Broadband: One size does not fit all

At least according to bean counters / management consultants PWC at http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/communications/review/featu...

Points to an ongoing digital divide and a lack of appetite for paying for higher speeds.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

At least according to bean counters / management consultants PWC at http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/communications/review/featu...

Points to an ongoing digital divide and a lack of appetite for paying for higher speeds.

"Separate research by Ofcom concluded that 64% of customers were unaware of their service speed. Given the absence of any correlation between advertised bandwidth and the speed customers experienced, it is hardly surprising that advertised bandwidth is not a significant driver of customer demand.

PwC�s own consumer research highlights customer indifference to higher bandwidths. We used conjoint analysis to test the relative importance of different price and product attributes of broadband (see Figure 2). Although customers had a strong preference, at any given price, for an 8 Mbps product over a 2 Mbps product, they were largely indifferent between 8 Mbps and 20 Mbps."

Yeah and telcos are supposed to invest billions of pounds off the back of that

"PwC�s own research for the UK Champion for Digital Inclusion found that the total potential economic benefit from getting everyone in the United Kingdom online is more than £22 billion, far in excess of the scale of benefits from universal voice telephony."

Eh? So the phone isn't of £22 billion benefit?

Given that one of the mods here (MrS I think) said the other day that the average download used in the UK is 10GB per month then I'd say that the indifference is justified. At those download levels there can only be general surfing, email, gaming, and moderate streaming being used and 8Mbps is more than enough for those uses. Come to that 2Mbps would be perfectly adequate for a single user.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Tue 08-Feb-11 10:04:22)

Broadband is entering the age of consumerism. Like cars and PCs, the people want it, they don't care how it works, nor want to know what's under the bonnet. Just as long as it works. If a stream requires two meg, what do they care for eight meg, twenty four meg or forty meg? In some ways I agree completely. There's little point in providing forty meg to the nation just for 1% of them to use it, when four meg can be provided, and the entire nation can enjoy a relatively trouble free experience.

The 10GB estimate was that, seems this research gives me a new figure of 14.9GB.

On the ADSL vs advertised speeds, do any of the people look at the ADSL drop-off charts for distance, and realise that technically 30-40% of advertised speed as an average is pretty spot on for what the charts predict. I guess interpreting data has gone out of the window these days.

The BT Infinity pricing, mmm cannot be used as total evidence that people will not pay for speed. Does it cost BT Total more to provide Infinity? Are they perhaps selling cheaply to ensure early take-up and then creep price over the years later (the Sky TV model). Did BT Total try selling Infinity at another price point and find out it did not sell?

Wonder how much the report cost? It reads like a summary of a lot of the data that has been around for a year or two, and offers perhaps no more insight than could be got from quizzing most broadband commentators for an hour or so.

In summary:
People are using broadband for video, but they get annoyed when it does not play.
Rural areas will need help to get speeds that will keep up with the competition driven urban areas.
Satellite will have a part to play.
Wireless may have a part to play - if costs are low enough.

Edited by MrSaffron (Tue 08-Feb-11 10:19:14)

14.9GB does not significantly alter my conclusion that the general public are quite right to be indifferent to speeds over 8Mbps.

Infinity looks to me to be an excellent technology where ADSL can only deliver a couple of Mbps or less but unless BT start running fibre to rural cabinets it won't serve what would probably be the best use in a public service sense.

I suspect bragging rights are one of the main driving forces for high speed internet rather than need. I have 50Mbps cable - do I need it? - absolutely not but it was available at what I considered a reasonable price - I paid more for 2Mbps a lot less than 10 years ago and the premium was only £5 over 20Mbps (now of course they've just released 30Mbps at the old 20Mbps price and I'd probably have settled for that instead and saved the £5)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 10GB estimate was that, seems this research gives me a new figure of 14.9GB.

I'd be willing to put a large bet on at least a third, if not a half of that is the result of the mushrooming of website media content and objects, rather than actual informational content.

While I appreciate that the masses want video, audio, and gaming, it would be nice for sites out there to provide low-bandwidth alternatives. We faced this in the 56k era as people moved to broadband. Sites offered low/medium/high bandwidth flavours. If they don't do it this time around, the Internet will become very treacle like for the sub 2 Meg users. Youtube offer most streams in 240/360/480 and then 720/1080 in some cases.

One example is the current BBC news site. Almost 600K of webpage for 12.6K of text. So basically the pertinent news is 2% of the webpage.

What the public is more worried about I suspect is peak versus off peak performance, i.e. does that video stream at 9pm, rather than having to wait till 1am to watch it without stuttering.

With Virgin Media as you go up the tiers the management is generally less harsh, with some other providers it is not so clear.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 10GB estimate was that, seems this research gives me a new figure of 14.9GB.

Taking some figures from the 2010 OFCom report:

p226:

...Western Europe (7.4PB per million)...

Assuming the UK is typical of Western Europe, has a population around 70 million and there are 20 million broadband lines (link), crunching the numbers around and adding some for mobile internet, the average comes out at around 3GB/month.

I don't think I've got the numbers wrong, but it's a heck of a discrepancy...


edit- add link for BB lines.

Edited by billford (Tue 08-Feb-11 11:05:07)

This page might halp with your calcs:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm

In fact looking here the UK has the highest penetration (% population).

Edited by camieabz (Tue 08-Feb-11 11:06:53)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

What the public is more worried about I suspect is peak versus off peak performance, i.e. does that video stream at 9pm, rather than having to wait till 1am to watch it without stuttering.

Which comes under the general heading stability. I would rather have a reliable 4Mb connection than a 14Mb connection that drops and/or slows sporadically.

Luckily I have a totally stable 14Mb/s but not everyone is so lucky.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

"PwC�s own research for the UK Champion for Digital Inclusion found that the total potential economic benefit from getting everyone in the United Kingdom online is more than £22 billion, far in excess of the scale of benefits from universal voice telephony."

Eh? So the phone isn't of £22 billion benefit?

I also found it a little difficult to see where those benefits would come from or why high speed broadband was needed. The government cost savings and public finding discounts are surely possible using ADSL. Surely you don't need a FTTx just to file a tax return.

I did see that one, but it only seems to give the number of users, not how much they use or how many lines are involved.

I'm pretty sure that when we say (eg) 10GB/month, that's per internet connection not per user, 'cos the first one is what we pay for!

£22 billion from getting everyone online at a speed that will make uploading stuff like tax returns easy enough.

Current target is 2Meg for everyone in 2015. Now does it make sense if spending money to meet a 2Meg limit to put that towards a solution that will not need further spending in three years time?

In which case access the mobile version of a site.

Now does it make sense if spending money to meet a 2Meg limit to put that towards a solution that will not need further spending in three years time

it depends. We have DCF analysis to answer questions like that. If the question is shall we give someone a £300 subsidy to get a satellite system at £25/month and maybe in three years we might want to look at spending more on something better, then I can see that the answer might be yes. The £300 = £100 a year over 3 years would be the interest cost on £1000 at BT's WACC or £2000 at government borrowing rates perhaps.

That's without taking account of deflation on costs.

You don't think that the default version of a national news page should be easily accessable by all national BB users? The mobile version is practically text only.

What I refer to is getting the balance right between bandwidth and content. I appreciate the need for layout, but not at the expense of excessive bandwidth. Many informational sites these days have automated videos on page load, whether I want to watch it or not.

I guess interpreting data has gone out of the window these days.

thinking has gone out of the window, let alone anything else. You just get media hypes from media types by and large.

So a return to the look of 2002 as the default

2002 look

To be honest don't see many people complaining that basic websites don't work, we do see the moans about video streaming, audio is a lot less moaned about. Even then the speed complaints are a lot less than even three years ago.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 10GB estimate was that, seems this research gives me a new figure of 14.9GB.

There was an interview on Radio 4 the other day, with "a spokesman" from the ambulance service.

The topic was that ambulances are beginning to be equipped with reinforced stretchers and hoists because of the obesity problem.

He stated that they are now frequently confronted with people of 30 stone, and that whereas the average was something like 11-12 stone it is now around 17 stone.

Excuse me? The average weight of ambulance passengers is 17 stone, 108kg?

Regarding bandwidth and video compression:

Vimeo.com, a video sharing website similar to Youtube, base their encoding of HD videos on two factors, namely average users' computer performance at decoding H.264 and average users' internet speed - correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this data is feed back to source from the Adobe Flash player.

