Government Spells Out Plans For UK-Wide Full Fibre By 2033 (bbc.co.uk)

The UK government has set out a plan to roll out full fibre networks across all of the UK within 15 years by introducing laws to speed up the installation of fibre and subsidizing investment in very rural areas. From a report: The proposal comes as part of a new national telecoms strategy drawn up by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Under its targets, all of the UK will have full-fibre broadband coverage by 2033, replacing the copper wire network that currently delivers the service. It proposes legislation to encourage more private infrastructure investment. Earlier this month, research was published indicating that the UK has slipped from 31st to 35th place in the global broadband league tables, behind 25 other European countries. The data was collected by M-Lab, a partnership between Google Open Source Research and Princeton University's PlantLab, and the results compiled by UK broadband comparison site Cable.

Comments

US should have this, too

[phantomfive]

There's no reason the US shouldn't have this, too. Or at least your local state, if you prefer things at the state level.

Re:US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason the US shouldn't have this, too.

There are more than 8 million reasons, if each reason is a square kilometer. By comparison, The UK is a mere 242 thousand, and it's going to take 15 years.

Re:US should have this, too

[phantomfive]

There are more than 8 million reasons, if each reason is a square kilometer. By comparison, The UK is a mere 242 thousand, and it's going to take 15 years

That really doesn't make sense.......there are also more people in America, too. If you're going to make a comparison, you should talk about population density. But that isn't convincing either, because even with America's population density, most people are in regions that could be covered by fiber reasonably. We may have to compromise on remote places like Coulterville, California; but honestly I think we could even get fiber to them.

Re:US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Becareful what you wish for, they did the same with FTTC and it was always a joke.

Basically, there are two categories - ultra-high density inner city slums, and middle of nowhere, one house for miles type places that get funding, the former because it's deemed commercial viable due to numbers, but ends up being shit due to over-contention of service, and the latter because of sob-story type grants that make the government look good (or so they think).

Meanwhile everyone in the middle gets fucked over by the unregulated monopoly that is BT, who drag their feet, lie about deliveries and so on and so forth. With FTTC for example they classed an area as "connected to fibre" if the local exchange was capable of supporting it. That was useless of course unless the cabinets were upgraded, so in BT's stats they'd claim an area was 100% supported for FTTC if they'd upgraded the exchange, even if 0% of the population could actually get it.

So yeah, I get what you want, but it's not what's being advertised here unless you like rampant corruption, outright incompetence, and a record of under-delivering.

Re:US should have this, too

[zifn4b]

This is why: http://www.usdebtclock.org/. A lot of states are broke too. Mine certainly is.

Re: US should have this, too

[phantomfive]

They aren't broke until the creditors stop giving them money. I say "giving" because they aren't getting it back. California is broke but they spend plenty of money. And why not?

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US the republicans fight for peopleâ(TM)s âoefreedomâ to have a more expensive and antiquated infrastructure.

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

California has a budget surplus and theyâ(TM)re putting that into a reserve that will help in future recessions.

When the US last had a surplus the GOP cut taxes and put us back into deficiets. Oh and wrecked the economy too.

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

"Its fine to increase debt if its something I want!" - phantomfive 2018

Re:US should have this, too

[Shinobi]

Ah, this bullshit again. The only US state that has a valid reason to complain about area or population density, for the purposes of building out a fibre network, is Alaska. Every other state is easily manageable, there's only a lack of political will, and corporate bribes to ensure it doesn't happen.

Re:US should have this, too

[AmiMoJo]

In most places the limited roll out of fibre is due to incumbents. They have a network that is made of slow copper, and little incentive to upgrade it. No-one else is willing to install last mile infrastructure to compete with them.

There are ways to solve this. You can make the last mile much cheaper. In Japan you can get fibre that is attached to power distribution poles, for example. You can force the opening up of cable tunnels.

Another option is to force the upgrades to be done by the incumbent and for them to offer the network to other ISPs. That's what the UK is doing. So far it has failed to deliver decent speeds or choices. It's not properly unbundled either, for example you can't have ADSL without a land line.

Finally the government can build its own network. Doesn't have to be with public money necessarily, the government could contract it out and let the building collect rent from ISPs.

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idot.
Sincerely, most of the Western half of the country.

Re:US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

We gave the ISPs the money to do this once before, they didn't

Re: US should have this, too

[phantomfive]

We have success stories in America too, like Vermont and parts of Utah (note that these are not particularly dense population areas). I assume eventually this will be solved everywhere, but it will take a while.

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget that they based their whole strategy for the role out based on a survey of cabinet utilisation in 2008. Any houses built between then and 2014 when they re-evaluated got no fttc connection despite in many cases living by cabinets that had fibre trunking passing through them!

Re:US should have this, too

[aaarrrgggh]

Alaska?

Re: US should have this, too

[kenh]

So California's pensions are all paid up? The schools are adequately funded? Police and fire have all the resources they need?

Re: US should have this, too

[phantomfive]

Yeah, maybe Alaska gets the cut. I'm sorry but they're used to it.

Re:US should have this, too

[AmiMoJo]

Interesting, do we have some telecom industry shills moderating today or is it just someone stalking me? If it's the latter you wasted your mod point buddy, there is some SJW stuff you could have targeted later on.

Re:US should have this, too

[Ranbot]

There's no reason the US shouldn't have this, too. Or at least your local state, if you prefer things at the state level.

