Britain's broadband 'not fit for the future

Britain's broadband 'not fit for the future': Our service is worse than Bulgaria and Latvia

Britain's broadband networks are lagging behind most European neighbours including Bulgaria and Latvia in terms of quality, a study said today.
The report, by IT giant Cisco, ranked the UK's systems 31st out of 66 countries and found they were currently 'meeting needs for today'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217355/UK-b...

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/t/3712041-u...

It's not fit for the present or even recent past, let alone the future!

In reply to a post by Finguz:

It's not fit for the present or even recent past, let alone the future!

It seems to be working for me right now.

I'm part of a trans-Atlantic software development team based out of a converted barn in a village.
iPlayer seems to have been a roaring success (somewhat to my surprise I must admit).
WoW and SecondLife along with dozens of other titles seem to suggest that online game playing is a great success.
I never go into towns to shop and have never had to visit a bank in years.

If it isn't fit for present purpose how has it managed to become such a roaring success that most people consider it to be an essential part of their lives?

I think it's hard enough justifying the investment moving forwards without slagging off what we've achieved so far. What we have now isn't perfect and it took a little longer than it should have but it's done a pretty good job so far for most people.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 02-Oct-09 09:43:47)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I'm part of a trans-Atlantic software development team based out of a converted barn in a village.

Brackley ? A village ?

It's a town ! It's got a population of over 13,000 !

So, your claim

I never go into towns to shop

is a bit of a porkie, isn't it !

News flash:A lot of people don't work in the same town where they live.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&g...

is a bit of a porkie, isn't it !

No, but that's a pig farm across the road. Luckily our air conditioning has excellent filters

And no, I never go into town to shop(*). The only times I've gone in to a town to spend money are:
* Restuarants/pubs.
* Dentist/optician.

My groceries are normally delivered although I do occasionally pop into the local store of items I've forgotten.

(*)By shop I mean 'wander around looking for something to buy or picking up regular items'.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 02-Oct-09 10:35:32)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

If it isn't fit for present purpose how has it managed to become such a roaring success that most people consider it to be an essential part of their lives?

Because for most of us there is no alternative. Believe me, if there was, BT wouldn't see a penny of my money.

Out of interest, what speeds do you see from your "back of beyond" workplace, only a stone's throw out of Bicester ?

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

If it isn't fit for present purpose how has it managed to become such a roaring success that most people consider it to be an essential part of their lives?

Because for most of us there is no alternative. Believe me, if there was, BT wouldn't see a penny of my money.

Out of interest, what speeds do you see from your "back of beyond" workplace, only a stone's throw out of Bicester ?

One line syncs at 3Mb, the other between 1Mb and 2Mb. There's a third line but that's used by our hardware engineer so I don't know how it performs. He seems happy with it.

We almost got a fibre connection a couple of years ago but then the credit crunch took hold. I didn't get to see the quote but apparently it was low enough that under normal business conditions it would have been an acceptable cost for five people. When I asked about speed they hadn't decided but when I mentioned 10Mb I was told 'Oh it'd be higher than that'.

The current connection mostly works well. We get the occasional several second glitch but it seems to be a configuration fault with our routing. The two lines are load balanced but we think when the dodgy one fails it somehow confuses everything else for several seconds. Still - the only time it lets us down is when the US guys issue a multi-GB data set for testing. Even then we can usually pull it down overnight.

Cisco obviously want to sell more hardware in the UK.

This stuff is babble and meaningless imho.