As users' upgrade their computers over time and bandwidth increases then they can increase the re-encoded bit rate of members' uploaded videos and thus the quality of playback. Internet speed is important because people will not tolerate long buffering times before they can see high quality HD videos.

Their video compression is a constant balancing act: tweaking the variable bit rate so it does not peak to high and thus cause stuttering playback on "average" computers yet maintaining a sufficient range of VBR for optimal quality on an "average" bandwidth. This also leads to the recommended compression of members' source HD videos to be constantly reviewed always leading to gradually higher bit rates and quality as technology improves.

As a technician at Vimeo said: "compression is an art and not a science."

"In which case access the mobile version of a site. "

NO!

Design the site so it works equally well whether it is accessed via GPRS or VDSL or anything in between. There are going to be far more people accessing the web via mobile connectivity (limited speeds but not necessarily limited screensize) than there are already. Website operators who ignore this will lose out to those who don't.

If 95% of users access a site on a 1024x768 or larger screen, should layout and features be restricted due to some having 320x240 screens?

If 1% have javascript totally disabled should a site have no javascript on it?

Perhaps we should pass an accessibility law that outlaws any website that does not perform well on a mobile service. Or better to let the people themselves decide and not use sites that don't work well on their devices.

My broadband fits very snuglgly. I need to bump up a size but the shop doesn't stock all of the sizes even though theres an upstairs

The cost of providing that 4mbps might be close to or even exceeding what the cost of 40mbps is. Remember that ISPs are not public sector, they do it for money and they're gonna go where the money takes them. I also believe FTTC uptake is higher than 1%. Probably more in the region of 10% at this early stage, and higher in areas where they have had it first.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

I also believe FTTC uptake is higher than 1%. Probably more in the region of 10% at this early stage, and higher in areas where they have had it first.

Based on any evidence? For example I expect even Openreach will be keeping track of the number of connections per FTTC cabinet.

I think we already have an accessibility law about the visually impaired, don't we ?

I'm taking an educated guess on the actual things I've seen connected to HDFs in Exchanges with FTTC.

Trying to provide 40 Meg to 90% of the population vs 4 Meg to 100% has to be less expensive if we take into account the simple fact that there's no infrastructure in place to serve up 40 Meg to 90% of the population.

There's traffic management on 8 Meg and above profiles already. The ISPs will not cope with the demand for 40 Meg if the population take it up, given the present capacity. That or it will be the old 'up to' chestnut, meaning no where near 40 Meg.

A guarantee of 1 Meg or 2 Meg and the intention for 4 Meg minimum would be a massive leap forward for the customers. It's at what...256K at present? Distance from the exchange will always be a problem for some, but most people understand that. It's the woeful speeds that some get where distance isn't the issue that concerns me. Many cases will be due to users' lack of know-how and kit issues at their end, but that won't account for slow spots and not spots.

I'm actually finding it difficult to imagine why anyone would argue against such an aim. Anyone know why?

I rather think that many don't even realise why things are slower and put it down to "the internet is slow tonight". I'll agree that the very high contention levels the cheap ADSL packages force may drive people towards higher speeds when in truth they'd be better off moving to a quality ISP.

Cable is a different world so long as you are not in an oversubscribed area. You'd need some real issues with 50Mbps before iPlayer or YouTube quality was impacted. Of course some do say it happens - possibly the same ones who prefer the convenience of WiFi over ethernet.

Trying to provide 40 Meg to 90% of the population

I thought it was more around 50%, and in 4 years time.

The ISPs will not cope with the demand for 40 Meg if the population take it up, given the present capacity.

given the present capacity.

Distance from the exchange will always be a problem for some, but most people understand that.

Which is why FTTC is so important. It shifts the focus to your local cabinet, would you be happier if BT limited all FTTC offerings to 5mbps? regardless if they can get 40mbps for the sake of apparent backhaul capacity. I think a lot of people wouldn't be too pleased. A user cannot get fast speeds over copper far from an exchange without their cabinet being fibre ready. Unless they opt for expensive, often high latency satelite

A guarantee of of 1Meg of what?

If throughput, then currently its in the 25 to 100Kbps order that providers budget per user at peak times. Yes kilo bits per second.

You'd be surprised as to how many slow spots are actually resolveable with some work, i.e. at least getting people an extra meg or two. The evidence from people helped on forums bear this out.

Do most people understand the distance equation for xDSL services? A lot of the press don't amongst others, and surveys suggest not.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

given the present capacity.

And therein lies my point. There's no capacity for 8 Meg without management or shaping, so why look to supply 40 Meg? It will all be shaped or managed to a higher ratio of expected speeds.

I know - so should we extend that to FORCE web developers to ensure every page loads in 5 seconds on a 256Kbps connection per se?

There is no limit to what capacity can be sourced to a site!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I know - so should we extend that to FORCE web developers to ensure every page loads in 5 seconds on a 256Kbps connection per se?

You can't force anyone, but web designers who can make their sites more efficient stand a better chance of selling their products or communicating what it is they want to say. Less than ten seconds on an average web connection should be the norm. Few people will wait longer than that. As to what's average, I leave that one in your more knowledgable hands.

Bear in mind, I have no problem with web content, styles and any other facet of web doo-hickeys. Just how they are served to the users. Heavy items or services should be a click away rather than automatic. Notice I say 'should'. There will always be exceptions, and people will tolerate that. There are different ways of doing things:

http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/accessibility/10badthi...

It is estimated that you have about 5 seconds to get something substantial and interesting on the screen before a lot of your readers lose interest. That isn�t long, but it is possible to get stuff displaying early, and build on that. It�s called progressive downloading.

Sensible caching, external stylesheets, minimalist styles and lightweight objects can make a world of difference.

Bear in mind that the subject had gone onto page loading time, but there's also usage allowances too. If you load up a dozen Beeb site pages a day that's half a GB of data. Quite a lot if on a low allowance. Optimising the site would cut that in half easily. My own average usages has doubled in the past couple of years for little change in web habits. I am forced to take a heavy profile due to inefficient design. Not ranting...just highlighting how it can all add up for users' costs, contention issues, etc.

There is. The cost of the capacity limits it. FTTx will be 1.5 times the price and five times the speed.

Cost of the capacity devided by number of lines =cost price per line + markup. But obviously if cost in providing the service drops then they'll make a decision, lower costs to users or provision a better QoS.

You just can't win. Some users will want it cheaper, and some will want more bandwidth. But you are kinda right, 40mbps flat out won't be possible as for that to happen you'd need 1:1 contention ratios.

I got to this bit and stopped reading.

We can expect very different broadband experiences in the future in urban compared to rural areas. The digital divide is set to stay.

people still writing that tripe when on the FTTC rollout rural areas are getting progress than urban.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

"PwC�s own research for the UK Champion for Digital Inclusion found that the total potential economic benefit from getting everyone in the United Kingdom online is more than £22 billion, far in excess of the scale of benefits from universal voice telephony."

Eh? So the phone isn't of £22 billion benefit?

I also found it a little difficult to see where those benefits would come from or why high speed broadband was needed. The government cost savings and public finding discounts are surely possible using ADSL. Surely you don't need a FTTx just to file a tax return.

try to think out of the box, maybe people use broadband for more than you do.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

£22 billion from getting everyone online at a speed that will make uploading stuff like tax returns easy enough.

Current target is 2Meg for everyone in 2015. Now does it make sense if spending money to meet a 2Meg limit to put that towards a solution that will not need further spending in three years time?

I expect people will shout communism, but currently I see money been wasted.

my argument is if someone can already get 15mbit, then upgrading them to do 40mbit is not very efficient spending.
its far more rewarding as a whole if instead that same money upgrades someone on 1mbit to 40mbit. or even a not spot.

This is a problem of commercial vs state rollout tho, commercial will go on what they consider most financially rewarding whilst state will go on who needs it more.

As it stands there is a strong link between BT's rollout and affluency, so its ironically even going to generate a rich/poor part of the country division of availability of BT based broadband services.

So what I think should be going on is FTTC concentrated first on areas with long cable runs between exchange and cabinet, cabinets near exchanges skipped. When there is no long runs left and only then start FTTP investment, that been prioritised on areas with poorest performance and/or highest population density, linking to affluency should be made illegal because in my view broadband is now a utility, and if the power companies dared to only do improvements to affluent areas there would be an outcry.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 08-Feb-11 15:39:50)

If you load up a dozen Beeb site pages a day that's half a GB of data

Really? Are you saying each BBC page, is around 41MB of data?