Maybe 10-15 years ago, but I'm not convinced nationwide fiber is a smart investment now. Next generation mobile networks (e.g. "5G") and low-orbit satellites could provide the nationwide broadband coverage more efficiently than laying and maintaining* physical wires along every rural public road. Those technologies are being tested right now and could use a boost of investment.

* - I don't think most people realize how expensive it is to maintain fiber cables. If a fiber cable is damaged by a storm or an inexperienced excavator operator you can't just splice the line and replace a few feet; you often have to replace hundreds, sometimes miles of fiber all around the damaged location. Urban areas can absorb the cost/risk to laying fiber, but rural areas might not.

Re: US should have this, too

[Synonymous Homonym]

How do you think your 5G cell towers connect to the net?

Smoke signals?

Cell towers are connected to the net by fiber.

Re:US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes. The ancient, crusty, and extremely odoriferous argument that "it (whatever it is) won't work in the US because it's so much larger."

Whatever you are saying won't work, just substitute the word "railroad(s)" and see how that flies.

Ta!

Re:US should have this, too

[jabuzz]

The bigger issue is that BT claimed that large areas of the country where commercially unviable to upgrade to FTTC because uptake would be too low. There are places where the FTTC cabinet that BT claimed where commercially unviable where are full, have had a second one added which is now also full. There was a large amount of clawback in the subsidy scheme to break that deadlock (which has laid bare BT's utter inability to predict demand) that kicked in when uptake reached a certain percentage on a cabinet. Admittedly most of that money has then been used to enable more cabinets with FTTC so the tax payer didn't actually get more money back but did get more people connected.

Note that BT pulled exactly the same stunt 20 years ago at the beginning of the ADSL rollout, claiming there was no demand for ADSL at 512kbps download 128kbps upload. Something that looks utterly bonkers now.

The thing about going full fibre is that while there might not be a wide spread use case today this is IT, and at no point in the last 50 years has network capacity not eventually filled up. So saying it won't fill up in the future is setting yourself up to look like an idiot and the time frame to roll out fibre is such that by the time you have finished the roll out there is almost certain to be the demand.

Finally with fibre once you have the physical fibre in place getting higher speeds is a matter of simply changing the optics at either end. However nearly all the expense in rolling out full fibre is in laying the cables not the optics that go on either end.

Re:US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't seen the suitcase sized fiber splicers then?

Re:US should have this, too

[oldmac31310]

Our Scandinavian friends continually remind us that they have extensive broadband with high speeds even in remote areas with low population density. Are they lying? I can't see any reason that they would.

My take on it is that the US on the whole has a short term ghetto mentality when it comes to future planning. Profit NOW! Invest in the future? No, that is socialism. Profit NOW!!! Meanwhile we pay plenty of tax that we see little 'benefit' from apart from the basic crumbling infrastructure, huge military (benefit? hah!) and...I can't think of anything else.

The fact the Brits are potentially implementing this might be commendable if it weren't for the fact that they are currently in the toilet due to their own population's and politician's idiocy (not unlike the US) but the 2033 goal seems very much a matter of, we have no idea what we are talking about, or how to do it, we'll get back to you. Best we dump this on a future government. Bye.

Re: US should have this, too

[oldmac31310]

I think you will find that the fight you have described is a bipartisan effort that benefits no one.

Re: US should have this, too

[oldmac31310]

I'm currently developing an entirely new communication system that will revolutionize life as we know it. It consists of an intricate web of wires and pulleys, and most important of all, smoke and hidden mirrors. It will be free to all. The only thing necessary will be the continual working of the bellows and operation of the treadmill. For an extra fee, if you are fortunate enough to dwell close to running water, my company will install a water wheel. State taxes may apply.

Pat. Pending

You were close, but I beat you to it!

Re: US should have this, too

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So California's pensions are all paid up?

The complaints in 2018 about pensions from Republicans is that they are more lavish than dirty government workers deserve. So, I'm guessing they cannot attack the long term viability of the pension system.

The schools are adequately funded?

They seem to be. Since local taxes pay for schools too, I'd guess there are underfunded schools in the state. But the typical one seems fine.

Police and fire have all the resources they need?

No program ever has "all the resources it needs". Hell, the US military, the most overfunded thing ever, still doesn't have moon-bases with lasers to destroy ICBMs.

Re:US should have this, too

[Shinobi]

What wireless telecom is paying you to post that drivel, Ranbot?

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Does most if not ALL of the western half the country have Phone lines? Yea they do? Well they can have fiber to if the government got off their asses.

Re: US should have this, too

[zifn4b]

They aren't broke until the creditors stop giving them money

Wow, you do know who the "creditors" are in this case right? I'll give you a clue, they have publicly stated that they want to be the dominant economic super power of the world by 2025. They are not members of the United Nations. They really don't like the United States very much. They especially don't like us because we started a trade war with them.

I love how you use the term "creditors" as if there are these magical creditor fairies that have an infinite amount of money to lend out. If that's what you think, at some point, you're in for a rude awakening. There is no free lunch, my friend.

Re: US should have this, too

[Ranbot]

How do you think your 5G cell towers connect to the net?

Smoke signals?

Cell towers are connected to the net by fiber.

You answered your own question.... Connect one fat fiber to a tower that covers many square miles instead running fiber down every little rural podunk road to every cabin or farmer's doorstep. I didn't mean to say no fiber at all in rural areas, just that it's not cost-effective to run fiber to every doorstep, when wireless technology can bridge that gap.

