UK aren't usually too far from an urban hub. It's not like the US Midwest where you can sometimes drive an hour without hitting a major population centre.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
For download speeds, anything over 10Mbps is fine for 99% of normal users
Indeed. At 10 Mbps my wife and daughter can each watch a different movie, and I can still get work done. That is enough for me.
Quibble: The UK is saying that 10 Mbps is an entitlement, not a right. An entitlement is what someone else is required to give to you ... although you still have to pay your bill to get your bits.
This 4K argument is crap.
Why not argue about 8K streaming? 16K streaming? There will always be a higher resolution and there will always be people that will spend a ton of money to get it aso that they can brag about having more than you.
720p is a very fine resolution for pretty much everything. You dont need more. You just want more. Pay for your own wants.
"His name was James Damore."