You must visit a very odd bit of the BBC, or are playing every single piece of audio and video on each page you visit. BBC is pretty good in that a click is needed to play video/audio.

When It comes to broadband, I have a very dim view of the media.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

You just can't win. Some users will want it cheaper, and some will want more bandwidth. But you are kinda right, 40mbps flat out won't be possible as for that to happen you'd need 1:1 contention ratios.

Not neccessarily - not unless you're suggesting everyone runs their connection flat out.

Right now Be are providing their users with a service that doesn't slow down 24/7/365. They don't sell an uncontended service though. It's all the more impressive given that Be attracts people who want to do a lot of downloading and market their service as being truly unlimited.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

try to think out of the box, maybe people use broadband for more than you do.

Maybe but they've been able to tell me what they are doing. I even started a thread earlier and didn't get many ideas.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

try to think out of the box, maybe people use broadband for more than you do.

Maybe but they've been able to tell me what they are doing. I even started a thread earlier and didn't get many ideas.

I suspect that not many are going to publicly admit the most obvious usage....

whilst state will go on who needs it more

really ? You hope so but have no way of knowing. They are likely to go for most connections per subsidy and end up doing what a commercial operator would do.

Broadband may be a utility in your opinion, yet 30% of houses don't have it and half of Glaswegian houses don't. There isn't a USO it is a "first world problem" not having broadband or having slow broadband.

A city with >50% ethnics and low takeup in ethnic communities isn't going to be attractive to investors, or civil servants.

I suspect that not many are going to publicly admit the most obvious usage....

that'll be where the value to the economy is - more porn.

US annual spend on porn exceeds African national debt.

It's all the more impressive given that Be attracts people

doesn't attract many people though, does it. Is it making any money yet ?

I'm sure it's a wonderful service but it never got anywhere in marketing or business terms. O2 is little better despite throwing money at it.

FTTC rollout rural areas are getting progress than urban

apart from the odd city at the bottom of the economic league most of the activity looks to be in towns and cities to me. I can drive 20 minutes one way to FTTC in a city, or half an hour the other way to it going into a (very) small town, but all the ruralness in between is an FTTC free zone.

think of the savings if they aren't poncing around with fancy graphics all day

It is the NIMBY effect but in reverse

And do you know why?

Because they cherry pick the very best areas. They also have great social media marketing and people actively refer each other to the ISP.

we have been through this many times.
you still not thinking out of the box if you think that a broadband connection can only be used for light www email use or for torrenting.

check the cities in the eastern part of the country (not the south east).

so north east
east midlands
norfolk
south west.

and rural getting more progress is not saying there is no urban rollout but more that this divide is closing, I am not just talking about BT's rollout either but also the fact various rural areas are having projects funded outside of BT.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 08-Feb-11 19:48:41)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

we have been through this many times.
you still not thinking out of the box if you think that a broadband connection can only be used for light www email use or for torrenting.

it would appear I'm not the only one failing to 'think outside of the box' since you have apparently had to dodge the question. Same ol' same ol. No-one ever can ever give a good answer.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

Because they cherry pick the very best areas. They also have great social media marketing and people actively refer each other to the ISP.

That and running at a loss

I'm not saying it's easy and it's not cheap. I'm just pointing out that 1:1 is not a requirement for an ISP to offer a service that never slows down. If Be was 1:1 it'd be far more than £20pcm.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 08-Feb-11 20:16:27)

In reply to a post by yarwell:

It's all the more impressive given that Be attracts people

doesn't attract many people though, does it. Is it making any money yet ?

I'm sure it's a wonderful service but it never got anywhere in marketing or business terms. O2 is little better despite throwing money at it.

Agreed but that's not the point I was refuting. I just wanted to correct the idea that residential ISPs have to offer 1:1 contention in order to provide a service that doesn't slow down.

Unfortunately Be/O2's lack of success is just yet more evidence of how little appetite there is in the UK for a dependable high-speed service. It's not like I'm paying a huge amount. I pay less than £20pcm to Be and only another £13 to BT. £33 pcm doesn't seem unreasonable to me for a service that runs at full speed 24/7/365. It's be a helluva lot more if it was actually 1:1. Unfortunately it is clearly too much for most people.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 08-Feb-11 20:14:42)

answer the question as to why people would need more than 4mbit (adsl average). or more than 448kbit upload.

live streaming
multiple use
interactive downloading
online applications
VOD
IPTV
file sharing (uploads)
online backups (uploads)
movie downloads
game downloads

the latter 2 can argue speed isnt needed as can leave pc on overnight or whatever, but some people may want to download within a reasonable time frame without sucking up electric for hours on end.

is also about internet commerce and online working in general, BT's rollout does have social discrimination about it and I can forsee situations where people are been interviewed on working from home job's where a question be asked on what type of connectivity they have. (as already happens in other countries that are way ahead of us on internet development). The uk isnt just behind on connectivity it is behind on working from home and internet business.

What is backward thinking and is a prime reason why the uk is weak now econimically is we have a mindset in this country that money should only be spent when proven returns, and not on future proofing ie. only when there is already a need, this puts us behind all the time. Whilst other countries just get on with it.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 08-Feb-11 21:13:49)

that was the East Midlands. Cities, towns, - some sporadic FTTC. Villages - no FTTC.

The 5 max live projects outside of BT wouldn't add up to a decent sized conference hall of users.

Cornwall has indeed had another tranche of EU / Govt largesse, being equivalent to Macedonia economically.

The East Midlands has some dive cities at the bottom of the economic league. We're still waiting for the Black Watch to retake Nottingham.

well I have said my view, everyone has their own, BT have done nothing wrong with what they doing, I just think it shouldnt be happening like this. You dont go up the economic league without investment.

Of course I didn't mean the service was 1:1, but rather the fact many average users believe a broadband supplier that says 8megs, to receive 8megs, when in reality its many times lower than that.

Whilst other countries just get on with it.

yeah, the grass is always greener on the other side - until you actually look.

or more than 448kbit upload.

832k is available universally, but nobody buys it. Clearly not that important.

Most of your list comes down to TV and entertainment. Do we need to create a million antisocial couch potatoes like S Korea did by feeding this addition / obsession ? Is porn and TV and games a good reason to tax & spend ?

Edited by yarwell (Tue 08-Feb-11 22:39:59)

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

14.9GB does not significantly alter my conclusion that the general public are quite right to be indifferent to speeds over 8Mbps.

Seems there are still plenty of folk out there, like you, who don't understand the relationship between building infrastructure and then using it rather than finding a use and then finding out that you don't actually have the ability to deliver.

10 years ago plenty of people said you didn't need ADSL because most people didn't even use the internet and 56k was cool for the websites and services of the time.
6 or 7 years ago it had moved to "ADSL is fine, 512k is perfect...you don't need 2mbit though - don't get uppity son"

Then when everyone decided broadband was a good idea and things like gaming, youtube and epic HD pornography turned up some people decided that maybe 2mbit wasn't cutting it anymore and so we moved on to our 8mbit and LLU and 20 mbit cable connections and guess what - few people said "actually, I know I can have 24mbit but you know what? just give me 512k"

Because who wants 512k these days? No one, apart from the relatively few poor souls who still can't get any broadband. A far cry from the not too distant past when 512k was blazing. I remember it myself and thinking "OMG" at the possibilities. Today it
s about as current or useful as a 1st gen ipod.

And so it continues. Point is, you provide the speed first and then services and uses are found to take advantage of it which drives the whole thing forward and leads to progress and by extension brings the economic benefits that people seem to be all to skeptical about. Skeptical because they've seemingly managed to forget about all the differences between today and 1999 when ADSL was just a trial.

Why is there nothing out there that requires or takes advantage of a 100mbit connection? Because next to no one in the world has a 100mbit connection. Come back in another 10 years when people do and things like youtube and iplayer will look quaint by comparison to whats possible. Alternatively just plateau at 20-40mbit and be done with any further inventions or new ways to use the internet and computers.

Edited by orly (Tue 08-Feb-11 22:33:58)

Because next to no one in the world has a 100mbit connection.

there are quite a lot, they just do the same stuff a lot quicker by and large.

Half the people in the UK could have 50M but less than 300,000 opt to buy it. Why is that ?

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Because next to no one in the world has a 100mbit connection.

there are quite a lot, they just do the same stuff a lot quicker by and large.

Half the people in the UK could have 50M but less than 300,000 opt to buy it. Why is that ?