FWIW, I grew up in a very rural area on gravel road where my parents still live. They had dial-up until about 2006, when a regional Wi-Fi ISP opened, which made browsing the web bearable but a far cry from "broadband". Standard cable TV/internet became available to them ~4 years ago. My father works in IT, so he jumps on these things as soon as he can, so you can't blame them for being luddites. There are areas near my parents that are more rural with only dial-up or Dish Network available. Urbanites vastly underestimate how difficult and expensive it is to build infrastructure into rural areas.

Re: US should have this, too

[zifn4b]

Police and fire have all the resources they need?

Bike trails galore, check. Aesthetically pleasing landscaping galore, check. Save the whales, check. LGBT legislation, check. All sorts of other excessive tax spending, check. Police and fire resources? Ah well, you respond apathetically:

No program ever has "all the resources it needs"

No problems with this logic at all...

Re:US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think we need to wire up every square mile, just the ones with actual people.

Lots of those 8 million kilometers are mostly empty.

Re: US should have this, too

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I didn't respond apathetically. I dismissed your "No True Scotsman" argument before it started. Or, if that wasn't your intent, then I misread it. But the verbiage led me to think this point was dishonestly made and I treated it as such.

The point is, California is running surpluses, and seems to have adequately funded their government obligations. So, you know, that works as an example.

Re: US should have this, too

[jpaine619]

You misspelled "idiot" while calling someone an idiot.

You are an idiot.

Re: US should have this, too

[jpaine619]

Goddamnit.... This again?

Why the FUCK is the solution always "The Government should...."

The fucking government is why we have the problem in the first place. The GOVERNMENT granted the ILECs their monopolies in the first place. The GOVERNMENT handed out tax breaks and subsidies and then did nothing when the ILECs failed to deliver... In fact, to say they did nothing is a lie... The GOVERNMENT handed out even MORE subsidies and tax breaks and still did nothing.. well, beyond handing out tax breaks and subsides... They've been repeating this cycle since 1991!!!!

AT&T has taken in (or not had to pay out) $300 BILLION DOLLARS IN TAX BREAKS.

But no. let's ignore all of that and "The Government should......"

How about, we remove all the goddamn red tape and protectionist codes/regulations and let the market figure it out?

It can be done.. I've done some of it myself... I have competitors who are doing it.... But we'd be doing it a lot better if we didn't have to fight our government every step of the way.

Re: US should have this, too

[bestweasel]

Yes, 2033 reminded me of the UK's 2040 target to get rid of infernal combustion engines. "Kicking it into the long grass" as we say in this septic isle.

Re: US should have this, too

[bestweasel]

Yeah but the phone lines were installed by an advanced civilization and no-one quite knows how they managed it. Possibly aliens.

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

"we gave the ISPs the money to do this"

Maybe you should have attached some conditions to the gift, or kept an eye on the legislators to ensure they did. Oh you trusted the legislators to work in the public's interest? Again? Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice.
  Did you? I wasn't looking.

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

So far; your own arguments are "the government should" as well, to the point of specifically decrying government inaction in regards to corporate action.

Re: US should have this, too

[jpaine619]

Are you high? I'm serious... I'd ask if you were delusional, but... if you were you probably wouldn't know it..

California has a budget surplus in the exact same way the US has a budget surplus... And that's if you don't count the debt...

If you have $1000 in direct spending obligations, and you bring in $1,001 dollars, you only have a surplus if you aren't carrying FOUR HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT. That is a debt load that is nearly 400% of our annual state revenue/income/taxes (whatever you want to call it)

Seriously, I have ZERO doubt you are a liberal, because only a liberal would say something that goddamn retarded.. You people must think that debt is some magical fairy fart that will eventually disappear all by itself...

You know what you do with that extra dollar? YOU PAY DOWN THE DEBT, you millennial a**hat. It doesn't go into a bank account, you don't save it for next year.. You pay off your bills and when that is done, then you can save it for hard times/rainy days.

California has been run by Democrats for 40+ years, don't you dare blame this on Republicans (who are also morons, but in this case not at fault) and don't even imply that Schwarzenegger was a Republican.. He was (R) in name only. His every policy was liberal liberal liberal..

You people are bankrupting this state with your "everything is a right and everyone should be able to sit around doing nothing and eat and have cell phones and..."

FOUR HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT...... Please, oh please tell me about that budget surplus.....

Re: US should have this, too

[jpaine619]

No program ever has "all the resources it needs". Hell, the US military, the most overfunded thing ever, still doesn't have moon-bases with lasers to destroy ICBMs.

I disagree with nearly everything you said, BUT... this last part actually made me laugh out loud.. Quite clever and very funny... (I'm not being sarcastic)

Re: US should have this, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually 90% of Alaska's population is within the bounds of about a dozen geographic locales.

Re: US should have this, too

[Shinobi]

In this case, the government in the US, both on state level and federally, has in the majority of cases worked for the companies benefit. Having LESS government would make that situation worse, because it'd allow the large, established corporations to trample everyone else even harder.

Re: US should have this, too

[zifn4b]

Nice, you just contradicted yourself and probably don't even realize it. Carry on though. :) Can't have a rational conversation with folks that don't mind holding contradictory ideas in their heads...

