I assumed it was but wanted to comment anyway - there are many that don't think that what you said is a joke.

Virgin Media is very close and are expanding, so maybe they might reach you first, or you can do a wifi link up to a friend with their service

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Virgin Media is very close and are expanding, so maybe they might reach you first, or you can do a wifi link up to a friend with their service

Yeah, Hopefully Virgin Media will get there first as I heard they have much better speeds than FTTC, but even if FTTC comes first at least I will be on better than I am on now and then its more pleasant waiting for Virgin to fit their cabling. Just have to see how it all works out I guess, Thankyou.

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Mar-17 11:48:00)

I don't think we seriously consider a fast internet connection a human right, comparable to human rights conventions.

Having said that, it is not quite luxury either anymore.

Yes, it is definitely possible to live without any kind of internet connection. Some people choose to do so. However, as information in general, be it fact or fiction or in the case of USA, alternate facts, is rapidly moving to the internet. Whatever current plans this country has, we do not expect to have a fast connection to everyone by 2025, which is 8 years from now. In these eight years, traditional, broadcast TV will decline. At some point content providers will start scrapping "standard" resolution as keeping up different versions cost money and having them might not bring more business anymore in the future.

Then there is the scary internet of things, which means all sorts of household appliances need to update their software to prevent our nasty neighbours from turning our heating on or off, or turning the contents of our freezers into green goo. These updates are now tens or hundreds of megabytes. As memory gets cheaper and more abundant and software gets more bloated, these will grow in size. I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking about several gigabytes.

An example: My Olympus E-M1 camera has a software update tool on my desktop computer. When I plug in my camera, it checks for updates and updates the camera. Those good people in gigabyte Japan who designed the app, probably did not anticipate people with 2Mb/s internet connections, and the silly application timeouts about half way loading an update when the download has not been completed in 30 seconds.

This is horribly bad software design but illustrates the problem. If and when some of us will be left far, far behind from the expected level, all sorts of problems start to appear as other bad software designers will not anticipate connection speeds from 1990's anymore.

Another example: I have a nice 4K telly. Except that I have not seen 4K content yet. There is no way I can stream it, and I have not found an alternative distribution channel. HD quality movies I can still buy on blurays, but I doubt there will be such a mechanism for 4K content anymore, and definitely for what comes beyond that.

If we still have our two meg ADSLs in 2020's, we will be talking about serious everyday problems. If in 2025 we are not in 100mb/s+ club, those on the slow lane can pretty much forget about TV and entertainment.

No, we are not talking about human rights and basic sustenance here. But it is right to keep making noise about this as it will be more than just a minor unhappiness in a couple of years' time.

H

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Mar-17 11:55:11)

In reply to a post by hvis42:

I don't think we seriously consider a fast internet connection a human right, comparable to human rights conventions.

Having said that, it is not quite luxury either anymore.

Yes, it is definitely possible to live without any kind of internet connection. Some people choose to do so. However, as information in general, be it fact or fiction or in the case of USA, alternate facts, is rapidly moving to the internet. Whatever current plans this country has, we do not expect to have a fast connection to everyone by 2025, which is 8 years from now. In these eight years, traditional, broadcast TV will decline. At some point content providers will start scrapping "standard" resolution as keeping up different versions cost money and having them might not bring more business anymore in the future.

Then there is the scary internet of things, which means all sorts of household appliances need to update their software to prevent our nasty neighbours from turning our heating on or off, or turning the contents of our freezers into green goo. These updates are now tens or hundreds of megabytes. As memory gets cheaper and more abundant and software gets more bloated, these will grow in size. I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking about several gigabytes.

An example: My Olympus E-M1 camera has a software update tool on my desktop computer. When I plug in my camera, it checks for updates and updates the camera. Those good people in gigabyte Japan who designed the app, probably did not anticipate people with 2Mb/s internet connections, and the silly application timeouts about half way loading an update when the download has not been completed in 30 seconds.

This is horribly bad software design but illustrates the problem. If and when some of us will be left far, far behind from the expected level, all sorts of problems start to appear as other bad software designers will not anticipate connection speeds from 1990's anymore.

Another example: I have a nice 4K telly. Except that I have not seen 4K content yet. There is no way I can stream it, and I have not found an alternative distribution channel. HD quality movies I can still buy on blurays, but I doubt there will be such a mechanism for 4K content anymore, and definitely for what comes beyond that.

If we still have our two meg ADSLs in 2020's, we will be talking about serious everyday problems. If in 2025 we are not in 100mb/s+ club, those on the slow lane can pretty much forget about TV and entertainment.