Because its time is yet to come. What currently uses 50mbit? Not much. But try to get away with 512k or 1mbit these days and people cry that it is inadequate.

In the coming years as FTTC and the like become widely available and more people come on board then you'll see a lot more uses/services come along...and then the cycle restarts.

You build it, the early adopters set the trend, gradually more people move over and then you get people inventing services to take advantage - at which time you reach a tipping point where everyone must have it and then you move on to the next stage.

That said, for many people 8mbit or even 2mbit might be perfectly fine but you don't just stop there because in a few years they'll be as laughable as 56k and ISDN is today.

To be honest probably the most beneficial thing the government could do is fund a nationwide, complete, FTTH rollout and then allow the likes of BT, virgin and anyone else to pay to access and manage it rather than sinking money into useless endeavors like the "war on terror" or bailing out every Tom, Dick and Harry.

I first got online around 1997 when your PC had a pentium 1 running at something like 100mhz and your connection was 28k. Today I have a connection that is roughly 1000 times faster than that and as you mention, there is faster available to some. So what will we put up with in 14 years from now in 2025? Seems to me the only feasible course of action is FTTH to allow the gigabit speeds that will become necessary. Anyone thinking you can dick about for another decade with ADSL2 and VDSL to the cabinet is sorely mistaken in my opinion. If we do, it will be to the detriment of the country as a whole.

The guy who presented the ADSL rollout to the BT board allegedly said they were going to do it alphabetically starting in Aberdeen. Individual views of these things tends to be skewed by personal situations.

Openreach are recruiting for FTTC build so resources may be a factor - building in proportion to regional resources perhaps. Doing higher return locations early always works well in finance models, generating funds for the less attractive locations that come later and allowing time for demand to build.

yeah the providers that still provide 832kbit on adsl max have a nice premium on it. and not that many lines will sync at it either only about 2./3rds.

your last comment proves my point in that we have people here who think we should only spend on whats needed today, no future proofing and only the min necessary.

That's over a month (data usage).

In reply to a post by yarwell:

832k is available universally, but nobody buys it. Clearly not that important.

Or perhaps its price is such that only those that absolutely need it are prepared to pay what can amount to 25-75% of their monthly bill for it. for an increase of 325K up it costs me £7.83 (iirc). On a bill of £12.99 p.m. that's quite a percentage increase (while granted not a lot of cash).

I'd rather have the ISPs move to 832K as standard than puch for 40 Meg. Latency decreases with said upgrade too, so there's an added benefit of the line being a little snappier (sp?).

Do I need 832K? Probably not. I tried it out. It was great when uploading a 1 Meg file to my site to wait half the time. I can get by without it, but think about what and how I send certain items.

Everyone is different, and have different needs. I'm pretty happy with 6 Meg. There are few situations where I'm waiting any amoung of time for something to happen. The upload issue, latency, and the traffic management are my more pressing needs. Hence why I advocate pushing for lower latency, more widespread minimum speeds and faster uploads. It's not as if I aregue that everyone should have minimum of 10 Meg. 2-4 Meg ought to be the target. If ISPs could have that in place with less management, the online experience for all would be far better.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

Of course I didn't mean the service was 1:1, but rather the fact many average users believe a broadband supplier that says 8megs, to receive 8megs, when in reality its many times lower than that.

Okay, fair enough

Can we agree that the market can't/won't pay for what the market wants?

I'm completely sold on the idea of future proofing, if not simply because it's cheaper in the long run (but only if the planners out there are sure what the future is going to be). It would be sickening to lay fibre to the country, only to discover a 1PB connection is easy, but only if specific equipment and lines are in the ground.

In that sense, I can see the benefit of not diving in but, similar to buying a new PC, one must take the plunge at some point. Where do we stop? Will 40 Meg be enough in ten years time? 100 Meg? 1GB (not Gb)?

Everyone out there on 56k will happily take 512k, and anyone of 2 Meg will happily take 4 Meg. That's the bottom line. Give them the best possible connection they can use at a price they are prepared to pay.

I've got nothing against cities getting 100 Meg, as long as the rural areas are getting 2 Meg or more. Cities will always get preferential priority due to their ability to generate commerce and tax. Many seem to ignore the value of the rural areas though. The 10% of UK lines (or is it 10% of people?) that people keep quoting amount to a lot of people who would be delighted to shop online.

That's a lot of people who have to shop online in many cases, as supermarkets can be 20-50 miles away. It's not that long ago that the rural people in the North East of Scotland travelled into Aberdeen for a 'nice day of shopping'. Perhaps they still do. Factor in the people in places such as Wales, the Scottish highland and Islands, isolated areas of England etc. It's worth their while to get stuff delivered (even at increased charges), rather than make the journey themselves. It all improves the economy.

Then of course there's the issue of social isolation, which includes the aged, children, teenagers, and single adults. When I stop to think of what universal access to the online world can do for us (for those of us who want it / need it / could use it), it's a pity that some people try to dismiss the whole thing with "It would cost too much". What cost? What value?

Time for brekky.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

live streaming

Doesn't really need a high-speed connection. I'm also not convinced many people would want it or be prepared to pay for it.

VOD

See my recent thread. Seems to be a minority interest.

IPTV

We have plenty of existing broadcast capability. Most people already have access to over a hundred TV channels and can get double that for a one-off payment or four times that if they want to subscribe to a service.

movie downloads
game downloads

Doesn't really need a high-speed service. I'm also not sure how many people would subscribe to that.

multiple use

Maybe. But then again it depends on usage. Multiple people in the house watching TV or downloading then it's a problem. But multiple people browsing and reading email doesn't need much more than one person does.

interactive downloading

What's that?

online applications

I can only really think of remote gaming for this. Not sure how many people will pay for that.

file sharing (uploads)
online backups (uploads)

Yes, better upload would make a difference. Probably more than better downloads. Then again you can double downstream speeds if you want to pay. Not many people do.

So what I see there are a few things that would significantly benefit from high-speed broadband and that might interest some people. I'm one of the people who would be interested as I said in my previous thread. Unfortunately I still don't see anything on that list that I could announce in a pub and expect the crowd to go 'Oh wow! Cool - I've got to get that'.

In times gone past that could be because people wouldn't know what I was talking about. But most people do know what such things are. It isn't ignorance that keeps the demand low. It's lack of interest.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 09-Feb-11 07:38:35)

In reply to a post by camieabz:

I'm completely sold on the idea of future proofing...

[snipped for brevity]

I agree with everything you've written. I also to an extent agree with Chrysalis. I think that there is value in building a network ahead of an actual product to use it.

Unfortunately I'm a realist. I can fully understand why no-one wants to spend vast sums of money without any idea of what kind of return they can get. Maybe ten years ago when nearly everyone(*) was being stupid with money but right now it's a none-starter. We're being forced to cut back on things we know we need so expecting people to spend vast amounts on things they don't even know they need is not going to happen.

(*)Not me, ironically.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

(*)Not me, ironically.

Or me, as it happens.

One can evenly argue that the costs that cannot be considered for rural improvements equally cannot be afforded to urban improvements.

Rural areas will always be backwaters, but it is ironic that the media (and more importantly, plenty of the UK population) can spend any amount of time focussing on Obama or Afghanistan, or Egypt, which are all thousands of miles away. We hear of Egypt's 'Internet' being cut off, and many considered that to be terrible, but ask them about the digital divide and they get dismissive.

I think everyone is ignoring the way forward which is the Big Society concepts, whatever you name it and whoever is in power. You can have whatever you want, but you can't expect someone else to pay for it: communities (whether physical or one created from people with a like interest) have to club together voluntariiy in a way to support change and that will often involve extra financial contributions to support the cost of provision, perhaps helped in some cases by government funds, but not cry like babies expecting to be spoon fed. It's part of growing up. Of course some people will strike lucky and get their needs met by the commercial market, but hey that's a market economy after all and all countries are now more or less following the same path (with the exception perhaps of North Korea, and do they have a public internet?).

I have a BT line which was and is the pits and which doesn't fit BT's ROI criteria to do anything about it (despite being in a community of 2000), so I researched around and found an alternative but had to pay for the infrastructure, but I make savings on the subscription. Now local government has stepped in and subsidises the same system with grant aid. Do your homework and be creative, surely God gave us a brain for a purpose. The "good ole days" of government pay for everything and everybody has to have the same are gone for good (and never actually existed). Labour tried it, people didn't like it; and left a financial mess which NO-ONE is going to tolerate again, ever. You wouldn't tolerate sameness for clothes or cars, we even introduce artificial competition for utilities, and yes internet is also in part a lifestyle thing. Rant over!