Re:US should have this, too

[Ranbot]

I don't need ad-hominem attacks when there's actual information.
Recent 5G news:
https://mobile.slashdot.org/st...
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
https://mobile.slashdot.org/st...
Recent Satellite Internet news:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
https://science.slashdot.org/s...

5G will be commonplace in about two years and LEO satellite broadband will be longer, but no longer than it would take to lay fiber lines down every single rural road in America at great expense.

Re: US should have this, too

[Ranbot]

We have success stories in America too, like Vermont...

Sorry, but that is exaggerated or just bullshit. I grew up in rural VT on a gravel road and my parents still live there. Standard cable TV/internet became available to them ~4 years ago. Fiber is pipedream. I know some areas got fiber, particularly if they were near larger cities/towns like Burlington, Stowe, Montpelier, Rutland, etc. but there's still vast swaths of rural land where thousands of people live and get internet connectivity via cable, Dish Network, cell phones, or dial-up (yup dial-up is still a thing in some areas of VT).

Re: US should have this, too

[Synonymous Homonym]

Electricity, water, waste water, phone lines, how difficult would it be to bury glass fiber alongside those?

But it's not done. The ethernet standard for fiber optic cable is intentionally incompatible with all previous standards. Routers and network cards for it are incredibly expensive.

But glass fiber is literally made from sand. The cable itself is cheaper than copper wires, and connectors are much more robust. You don't have to worry about RF interference either.

You have a point: Radio can cover a wider area without having to bury anything, which is an advantage in rural areas where little to no infrastructure is built anymore, or where no infrastructure other than roads have been built yet.

Getting fiber to the desk would not be difficult at all, from a purely technical perspective. It's the cost of the equipment that is prohibitively expensive, because it is more profitable to sell at high price to the few who absolutely need it or simply have the money to spare, than at low price to many.

Re: US should have this, too

[phantomfive]

Cool, good to hear a live report

Re: US should have this, too

[Ranbot]

You have a point: Radio can cover a wider area without having to bury anything, which is an advantage in rural areas where little to no infrastructure is built anymore, or where no infrastructure other than roads have been built yet.

Thank you. Exactly my point.

Electricity, water, waste water, phone lines, how difficult would it be to bury glass fiber alongside those?

This is an example of how urban/suburban folk don't fully understand rural infrastructure challenges (that's not meant as an insult, so please don't take it that way). In rural areas [and even some lower density suburban developments] water and sewer is typically onsite wells and septic tanks, respectively. Electric, phone, and cable lines are typically above ground on poles.* Now, you could run fiber on poles, but it will be damaged more often in storms, so long-term maintenance/repairs will be much higher; and there may not be enough customers on the line to support the maintenance. There might not be enough customers on the line to justify the upfront cost of trenching underground lines either.

* - Those conditions would describe the utilities for about 90% of residents in the VT town I grew up in, which is a pretty typical rural town (i.e. some public utilities right in the village center, but the vast majority of township residents are spread out over the countryside). I also have extended family in rural areas of central PA who are in similar conditions.

Re: US should have this, too

[Ranbot]

FWIW, when you hear about a small rural town getting fiber, it's probably just a small fraction of the residents in the village center or narrow corridor along a main road. But, the vast majority of rural town residents will live spread out over many square miles of surrounding countryside out of reach of the fiber lines.

Re: US should have this, too

[Synonymous Homonym]

Phone and cable could be replaced with fiber.

I have no doubt that it will be done eventually, but if not even the phone lines are buried, then the temporary solution of bridging the gap with radio seems to be more permanent than I would have expected.

Thank you for the insight.

Re: US should have this, too

[jpaine619]

No.. the big companies aren't out here because the population is sparse and the ROI would be "too small". But, instead of having an open situation where small companies could fill the void, we are hampered by protectionist legislation and vast amounts of red tape that make it almost miserable to do anything.

The government should limit itself to watching for, and dealing with, monopolistic companies and practices. Regulations should be limited to the bare minimum needed to ensure safety and environmental concerns.. Fees should be limited to the actual cost for the government to carry out its tasks. They shouldn't be driven by a profit motive. Believe me, there is a HUGE profit motive in the fees.

Re: US should have this, too

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I certainly don't see how I contradicted myself. My guess is that you have some secret assumption. But go on, feel free to take "vague accusation" to "actual argument" by explaining how I did.

Re:US should have this, too

[Shinobi]

The issue is not that 5G and satellite is being introduced, it's the drivel you posted about it being less maintenance and more reliable than fibre:

First of all, 5G depends on fibre. But in addition to possible fibre breaks, you also have to deal with the following:
Atmospheric conditions including, but not limited to, dust, rain, snow, hail.
Wildlife nesting/hoarding in antennas( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?...)
Traffic degradation not just in bandwidth but also latency-wise, as with all wireless.

And for satellite, it's even more susceptible to atmospheric conditions, and will have worse bandwidth and latency issues in practice.

Re: US should have this, too

[Shinobi]

Protectionist legislation introduced thanks to the large corporations. And no, the mythical "market" won't solve the issue.

As for the fees, that's exactly how the municipal networks in Sweden work, companies frequently bid to manage the physical networks, and then various ISP's rent capacity and offer their services. But that's still a lack of political will on the US part, both among the politicians, and the people, who vote those people in.

Re: US should have this, too

[jpaine619]

Yes, the market will solve the issue. I'm part of the market that is solving the issue. But, I could be doing it a lot faster, better, and cheaper if I didn't have to fight my own government every step of the way.