No, we are not talking about human rights and basic sustenance here. But it is right to keep making noise about this as it will be more than just a minor unhappiness in a couple of years' time.

H

Well said hvis42 I agree with you

That's surprising.

Well said. A very constructive and fair reply. We need more of these on this forum.

Yes - I'd echo what Andrew says, 4G may be a solution.

For example - I'm on a 2.5 Mbps download / 0.3 Mbps upload ADSL (not even ADSL2+) connection, on a long EO (Exchange-Only) line, in a rural area, with little to no chance of ever getting FTTC or FTTP.

Also - I can't even get a 4G signal on my phone (and 3G is very poor too).

However - using a special 4G router, there's one location in 1 window upstairs that I can get 1 bar of 4G signal, as the external antennae for the router are much more sensitive than in a smartphone. I've also got an external omni-directional antenna, in case I need it.

I use EE - check your coverage to see if you can get 4G in your area: EE Coverage Checker

If you can get coverage - then check out the Data SIM-only plans: EE Data SIM-only Plans
I've got the 32Gb rolling 30-day plan, it was on special offer recently at half price (£14.50 per month), keep an eye out (via the EE website and also HotUKDeals.com) as they often do similar deals every few months. And if 32Gb data per month isn't enough, there are 50Gb, 64Gb or 100Gb options available, although expensive (unless on special offer).

And if you can't get coverage with EE - then maybe you can with Three, O2 or Vodafone (or one of the networks based on these) - just get a trial SIM and put some credit on it to try it out.

The router I use is: TP-Link Archer MR200
External Antenna: Solwise External Omni-Directional 4G Antenna (I haven't actually needed to use this yet, but will try it when the weather improves, and install it if it boosts my 4G signal strength).

As the 4G router is upstairs, I use Powerline adapters to "pipe" the connection via Ethernet & WiFi to other parts of the house.

I get, on average, 20 Mbps downstream (sometimes more) and 10 Mbps upstream speeds, much better than my ADSL.

I still use my slow PlusNet ADSL connection too, as this has unlimited data cap, so the 4G doesn't replace it, just acts as a "turbo speed booster" for when I really need it - in your case, you could use a 4G connection to upload your YouTube videos, for example.

Good luck anyway - maybe 4G will be a viable option for you, at least for now until / unless you eventually get a fibre-based fixed line solution.

I do agree with everyone else though - I don't think broadband is a Human Right, it's more a "nice-to-have" utility (a bit like mains gas - where I am, there's no mains gas, we do have water & electricity though!!).

Water and shelter & warmth & food are human rights.

Like you, I'd love a much better fixed-line broadband - but I doubt I'll ever get that (maybe it will improve in the next 10 years, things can change), so it's worth exploring other options. I'm self-employed and run a business from home (although have to supplement it with extra part-time employment), so I'm well-aware of the frustration that slow internet connections can cause. People in our situation will just have to be patient!

I hope this helps a bit.

Kind regards,

Adam.

In general I agree with you.

Broadband is important to us as a society. Getting faster broadband means we can have an arguably better quality of life - although I suspect a lot would argue that getting TV over broadband is not necessarily an improvement to quality of life

As far as formats go a lot of material is still being broadcast in SD. I think it will be some time before 4K becomes the norm - HD has been around a long time and still hasn't removed the SD transmissions.

If you do want to make use of your 4K TV then the easiest way without fast internet is to buy the new Xbox that has a 4K Blu-Ray player in it and there are some 4K blu-ray movies out there - at the moment it is early days but then there aren't that many 4K films available on the streaming movie services (generally people like Amazon and Netflix are doing 4K for their own TV series rather than much in the way of movies).

At present you can do pretty much all the basic internet stuff on a relatively slow link (say the 9/0.9 that started this discussion). There are of course things that need faster but they have a limited increase in quality of life over what could already be done at that speed. Does watching a TV programme in HD or 4K significantly improve quality of life over watching it in SD?

So, yes. We should be pushing for faster broadband. But we should keep perspective on what that really means.

If the USO as was originally planned delivers then 10 Mbps should be the minimum connection speed in the early 2020's and the plan did include an escalator provision so it can be ramped up if/when basic needs are not being met.

The question is if 95% are in the 100 Mbps club and 1% are in the 10 Mbps club is that a critical infrastructure problem? Others are in a middle ground with things like 4G and VDSL2 type speeds of 25 to 40 Mbps

We can adopt the German model of �100bn towards broadband, but you happy to pay for that via tax rises?