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-Feb-11 09:41:03)

Or perhaps its price is such

either way it punches a whole in this "must have higher upload speed" notion.

It becomes a desirable feature with a low marginal value, rather than some massive imperative as some would have you believe.

Now local government has stepped in and subsidises the same system with grant aid.

The "good ole days" of government pay for everything and everybody has to have the same are gone for good

you've lost me, should we expect a subsidy (point 1) or not (point 2).

Presumably the grant aid is now a savings target ?

Do you get a subsidy or not? Wrong question I think: nothing in life is a simple yes/no. Politics has caught up with reality: if you want something you can just sit and moan, wait for someone to offer it to you on the luck of the draw, or try and do something to get it. If the latter then others might help, or they might not, but don't try and you'll never know and they probably won't offer. You have no right to expect voluntary help, (or a voluntary subsidy).

So BBC iPlayer (which is both vod and live) is a minority interest?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So BBC iPlayer (which is both vod and live) is a minority interest?

I'd say it's catch-up rather than VoD and how many people would be prepared to pay for it?

Anyway it doesn't seem to need high-speed broadband. Just a half-way decent one.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 09-Feb-11 11:07:28)

In reply to a post by camieabz:

One can evenly argue that the costs that cannot be considered for rural improvements equally cannot be afforded to urban improvements.

And even argue what's the point. I live in a small market town and I have a stable 14Mb/s connection that runs at full speed 24/7/365. Supposedly by next December I'll have FTTC which I reckon will increase that to at least 30Mb/s.

I don't even need the 14. It was nice just before Christmas when I pulled down a 2.5GB PS3 game in less than half an hour but that's about the only time I can say I've needed the speed. Occasional iPlayer use when one of my PVRs screws up but that's only 3.5Mb/s.

No I've always maintained that instead of trying to get ever faster speeds to fewer people we should look at fixing the slow- and not- spots. I think it's a shame that BT won't use FTTC for that. It seems like an ideal way to 'tweak' those areas where replacing the local loop is never likely to be worthwhile financially.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So BBC iPlayer (which is both vod and live) is a minority interest?

I'd say it's catch-up rather than VoD and how many people would be prepared to pay for it?

Anyway it doesn't seem to need high-speed broadband. Just a half-way decent one.

My point isn't that there's nothing you can use a high-speed connection for. Clearly there's always something even if it's just trying to maintain a local cache of the WWW.

My point is that I have yet to hear of anything or even group of things that a significant majority of the country's population would want enough to pay for. At best there's a handfull of things that various different groups of people are somewhat interested in and a very small number of things that a very small group of people really want to do.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 09-Feb-11 11:11:23)

Video at 256kbps was acceptable in its day, so perhaps we should accept that as the best quality it can provide.

Nothing that you are interested in, currently my ADSL2+ line will sync at 8.1 in day, down to 7 at night, and cannot support XBox Live HD movie streams (have to download the 8 to 10GB file instead).

So already I have applications that exceed what a line is capable of. Ever tried playing a FPS while someone is watching video in the same house? Or uploading content?

To show you how things change, these days not unusual for a six year old to know how to make a video clip for sending in an email to family.

If speed got uber important I just need to move into the village, and will probably get around 20Meg (2500 line, but one ADSL2+ provider)

Alas costs of moving are such that I can put up with a few things that take longer, that and having two lines to share busy days across.

On the FTTC if the money to make it feasible is there, then I am sure BT would use it for not-spots etc. The costs quoted for Hambledon were large though when someone other than BT moved in, could have swallowed the setup costs, but not the on going 25GB monthly allowance. Eating around 60 to 80GB a month (Lovefilm, iPlayer, XBox/PS3 movies, webcam, games)

You have misunderstood why I came to that conclusion. It has nothing to do with whether or not I can see a use for speeds over 8Mbps (I can and I have 50Mbps cable) it is that if the average download is a mere 15GB then the public at large clearly haven't found a use for over 8Mbps and so they are right to ignore those faster services. It seems that willy waving isn't a good enough reason for most.

Urm 15GB - are you assuming that is spread out evening across the whole month?

Does the average user using 15GB a month, sit at their computer all day every day? Or perhaps for just an hour each night?

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Urm 15GB - are you assuming that is spread out evening across the whole month?

Does the average user using 15GB a month, sit at their computer all day every day? Or perhaps for just an hour each night?

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

And yet the take up rates in those areas where faster is available suggests lack lustre interest. Maybe it's pricing (at least as far as VM is concerned) but that's just another facet of the same problem.

People can't think what they need it for and/or people don't see the point in paying for it. Basically two sides of the same coin.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 09-Feb-11 14:26:24)

the "how much bandwidth should we build" studies done by Analysys Mason tend to go for 2.3 HD video streams at 8M each.

So the next generation debate to me has become about other ways of watching the telly or videos, which I don't find too interesting. Perhaps it's because I have the patience to download something and watch it tomorrow rather than demanding instant gratification while declining to pay for it.

Don't get me started on the East Midlands. There is FTTC in very few places here. Market Deeping, Stamford, and Peterborough coming soon. That's about it.

Totally!

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

indeed. Provisioning them with 100 kbits/s each instead of 50 would probably help, rather than changing the peak speed of the access line technology, perhaps ?

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

indeed. Provisioning them with 100 kbits/s each instead of 50 would probably help, rather than changing the peak speed of the access line technology, perhaps ?

Yeah. I think there's two things the UK really needs right now

1.A target minimum of 5Mb/s(*) peak throughput for everyone
2.The minimum is achieved 90% of the time and is never worse than 80%.

Unfortunately I suspect the economics for that are worse than they are for yet another speed boost to the chosen few :-/

(*)Historians for this board will notice that I've raised it again in line with my policy(**).
(**)Maybe that should be rule three - target throughput is on an escalator

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

The report that is the subject of this thread suggests that you are wrong as it concludes that there is little to no interest in faster internet. Of course that may just be a case of once burned twice shy.

I have no idea of pattern of use of the average user and I strongly suspect that you don't either. Come to that there probably isn't even an average user. There are millions that sit swapping chat on Facebook all night which is possibly the most common usage and hardly speed sensitive.

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

The report that is the subject of this thread suggests that you are wrong as it concludes that there is little to no interest in faster internet. Of course that may just be a case of once burned twice shy.

I have no idea of pattern of use of the average user and I strongly suspect that you don't either. Come to that there probably isn't even an average user. There are millions that sit swapping chat on Facebook all night which is possibly the most common usage and hardly speed sensitive.

No he is correct.There will be a time lag between the availability ogf HS Broadband and mass takeup of it as intially there will be almost no services that need it. Untill you have a pretty large installed base of HS Broadband companies will not devlop procts that need it

In reply to a post by yarwell:

At least according to bean counters / management consultants PWC at http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/communications/review/featu...

Points to an ongoing digital divide and a lack of appetite for paying for higher speeds.

Seeing people complaining about being asked to pay £18.50 / month for Virgin Media's 30Mbit service says it all really.

Thanks to Ofcom ramming cheap LLU down our throats with their regulation practices there is no appetite to pay the kind of prices that are needed to give a return on investment.

I find the business case for FTTC is precarious unless BT are planning on having it around for a long time, and by that I mean over a decade.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by camieabz:

I'm completely sold on the idea of future proofing...

[snipped for brevity]

I agree with everything you've written. I also to an extent agree with Chrysalis. I think that there is value in building a network ahead of an actual product to use it.

Unfortunately I'm a realist. I can fully understand why no-one wants to spend vast sums of money without any idea of what kind of return they can get. Maybe ten years ago when nearly everyone(*) was being stupid with money but right now it's a none-starter. We're being forced to cut back on things we know we need so expecting people to spend vast amounts on things they don't even know they need is not going to happen.

(*)Not me, ironically.

Unfortenatly thats not how the tech world works.

1 - Product comes to market, almost no demand except by early adopters.
2 - Eventually costs of providing the product come down and eventually takeup goes up with lower retail cost. Whilst this is happening a new premium low takeup product is in the pipeline.

Its a ever lasting thing and there is always a product out there that hardly anyone buys but will take off. Do you think mobile phones took off overnight? 3g, adsl, hdtv etc.

Are france telecom stupid for doing a 40% FTTP rollout?