So tired of you statists who will say "the market won't do it" when; #1. The market is doing it and #2. The problem originated with the government and your solution is.... the government..

Dealing with the government is my #2 expense, directly behind my transport costs.

15 years ... too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Should've been done 15 years ago. At the very least.
(My city rolled it out around 1998.)

Area

[ishmaelflood]

I think you'll find the UK is substantially larger than your city, probably by a factor of 100.

Re:Area

[Anonymous Coward]

It was planned by BT in the 80's to roll out fibre, but Margaret Thatcher bowed under pressure from the incoming American cable companies that it would be unfair and uncompetitive. So it's was withdrawn and the American cable companies arrived then backed down on their promises to roll out their fibre country wide and just did a few cherry picked cities.

Re:Area

[CeasedCaring]

It was planned by BT in the 80's to roll out fibre, but Margaret Thatcher bowed under pressure from the incoming American cable companies that it would be unfair and uncompetitive. So it's was withdrawn and the American cable companies arrived then backed down on their promises to roll out their fibre country wide and just did a few cherry picked cities.

In most cases, that promised fibre turned out to be co-ax cable.

Re: Area

[Anonymous Coward]

I might be wrong but i don't think we have a coaxial cable network in the UK.

Also I don't think the US cable companies had any role in the UK.

Re: Area

[zennyboy]

At least, when I lived in Portsmouth (UK), we were on Nynex cable. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYNEX)

Dunno how widespread in the UK they were, but they were there. (Proof: http://www.m2.com/m2/web/story..., https://www.independent.co.uk/...).

Re: Area

[zennyboy]

And yeah, internet was through coax

Wireless

[Anonymous Coward]

They should do it wirelessly instead. It's the way of the future!

Re:Wireless

[Anonymous Coward]

What should happen is that every mobile operator in the UK should all get together and then pool funds to build one super country wide network that reaches everywhere but this will never happen so you get blackspots still in 20's time and bugger all in the countryside and rural

Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre"

[Anonymous Coward]

It is of course just the plain old copper line, and the advertised "fibre" is what it's connected to at the curb cabinet. Providers absolutely love the FTTC moniker: Look it says "fibre" right there. Good luck explaining to everybody in the UK that what you sold as "fibre internet" is insufficient and they should get fiber internet instead.

Re:Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre"

[mccalli]

They specifically addressed this on the radio this morning - was an industry guy but he said a move towards eliminating 'false advertising' would be part of the plan. And yes - it's full fibre they're talking about, not just fibre to the cabinet then last hop copper.

Re:Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre"

[Anonymous Coward]

What we really need is to bring fibre from the cabs to the home. what annoys me is I am on the 80Mb Fibre package but my cab is 800m away so I can only get 20Mb but still paying for 80Mb. I was previously on the 40Mb a few years back and got 10Mb. Perhaps we should actuall pay the ISP's for the actual speed we get.

I'll believe it when I see it...

[Paronymous_Coward]

I live in central London. The best I can get in my building? ADSL, 15Mbps up / 1Mbps down. No cable, no fiber.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you in a flat? I had issues where Virgin Media wouldn't connect my building. Neighbouring houses were fine, but because I was in a flat they wouldn't do it. This was about 5 years ago, though.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Paronymous_Coward]

Uh, 15Mbps DOWN / 1Mbps UP is what I meant of course...

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[serviscope_minor]

I live in central London. The best I can get in my building? ADSL, 15Mbps up / 1Mbps down. No cable, no fiber.

Sounds legit. I was on 4mbit until about a year ago when they finally got round to instaling fiber. Also a London dweller (Zone 2).

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[ls671]

You almost got me there!

Of course, I now assume that you meant London, Ontario, Canada.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Count yourself lucky, I live in Bristol - 2Mbit down / 1Mbit up 1 exchange spread too thin with long phone lines so LLU etc makes no difference, there's is basically no choice but slow unless you want to spend order of magnitude more money on mobile internet.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Anonymous Coward]

15Mbit is really good compared to many areas in UK, many people are still on 3Mbit internet and the web just feels like it's getting slower and slower because of massive pages aimed at people with huge pipes.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[oldmac31310]

I was wondering about that. But, that is terrible. How much do you pay for that? I've got 50 down and 25?up for $50 per mo and it is good enough for my purposes. But it is crazy how much prices and speeds vary depending on region, ISP etc.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[GerryHattrick]

Deep Sussex countryside. Copper pair across the fields on tarred poles untouched for 25+ years, then under the road for a mile to the nearest village cabinet (allegedly with fibre). BUT I get 40Mbps down, consistently. Do I need 'educating' (says Govt proposal) to pay for that infrastructure to be updated?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Paronymous_Coward]

We pay £25 / month, or about $33 USD. 50 down/25 up for $50 is a sweet deal in comparison.

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Pop69]

My line is fibre. They moved the connection 60 feet from the exchange to a cabinet and told me I had fibre broadband. They didn't bother to do anything about the 3 miles of garbage copper between the cabinet and the house but they've ticked their box and I have fibre broadband

Hmmmm, déjà vu....

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Australia, our wonderful government decided that fibre around the country was a great idea and planned for it.
The next, greater and even more wonderful government, decided that some fibre and some rust made for a better internet connection.

We've been scheduled for the rust & fibre combination for about a year now but it is still unavailable due to some problems with the nodes. Clearly the rust is not an issue.

