Super fast broadband - thoughts?

ModernSlave

BT announced today that it's going to roll out super-fast broadband to 10 million homes (via fibre optic cables).

It's going to cost a lot of money (£1.5 billion), so is it worth it?

I'm not in a cable area so I can't get Virgin's fast service, does it really make that much difference?

I guess we have to keep up with the broadband services on the continent. It's weird that they are so much more advanced than we are in that respect.

KILL_BILL

there is talk of them using sewers and water pipes etc to get the cable into peoples homes

when you look at it people in japan have 50mb or even upto 100mb connection to their home

but i guess we should be lucky because even reports uggest that we have a faster adsl connection than the usa who still seem to be on 512kb

ModernSlave

Japan is a small island, like the UK. I think we could learn a lot from them about how to run services.

Woby_Tide

Dundee and Bournemouth are gettingteh first fibre networks using cables installed via sewers over the next few years. The fact is teh current network can cope with higher speeds as proved by the LLU providers, they can already offer up to 24MB to certain users, fibre will add more consistency to those figures without a doubt. That said the colelctive mindset of teh majority of the UK will mean it'll take a while to upgrade the majority to decent speeds. Whilst everyone wants super fast services, most are only willing to pay a minimal amount and happy to leave if charges go up regardless of whether it's funding those improvements.

normanmark

As i said on the thread on the telephones board. Its a shame that only BT & Virgin are the ones who will invest in a network, its about time all of these other providers finally took some initiative and start investing in their own networks to finally offer some proper competition.

ModernSlave

I wonder how myuch they will charge. I am only a light user of my current bband but if it was super fast then I'd probably use other services like watching tv shows and playign games.

I would be willing to pay up to £20 a month at first but it would have to drop like current broadband has already.

It sounds very expensive to install, again, I'm surprised that other countries (who I would think are poorer than us) have managed to do it first.

normanmark

ModernSlave wrote: »

It sounds very expensive to install, again, I'm surprised that other countries (who I would think are poorer than us) have managed to do it first.

Simple answer to that, governments took initiatives to pay for the installation.

In this country, everyone (aka other telcos) expects BT to do it. They simply won't invest in the network.

johnaspley

normanmark wrote: »

As i said on the thread on the telephones board. Its a shame that only BT & Virgin are the ones who will invest in a network, its about time all of these other providers finally took some initiative and start investing in their own networks to finally offer some proper competition.

Personally I don't need superfast broadband but I think it will be great for the future in terms of streaming video etc...

RE your comments regarding internet speeds on the continent - internet in France isn't that much faster from what I've noticed and I've lived there 3 times and used 3 different service providers.

piggeh

Can't wait for this to be rolled out - wil be interesting if it is upgraded all the way to the front door or just the local exchange - if its the local exchange I doubt it will make much difference.

I thought the sewers thing was by a third company?

deklan99

The FTTH (Fibre To The Home) will be rolled out to new builds. FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) will be rolled out in the long term.
If BT can get Ofcom to force Virgin to open up their cable network to other ISPs like they have to then things may go quicker.