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So BBC iPlayer (which is both vod and live) is a minority interest?

I'd say it's catch-up rather than VoD and how many people would be prepared to pay for it?

Anyway it doesn't seem to need high-speed broadband. Just a half-way decent one.

and there is people who haevnt got that half decent broadband due to poor local loop tech.

arent you the one who says you want HDTV VOD before will use it? That wont happen until there is enough people with FTTx connectivity. I expect will happen within 2 years when much more of the country has BT's FTTC and especially when sky have customers on FTTC.

yeah I moan about leicester, and its even worse in derby and nottingham. The entire part of the country is thread bare on deployment.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Just because people don't consumer TerraBytes of data, does not mean they would not appreciate the ability to download what they do faster.

indeed. Provisioning them with 100 kbits/s each instead of 50 would probably help, rather than changing the peak speed of the access line technology, perhaps ?

Yeah. I think there's two things the UK really needs right now

1.A target minimum of 5Mb/s(*) peak throughput for everyone
2.The minimum is achieved 90% of the time and is never worse than 80%.

Unfortunately I suspect the economics for that are worse than they are for yet another speed boost to the chosen few :-/

(*)Historians for this board will notice that I've raised it again in line with my policy(**).
(**)Maybe that should be rule three - target throughput is on an escalator

I dont know if you read it but I did state I feel boosting someone on a short adsl line to 40mbit I feel isnt efficient way of investing.

If FTTC was targeted at long line cabinets, it would go a long way to achieving #1.

I feel these things need to happen.

1 - start deregulating the market prices and competitiveness, small isp's will die but this will be good in the long term, with the single sole purpose of driving up retail prices. We bang on about commercial viability, this will fix that.
2 - increase regulation on selling practices, with the sole purposes of driving up product quality.
3 - classify broadband as a utility and as such it should have new guidelines on how its deployed with respect to whats expected across different areas.
4 - give the chance for BT and VM to stay in the game under these new rules, if either state they feel they cannot do business under such an environment then pay the shareholders off and take state ownership of local loops.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 09-Feb-11 20:08:05)

l boosting someone on a short adsl line to 40mbit I feel isnt efficient way of investing.

the article in the OP suggests that it's BT's only hope of staying in the game or growing in dense urban areas with VM present.

Investment analysis isn't hard, you have known costs on one hand and forecast extra cashflow on the other. What services people have now are neither here nor there, other than the impact they have on the extra cashflow.

I thought Leicester was getting FTTC? I know FTTx apprentices working in that area.

leicester, and its even worse in derby and nottingham

don't they all have cable ? that and propping up the economic league appear to be common factors.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

leicester, and its even worse in derby and nottingham

don't they all have cable ? that and propping up the economic league appear to be common factors.

What Phil said. Between the low incomes and having to share customers with the ever-discounting Virgin Media there's not a massive amount of prospect for return on investment.

Even less prospect than places that are affluent with no cable.

this is the point I am making, as an end user I have no concern if its viable commercially, my concern is infrastructure improvement.

As far as I am concerned if its not viable to rollout an improvement in cities (the uk is way behind in urban areas) then the market has failed and another approach is needed, ignition has noted that the uk is lagging in densely populated urban areas.

Incidently its not just about I am alirght jack attitude either, leicester is just one of many cities that will be ignored by BT, and not all of them have cable.

at least you guys are admitting now urban areas arent staying ahead and there is a link to affluency. You may see nothing wrong with pushing more money into places where the richest are but I do. There is no historical broadband data showing this strategy is a winner either, its the first time I have heard of a telecom company rolling out based on affluency, normally population density is the prime factor.

By the way hinckley has cable, and it has it faster (already got VM upgrades), its picked for FTTC.

Now we at the stage where BT are going to skip the poor then it means state involvement is needed.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

arent you the one who says you want HDTV VOD before will use it? That wont happen until there is enough people with FTTx connectivity.

If then. See my previous thread.

II expect will happen within 2 years when much more of the country has BT's FTTC and especially when sky have customers on FTTC.

I think your optimism is misplaced.

Still - I'm not sure you understand my position. You seem to be trying to persuade me of how good FTTx is. You don't have to. I already want it.

The problem is that I can distinguish between what I want and what other people might want. I also know the difference between want and need. If we want a decent NGA roll-out (FTTP in urban areas, FTTC everywhere else as a minimum) then we need something with mass appeal or something that is essential.

No-one has ever convinced me that such a product or collection of product exists. I wish they could.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 09-Feb-11 21:52:34)

I know what other people want, is as ignition said. They want the speed but they want it also for nothing. Thanks to ofcom policy.

There is no historical broadband data showing this strategy is a winner either

debatable. They started out providing ADSL to council estates and urban hellholes and the takeup was low, so they stopped the rollout in favour of a demand led approach. The affluent got motivated and exceeded their trigger levels and got ADSL soonest, so maybe there is data that shows the affluent areas are a better bet.

Look at the race to infinity, that wasn't won by high population urban areas, was it. Leicester Central with 18,000 connections got half the votes of my 2000 line exchange. Braunstone got less than us with 12,800 lines. QED. Lack of demonstrable demand.

IMHO i think bt should be renewing their infrastructure, so that existing adsl can work without all the problems it currently has,never mind rolling out fibre just for fast speeds, it should be about quality

I have looked into this quickly.

on website retail prices, the 3 month introduction offers between 10mbit VM and BT infinity are almost the same. So if VM can sell out here then the 3 month price for infinity wouldnt have been too high. At the end of the 3 months it changes to around £3 a month difference, VM's 10mbit actually seems overpriced in comparison. BT seem to be underselling their product in desperation for takeup as I didnt expect prices that low. In addition historical data also tends to show even tho people are poorer they dont spend much less on broadband and tv on average than weathier people. In fact a millionaire I personally know is on O2's cheapest product. Before that he was on tiscali. He is not tight in general but like most of the country he undervalues broadband.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 09-Feb-11 22:27:27)

demand data is very skewed.

Regardless of wealth a small community area is always going to do well vs a larger area, as campaigning will be far easier, also the problem that inner city areas tend to have less expansion due to lack of space which means BT's out dated database had the property count too low for these smaller areas. I certianly had no one knocking on my door or pushing leaflets through it telling me to vote. Not to mention the cheating that probably went on.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 09-Feb-11 22:31:04)

There is only so much you can do with copper wire, there comes a time when you need the reliability of fibre cables, and you might as well utilize the speed enhancements that come along with it.

they should then replace all the copper with fibre country wide, not cherry pick who gets it and who doesn't, then everyone could be connected via fiber to their existing isp,and speed ,ect my local area too they select the most affluent parts,

of course they should, but they have been dodging and weaving on this from day one on adsl.

first it was the very conservative 43db attenuation needed for 0.5mbit broadband.
then it was the 43db limit on 2mbit broadband, still very low compared to what a unfaulty 43db line should do.
The purpose of both of these limits was to avoid the need to have to work on a line to provide service, 44db attenuation and cant sync? no problem reject order.
then we had adsl max, the line profiles and all that came with it, the deliberate policy of delaying ramp up's so user's with lines that had changing conditions wouldnt notice their speeds going up and down a lot unless checking sync speed on router. Even in the early days reporting a line fault was tricky getting BT to actually do work up on the pole, junction box etc. Later on they started tricks to falsify fault numbers such as making customers agree to fee's before callout's to deter isps doing faults and time limited engineer visits. Plus the policy of checking end user equipment first and if anything wrong found an assumption made BT's side is all and well.
now with vdsl they even stopped accessing the stats altogether on BT supplied modem's.
also the long line policy for faults, if line over a certian db it had a different procedure which typically was blame line length for problems.

Its no surprise people here will defend BT.

rural areas in the UK have it great compared to other countries as BT have served those areas well.

I wonder if everyone should ask their local millionaires to upgrade their exchanges for them?

And those properties that cost £10,000 to fibre up?

Dunno about that, but all isp's could unite and all contribute so everyone can benefit, and eventually leading to a return in their investment , but as for problematic lines FTTC wont be the answer, as it will be in some cases if not most of them, the existing copper(d-side)from street cab to home at fault, unless bt are going to replace these failing,aged cables that sometimes are not even placed in ducting, just buried under the footpath next to 240vac incoming mains supplies too?

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 09-Feb-11 23:25:05)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

all isp's could unite and all contribute so everyone can benefit, and eventually leading to a return in their investment

ISPs generating profits? When did that start to happen?