The entire process has been an amazing exhibition of cost blowout and incompetence.

I wish and hope that the UK does a better job.

But what are thoughts and prayers really worth....

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[CeasedCaring]

Same here.

I'm sure it'll be fine

[Lurks]

After all, the government has been so competent at negotiating Brexit with the EU that a nationwide fibre broadband network will be a simple walk in the park.

Re:I'm sure it'll be fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick to the topic at hand.

Re:I'm sure it'll be fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Brexit is always the topic at hand if your discussing the UK right now.

Re:I'm sure it'll be fine

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought that Brexit was always going to be a disaster and it is proving to be. The EU will stiff us for every bit of dosh that we have and then refuse to do a deal.
Barnier had better start getting quotes to blow up the Channel Tunnel and blocade Dover as the EU won't want us polluting their rarified and glorious EU.

SkyMuster in Oz

[ishmaelflood]

I've got the Skymuster satellite internet. It is about the same cost as a fixed broadband line (50 bucks a month) and faster than the ADSL2 i got in town. It is volume limited (40 Gb peak, 60 Gb offpeak) and it is somewhat flaky, particularly at weekends (they claim the latest router upgrade cures that). The other alternative is broadband via 3G or 4G wireless. That costs a straight $5 /Gb over the Telstra network, less over the flaky networks, but those don't work out in the bush.

Re:SkyMuster in Oz

[Anonymous Coward]

If you like high latency internet, I suppose it's a valid option.

problem with fibre is

[Anonymous Coward]

lack of redundundancy. almost always in the ground and almost always well marked. hire teams of hooligans to dig up key points in any fibre network and it will all be down for a very very very long time. could also do it b-league style, hitting a section or two at a time, but this still perpetually downs the network, even if only parts at a time.

weak and bleak outlook for blighty

but anyway, 2033? hoo-hoo causing a bunch in the panties because this won't even get out of the funding stage by then.

Bandwidth Joneses

[mentil]

Earlier this month, research was published indicating that the UK has slipped from 31st to 35th place in the global broadband league tables, behind 25 other European countries.

Spending money to surpass others is pointless if there's no benefit to doing so. Eventually rural consumers will have 100Mbps or higher. Sure, faster downloads and peak usage throughput are great, but the benefits for consumers fall off pretty quick. Can 'accessing online educational resources' justify more bandwidth than this? Even assuming hi-def video chat with tutors/business associates, with modern codecs (AV1) do you really need much more than that? Sure, VR video will use even more bandwidth, but does that really open any qualitatively different educational experiences, or businesses even? I have a feeling that today's video companies will be primarily responsible for VR videos in the future, so it won't necessarily enable many new jobs that weren't already being done with 2d cameras. Businesses already have access to fiber, in the places they want to put data centers, so do consumers really need faster speeds at home once they have ~100Mbps? Sure, a few power-users who download VM containers/linux beta ISOs daily would make use of it, but does that justify $billions in government subsidies?

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Anonymous Coward]

but the benefits for consumers fall off pretty quick. Can 'accessing online educational resources' justify more bandwidth than this? Even assuming hi-def video chat with tutors/business associates, with modern codecs (AV1) do you really need much more than that?

Applying today's thinking for a project 15 years in the future, what a visionary you are.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[zifn4b]

There are a couple of use cases you forgot:

1. - Downloading games via Steam/PS Store/XBOX store/etc. Many AAA titles are 40-60gb
2. - Downloading movies via Netflix and other services for mobile devices

Sorry, but the "few power users" thing doesn't cut it anymore when it comes to downloading. That was 15 years ago before the industry actually caught up with legitimate download sources.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[mentil]

Mobile devices mostly stream video, rather than download. Aside from offline viewing, downloading doesn't need to be faster than streaming speed. Downloading videos faster for offline viewing and downloading games faster are great, but don't enable new businesses or experiences that wouldn't exist with slower download speeds. I.e. what new things does the upgrade enable, that wouldn't exist with 100Mbps internet? Internet video existed long before Netflix streaming, so it should be predictable today, what tech could be monetized or better society if only they were faster?

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Anonymous Coward]

UK has sh!tty broadband. When I moved to UK my internet speed was what I had 10 years before at my home country.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Anonymous Coward]

Streaming games for one, or the download. The above numbers are wrong. Its NOT 40-60gb is 40-60GB. On a crappy connection that will take an entire day to download. And if the update is large it might be > 1 hr to download an update that takes 20 seconds to install.

Download speed may never equal HDD bandwidth but it should be a minor fraction of the speed....

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a better plan! Instead of increasing bandwidth we should invest in delivering devices with pre-defined bit values on their storage. That way all you have to do when downloading a new file is download the diff with the known standardised values on disks. It will work! It's great!

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, one of the reasons why internet is slow is because of digital TV and more services, that silently by default use internet to send data. It can drive crazy how your broadband can stay on lowest speeds possible, because there are other services that use the same fibres and are more important than your internet. There was times, that I did "enjoyed" less than 1MMbps and all that because main infrastructure is provided by BT and not independent internet providers with their own cables. I'm fine with some order, but that means, that BT has to provide more fibre cables to increasing demand - as I mentioned before: UK is stuck 10 years behind ALL of EU.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[AmiMoJo]

Multiple users. If you have the UK average speed (16mbps) then downloading some patches will probably make Netflix drop to 240p and buffer like crazy. Video calls will lag and stutter.