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I know what other people want, is as ignition said. They want the speed but they want it also for nothing. Thanks to ofcom policy.

At last we can mostly agree

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Unfortenatly thats not how the tech world works.

1 - Product comes to market, almost no demand except by early adopters.
2 - Eventually costs of providing the product come down and eventually takeup goes up with lower retail cost. Whilst this is happening a new premium low takeup product is in the pipeline.

Yup. For that reason companies rolling out new tech prefer to target the affluent areas and/or those where provision is cheapest.

Its a ever lasting thing and there is always a product out there that hardly anyone buys but will take off. Do you think mobile phones took off overnight?

No. Nor did land lines - do you think the phone network was rolled out nationally in a matter of months? Do you think the railways were rolled-out nationally in a matter of months?

Are france telecom stupid for doing a 40% FTTP rollout?

I'm not familiar enough with their market really but based on my knowledge of France I'd say they have different market conditions. Although it's a bigger country with a similar population their urban population density is higher. They also have a long history of public IT projects and strong involvement in IT development.

So I don't know whether they are foolish or not - I'm not prepared to try apply the same rules to France as I would to the UK.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 10-Feb-11 07:45:14)

out dated database had the property count too low for these smaller areas

irrelevant, in fact makes the % votes cast even worse.

The actual number of votes in a major city was less than in 5 small villages where there wasn't any noticeable campaigning.

I certianly had no one knocking on my door or pushing leaflets through it telling me to vote.

you should have been out there doing it, instead of whining on here that BT ignore a city that ignores BT !

they should then replace all the copper with fibre country wide

"they should do something about it"

In reply to a post by yarwell:

they should then replace all the copper with fibre country wide

"they should do something about it"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I know what other people want, is as ignition said. They want the speed but they want it also for nothing. Thanks to ofcom policy.

At last we can mostly agree

I have seen it myself. My parents wouldn't join broadband until I paid for it for them for 12 months. And now they wouldn't be willing to pay more than £20 a month (at the moment they are paying £17.99). FTTC/FTTH would be of no interest to them as they watch the TV (mostly through closed eyelids) and aren't interested generally in iplayer/VoD/etc. So, even if they could they wouldn't sign up unless it was no more than they would pay on ADSL.

And they are on a line that is dodgy as it is overhead, through trees, etc. Most winters they have at least one phone/broadband failure. They do get about 3.5Mb though which considering where they are is amazing (yes, they are "rural" users and no they aren' "affluent" although many in the area are, and they couldn't afford urban rents as they are currently in a tied farm cottage).

In reply to a post by ian72:

I have seen it myself. My parents wouldn't join broadband until I paid for it for them for 12 months. And now they wouldn't be willing to pay more than £20 a month (at the moment they are paying £17.99). FTTC/FTTH would be of no interest to them as they watch the TV (mostly through closed eyelids) and aren't interested generally in iplayer/VoD/etc. So, even if they could they wouldn't sign up unless it was no more than they would pay on ADSL.

My parent's view is that BB is like TV. It's occasionally useful, sometimes entertaining but it's not 'real'. Ask them what's essential and they'll say things like 'food', 'water', 'electricity'. To them BB is just one of life's luxuries.

It's not that the people I know would happily live without it any more than most would happily live without TV. But it's also not something they are particularly bothered about. Their TV has 'n' channels and they accept that. Their BB lets them do stuff and they accept that. They have no particular interest in the technology behind either nor any desire to push for improvements. Both do what they do and so be it.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 10-Feb-11 09:37:30)

> To them BB is just one of life's luxuries.

Well of course it is, it attracts the full 20% VAT rate! As does the phone line rental.

The Government keeps telling us that Internet access is "essential" but declines to reduce the VAT rating to the same as fuel, 5%. Hypocrites.

I'd save 6.75 per month on line rental and broadband costs if the Government taxed them as essentials.

--
Belfast Bob

Isn't gonna happen. Though if poles and ducts were used that'd be a different story, but would still take decades to do and even then they'd start with the most profitable areas naturally.

If I lived in a city I'd be on cable, or LLU is speed appropiate, wouldn't give two cents what BT are upto

I didnt do it for the same reason other bigger areas didnt do it, I think you deliberatly been arkward to ignore the fact its easier to campaign to 200 people than is to 20000 people.

I would guess you live in an area thats not urban.

France is just the latest, there is many countries who have decided to do both these things.

1 - substantially bigger FTTP rollout.
2 - concentrated on population density not affluency.

So I am curious whats special about us.

As far as I am concerned now BT is just another one of those things that now weilds the social discrimination axe adding to the class war. As the price is barely different from VM's lowest offering I suspect there is other reasons possibly political behind this policy.

concentrated on population density not affluency

is that a fact, or a guess ? Most of it seems to be FTTB so they appear to be serving flats first. Takeup is really low too in France - clearly built it too early.

ignore the fact its easier to campaign to 200 people than is to 20000 people.

fact or assertion ? while one person might cover 200 it wouldn't take 100 to cover 20,000 not least 'cost they're crammed into less space. Nobody did leaflets or door to door here, but I'm not crying about being left out or hatching up bizarre conspiracy theories to account for it.

We all had the same media exposure to Race to Infinity, the measured fact is that Leicester was less interested in it than hundreds of other places.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

> To them BB is just one of life's luxuries.

Well of course it is, it attracts the full 20% VAT rate! As does the phone line rental.

The Government keeps telling us that Internet access is "essential" but declines to reduce the VAT rating to the same as fuel, 5%. Hypocrites.

I'd save 6.75 per month on line rental and broadband costs if the Government taxed them as essentials.



--
Belfast Bob

I doubt that is typicall> A small reduction in VAT would not reduce your monthly costs unless you are paying a very silly price in the first place.


Frequently marketing of Broadband particularly by BT has been poor.

People will pay for higher speeds if properly markets just look at how much people will pay for mobile phones & calls & apps most of which server no real puropse other then entertainment

You need a substantial installed base of HS Broadband users before it becomes viable to develop & market produucts that make use of it. HS broadband also improve the usability of the internet

A saving of £6.75 / month if VAT were reduced from 20% to 5% must mean you're paying £54 / month for broadband and line rental. Seems a lot.

[£54 inc. 20% VAT is £45 before VAT. £45 + 5% VAT = £47.25]

In reply to a post by yarwell:

ignore the fact its easier to campaign to 200 people than is to 20000 people.

fact or assertion ? while one person might cover 200 it wouldn't take 100 to cover 20,000 not least 'cost they're crammed into less space. Nobody did leaflets or door to door here, but I'm not crying about being left out or hatching up bizarre conspiracy theories to account for it.

We all had the same media exposure to Race to Infinity, the measured fact is that Leicester was less interested in it than hundreds of other places.

why are you concentrating on one city? I dont have the same attitude as you where I wouldnt give a damn if my city was enabled.

I found it bizarre how you you dont think it fact that to cover 20k people is more of a task than 200, you not learnt basic maths?

The only facts I see are as far as leics is concerned.

VM launched and sold heavily their cable broadband service last year, the prices last year were higher than now. No 3 month half price offer then.
VM have high takeup in existing areas, they have not struggled to sell broadband in leics.
BT have good takeup in areas with good line length's, however big swraths of the city are unserviceable or have poor performance leading to churn in VM's direction.

So there is a link between line performance and takeup, is that surprising? Opereach/BT put low takeup down to people dont like BT instead of people dont like slow unreliable broadband. Makes sense given historical BT behaviour.

BT are great for small towns and large villages tho.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 10-Feb-11 19:49:45)

In reply to a post by yarwell:

concentrated on population density not affluency

is that a fact, or a guess ? Most of it seems to be FTTB so they appear to be serving flats first. Takeup is really low too in France - clearly built it too early.

as I said in many posts, low takeup of new tech is 'normal'. it should be 'expected'.

serving flats first is doing the same as what everyone else did.

if takeup is high when rolling out a new tech it means its too 'late'.

To most Virgin Media are just another ISP,if it works people are happy, and if it doesn't people will go elsewhere. Network reach and availability doesn't mean anything to 95% of the population, they'll go with who they want even if the exchange has 9 LLUs, cable, wimax, FTTC & WBC combined. I know someone in the south who is with BT and has pretty much every service available to him.

Not sure where you get your figures from put the population denisity of France is very low

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Not sure where you get your figures from put the population denisity of France is very low

French towns and cities tend to be more concentrated than British ones with large numbers of flats. They tend to leave their countryside empty whereas we build on ours.