It's not just about raw download speed, it's about having enough bandwidth to keep interactive and streaming services working properly.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Shinobi]

Gigabit available in rural areas allow for running a greater amount of business from home, it allows for multiple household members to run bandwidth intensive tasks without affecting latency.

In Sweden, rural broadband has helped slow down or even reverse rural depopulation. And before you start yapping in a simpleton way about "oh, so small" etc, keep in mind that Sweden is larger than California, and we have municipalities larger than Connecticut, and larger than New Jersey if you only look at land area.

As others have mentioned, being able to rapidly patch games is nice too, especially when every household member plays different games.

So all in all, I find your view both shortsighted and very narrow.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ISP just sucks. I've never had any such problems, and the ISP is use not only uses BT infrastructure but is *owned* by BT.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[zifn4b]

I'd need to see statistics on streaming but you can't ignore the growing use cases for downloading video. Netflix recently added this feature, there are several services that come with movies that allow you to download them to devices. These services are expanding and not going away. At best, you're putting forth a straw man but the reality is, the "few power users" theory is out of date today. The way people consume digital media has radically changed over the past 10-15 years and not just in regard to streaming and it continues to change. You need to update your information to be current.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[Malc]

How about multiple people watching 4K60 video on multiple devices concurrently? Meanwhile somebody starts uploading hundreds of MB or even GBs of photos and videos and because most ISPs are cheap on upload bandwidth, everybody else's video stream stalls or drops to a lower bandwidth rendition. Families sitting around one TV are a dying breed.

Re:Bandwidth Joneses

[zifn4b]

Families sitting around one TV are a dying breed.

Dying? It's dead Jim. The people age 20-30 have radically different ideas about adulthood than you and I grew up with. A lot of people aren't even planning to get married or have kids. Society is transforming into something else and very quickly. There is nothing that can be done to stop it. The only question for each person is: will you adapt or not? Not adapting has consequences.

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not at all typical though, in most cases the cabinet-to-house length is a lot shorter. e.g. for me, 800m to cabinet, 4200m to exchange (and 40-50 Mbps rather than 2-3).

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Bongo]

FTTC, which one day suddenly dropped to 1 Mbit/s, and the ISP said the line tests were fine and there’s no obligation to deliver faster. Then another *wonderful* ISP tech said he could relabel the query and thus cause a BT engineer to actually come out and run tests. Which he did. And the on-site tests are more thorough than whatever the ISP people have access to. He found a couple of red flags to do with insulation. So he, the *wonderful* man, traced the fault to a copper section between two cabinets, and so he tested all the spares and switched me to the best one. Broadband speed not only went back up, but became better than I had before the fault ever happened.

But yeah, fibre, then 600m of whatever decent copper you can hope to find. And I am fortunate it is only 600m. I gather it can be up to 2000m.

Not going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK gov't are full of bullshit when it comes to Internet connections and promises. The only thing I'm taking away from this is "So in other words, never."

Post-Brexit fibre: TURNIPS.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the British gov having a punt at defining those future sunlit uplands of 'Great' Britain. Designed to give those with no grasp of post-war British political and economic history a nice warm feeling that someone's in charge and that they have a plan (and maybe that all the austerity will be worth it).
See also the Tempest II stealth fighter (that I'd say has a very strong whiff of TSR-2 except the TSR-2 actually made it into the air before it was canned for the F-111...).

Re:Post-Brexit fibre: TURNIPS.

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK never bought the F-111 but did buy the Phantom F4. It was Germany who was going to buy loads of TSR-2's but were given a deal that they could not refuse and bought the F-111 which they regretted from Day 1.

Re:Post-Brexit fibre: TURNIPS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany also turned down EE Lightnings for F104s. The decision was down to good old fashioned bribery and lots of palms were greased in the Luftwaffe top brass and the result was dozens of dead pilots.

Re: Post-Brexit fibre: TURNIPS.

[Anonymous Coward]

The EE Lightning was a fine looking plane but was dreadful to actually fly.

Why bother with the big announcement?

[dhaen]

Just give our cash to BT so they can distribute it among shareholders, like last time.

....cynical....

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Anonymous Coward]

~3600m - for ADSL2+, and up to ~6200m for plain ADSL, per one graph I've seen.

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Anonymous Coward]

followup to add that we're barely hanging on here at 'about four miles' from the exchange (one of these days I'll look up the exact line routing...), and single digit SNR.

It's the latency, stupid

[xtal]

It's not the bandwidth.. it's the low latency.

Communities without fiber connectivity are not long-term viable. Slowly people are realizing this.

Re:It's the latency, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I have VDSL2 and a ping of 12ms to www.google.com. What needs lower latency than that?

Re:It's the latency, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I have VDSL2+ and a ping of 20ms to google.com, although 33ms is more realistic if I look at my 365 day average on my PRTG ping sensor.
A friend living two streets away has had the luck of living in an area where the local fibre incumbent was still motivated enough to use genuine fibre. They've got pings ~10ms. There can still be differences depending on how much shitty copper is between you and that VDSL2 cabinet that is hooked up to a fibre connection.

Re:It's the latency, stupid

[mentil]

Fiber has higher latency than copper cable, over short distances at least. Factoring in repeaters for cable, it may end up slower. 'Full fiber' means last-mile, right?

Re:It's the latency, stupid

[Agripa]

The faster DSL and cable standards actually have higher latency because they used interleaving for error control. When I went from SDSL which was basically the DSL version of a T1 or ISDN to must faster ADSL, latency went from 5 milliseconds to 30 milliseconds on the hop to the gateway.

For the faster standards you used to be able to select whether interleaving was used giving the option between lower latency or higher bandwidth but at some point, that decision was made for you by marketing; higher peak bandwidth sounds better in ads whether it is possible to make use of or not.

But the cities and towns aren't. It's 30 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

The wires between the towns are already fiber.

Even the most remote of huts does not justify 30 freaking years of delay.

Re: In five years we'll have 5G cellular

[Anonymous Coward]

In 5 years your 5G Cellular will actually be provided by Comcast, Charter, etc. after Verizon and AT&T get bought out.

That's what QoS is for!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any decent firewall or OS will have traffic shaping and prioritizing, so realtime packets and their replies always get processed/transmitted first, and unimportant bulk transfers are done while idling.

Re:That's what QoS is for!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you should know that these features only really work for data that you send from your end, not for data that you receive.

Re:That's what QoS is for!

[zifn4b]

I don't think you fully understand how QoS actually works. It requires configuration and it is turned off by default on all the consumer routers I've ever owned that offer it. I believe the QoS Packet Scheduler is turned on in Microsoft Windows now by default but it doesn't work the way you described. It has a reserved bandwidth limit that by default is 20%. That means that when certain QoS traffic is occurring only 80% of your bandwidth is available for non-QoS traffic. I think you would call this "shaping" rather than "realtime packets and their replies always get processed/transmitted first". That's not true at least in the case of how the QoS Packet Scheduler in Microsoft Windows works. I'm pretty sure you have to manually install/configure QoS in *nix.

Re: That's what QoS is for!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my openbsd firewall I had to configure QoS. But this is unix we are talking about. You only install what YOU need. Nothing more.

Re: That's what QoS is for!

[zifn4b]

Nope, we're talking about QoS. It is a platform agnostic network feature/pattern.

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibr

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not typical, but it's quite common. In many town centres, all properties within a 2-3 mile radius of the exchange were directly connected. That meant they got missed out on in the first wave of upgrades (no cabinet to install VDSL gear in), and even when they did it was slow because of the cable lengths

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a BT Retail thing, not a BT Openreach issue. Change ISP, any of the good ones will let you buy a 40 meg line and get your best achievable rate.
Previously I was on a line that could physically do about 42 meg, so I took a 40 meg package and got 40. The problem is that good ISPs cost so much more than the rubbish ones that it costs more for that line than an "80" meg one from BT retail would

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

2033? This won't happen by 2133 (If the Donald hasn't blown us up next week)

Copy the Australian NBN

[Anonymous Coward]

Build it with copper!

With Brexit from the EU coming soon

[Anonymous Coward]

They are searching for some positive developments after Brexit now. The EU already regulated prices down in good old England (i remember that we had a 5000€ telephone bill in the UK for doing maybe 10-20 hours maybe of phone calls to Austria in 1993 or so.. (I don't remember exactly anymore - it was during a one week visit.)

Now it would not cost me a dime extra to use my mobile phone in England to call Austria or the other way around for someone from the UK - Not very important for a business - i am not so sure we had large discussions at that time.. Of course those high prices will not come back again due to the internet - but anyway people will find themselves again with larger roaming charges also for data..

I am also not so sure why at a time everyone in Europe learns English - and therefore we should have a better common understanding - something like Brexit is possible to happen.

I am very sorry for this development.

Good news I guess.

[Synonymous Homonym]

It is at times like these that I am reminded of the dark fiber that has been laying dormant in east Berlin since the mid 1980s.

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[apoc.famine]

As Charter advertises it in the US, "Fibre-Rich broadband". That's so much made-up bullshit that it's amazing that it's not illegal. But it's apparently true enough that it's OK to trick everyone without a technical understanding of networking.

Not in much of a hurry then?

[oldmac31310]

Strange how so called first world countries are so slow in initiating programmes that could be implemented really quickly if the powers that be actually thought them important. But no, corporate profit and military spending above all. Forget about affordable housing, a decent minimum wage, health insurance etc. I know we're talking about the y(U)c(K) here, but isn't it pretty much the same story the world over?

Better luck than Australia,I hope!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it does not get torpedoed like happened to Australia.
Our Belovered conservativegovernment killed the fiber rollout midway through the process.
I am one of the lucky ones who have fiber to the home.
A lot now will have fiber to the node and the rest of the way it uses the old phone cables.
An utter waste of money as it will all have to go to fiber in the long term.
And a great limit to the bandwidth.
It is the same political party that years ago was against phones to each home as they thought the Plebs only deserved a phone box at the street corner.

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[oldmac31310]

That'll keep you regular.

Question to all the Brits

[BLToday]

I'm not familiar with UK government efficiency. How likely is it for this goal to be achieved in the given timeframe?
1) 100% achievable
2) overall achievable but some area will not be connected in that timeframe
3) it's going to be late by 1-5 years
4) it's going to be late but it will eventually get there
5) next Ice Age
6) Jesus coming back

Splendid!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can eat Bran Flakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Re: Half the UK providers already advertise "fibre

[Bongo]

oh :-(

It would be nice to live ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... in a country where the government cares about and answers to the people.

Democracy must be grand!

obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

I would hope by 2033 fibre / physical connections would be a thing of the past