Well we do have a greater population on a smaller island.

Well we do have a greater population on a smaller island.

true, but you need to look at the distribution of population density to see what's going on. You can drive for 2 hours in northern France and only see the odd war cemetery, then you hit a town with lots of blocks of flats. So the people may be in less area in France than they are in the UK.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

They tend to leave their countryside empty whereas we build on ours.

They make more out of the C.A.P. than we do

I would imagine this is traffic going outside of "western europe", measured at the border.

That would mean it wouldn't include services such as iplayer (hosted in uk) skyplayer, etc etc.

I should also imagine local mirrors for other sites such as youtube reduce the bandwidth used by europe even further.

I find that a satisfactory explanation for the discrepancy... thanks.

50% ie 32 Million people can get 50MG. I don't think so where did you dream that figure up from? It probably about 7% that can get 50Mb in theory

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So already I have applications that exceed what a line is capable of. Ever tried playing a FPS while someone is watching video in the same house? Or uploading content?

To show you how things change, these days not unusual for a six year old to know how to make a video clip for sending in an email to family.

Spot on Mrsaffron!

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

So I am curious whats special about us.
As far as I am concerned now BT is just another one of those things that now weilds the social discrimination axe adding to the class war. As the price is barely different from VM's lowest offering I suspect there is other reasons possibly political behind this policy.

We do live in a class system, without doubt, to back this up just look at the N.Wales trial and 10 million broadband investment. From Pwllheli to Aberyswyth we have some of the poorest areas in the UK where average family incomes is around £10000 per year and around 60% of the population is supported by benefits. However you have large areas of these villages and towns barely lived in for more than 4 months of the year. Go into these villages in the summer months and it whose or who of the political and financial class.

the approx half of the population that have virgin cable
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/cmr-10/ENG-1.20.html

"The main alternative to DSL broadband available in the UK is cable broadband, which is available to 52% of homes in England (49% of homes in the UK as a whole)"

their 100M rollout list is at http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf...

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 10GB estimate was that, seems this research gives me a new figure of 14.9GB.

Taking some figures from the 2010 OFCom report:

p226:

...Western Europe (7.4PB per million)...

Assuming the UK is typical of Western Europe, has a population around 70 million and there are 20 million broadband lines (link), crunching the numbers around and adding some for mobile internet, the average comes out at around 3GB/month.

I don't think I've got the numbers wrong, but it's a heck of a discrepancy...


edit- add link for BB lines.

You will distort the average speed figure by including mobile so I suspect a reasanably true average speed is about 5Gb which is pretty slow by european figures.

The data also shows that Broadband takeup in the UK is very high at 20 Million out of a population of about 66 Million.

It is perhaps more meaningful to base it on Household rather than population. I think the average household size is about 2.5 so take up is in the region of 70% plus

Another factor with regard to average speeds is that at present there is a two class system in the UK. In the Cabled areas speeds of upto 50MB are available and the average speed in Cabled homes is probably over 15Gb. The small number of Invenity enabled areas will also have highers sppeds typically up to 30GB

If you take the average speeds in areas without cable & Invinity you tend to get a very different picture with an average of below 5Gb . So the UK is not actually doing very well at all

Yes, it's just over £52 per month for the rental and broadband. I think people often overlook the cost of the line rental when calculating their broadband costs because "I have to pay it anyway".

Broadband is the only service or product that I can think of that the Government is encouraging every household to buy whilst hitting them with the full VAT rate.

It is the principle that annoys me more than the costs; as most Government services move online then one has to pay the "luxury consumption tax" to access them. I don't have to pay VAT on a stamp to submit a form to HMRC by mail, in contrast.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

It is the principle that annoys me more than the costs; as most Government services move online then one has to pay the "luxury consumption tax" to access them. I don't have to pay VAT on a stamp to submit a form to HMRC by mail, in contrast.

But if I can play devil's advocate here - a lot of people think the only way we're going to get a proper NGA rolled out nationally is with government money. Removing or reducing the revenue they get from connectivity is hardly going to encourage them to spend vast sums upgrading.

It's the same problem for the private sector: People claim they need a fast connection but then sign up for the cheapest deal they can find.

It's bad enough trying to find applications that enough people really want in order to justify NGA. The fact that most people just don't want to pay extra anyway makes the whole exercise futile.

Your annoyance would perhaps reduce if you regarded VAT as a tax on value added rather than as a tax on luxuries.

You'll pay VAT on the envelope to send your forms in, and on whatever you use to fill the form in.

Im on a Market One Exchange (as Im sure many of you are sick of hearing lol) so the pricing of services available to me (or those that are not contended to a crawl) are controlled by the pricing stitch up between BT and OFCOM. I don't recognise a £50 expenditure even before moving my line rental to the Post Office, even with "Callsign" and Caller Display services on my line. That would have to be one really expensive ISP surely? The price hike imposed on IPSC data a couple of years back was well over 20%, and yet we are still seeing ZERO investment in the areas paying this unfairly inflated cost, my exchange has never had a WBC RFS date and the 3 they did announce about 16 months back vanished about the same time as FTTx rollout started.

Enta is as near as dammit £20. Thats an upto 8 meg service with a 30 gig peak allowance. I think thats a pretty good ball park figure for a non LLU service. I just had my phone bill, line rental is just under £31 for 3 months, so leaving out the "phone related services", to rent the basic line and pay my ISP is at most only £31 per month.

Id happily pay a few quid a month more for a better service, The joke is ISTR seeing an Infinity package for a fiver a month more than I pay for 30 gigs of a chunk less than 8 meg! I see people complaining bitterly about o2 raising prices and I wonder if they fully appreciate how lucky they are to have LLU - let alone the pretty good price for a higher speed service that has the bonus of being free of Btw's profiling nightmare.

Having said that, I wouldn't now go with o2 due to the new TM stuff, and as a result I'm moving all the family to a different network as I can see no reason to stay, they have not unbundled here in time for me to take up the "old packages". I moved my phone line from BT for the same reason - once the RFS dates for WBC in other parts of the county were withdrawn it was obvious that my own exchange (despite being the largest in the county) was a long way down their list of priorities... and probably deferred in favour of yet more investment in other areas which mostly already have faster services, and I could not see any reason to remain with them, yes I know my line is still generating revenue for BT group but the retail margin has gone, small as it is - they didn't deserve it - they have invested nothing here in terms of 21cn broadband, and even getting a line stability issue sorted has proven to be a battle.

Not everyone expects bargain basement high speed services, we need a dose of reality in the UK and an end to the ridiculous £9.99 tariffs that stifle investment and create unrealistic expectations of "all you can eat forever for a few pennies", they are a major part of the reason for the growing digital divide in the country.

Just My Opinion YMMV

In reply to a post by warweezil:

Im on a Market One Exchange (as Im sure many of you are sick of hearing lol) so the pricing of services available to me (or those that are not contended to a crawl) are controlled by the pricing stitch up between BT and OFCOM. I don't recognise a £50 expenditure even before moving my line rental to the Post Office, even with "Callsign" and Caller Display services on my line. That would have to be one really expensive ISP surely? The price hike imposed on IPSC data a couple of years back was well over 20%, and yet we are still seeing ZERO investment in the areas paying this unfairly inflated cost, my exchange has never had a WBC RFS date and the 3 they did announce about 16 months back vanished about the same time as FTTx rollout started.

Enta is as near as dammit £20. Thats an upto 8 meg service with a 30 gig peak allowance. I think thats a pretty good ball park figure for a non LLU service. I just had my phone bill, line rental is just under £31 for 3 months, so leaving out the "phone related services", to rent the basic line and pay my ISP is at most only £31 per month.

Id happily pay a few quid a month more for a better service, The joke is ISTR seeing an Infinity package for a fiver a month more than I pay for 30 gigs of a chunk less than 8 meg! I see people complaining bitterly about o2 raising prices and I wonder if they fully appreciate how lucky they are to have LLU - let alone the pretty good price for a higher speed service that has the bonus of being free of Btw's profiling nightmare.

Having said that, I wouldn't now go with o2 due to the new TM stuff, and as a result I'm moving all the family to a different network as I can see no reason to stay, they have not unbundled here in time for me to take up the "old packages". I moved my phone line from BT for the same reason - once the RFS dates for WBC in other parts of the county were withdrawn it was obvious that my own exchange (despite being the largest in the county) was a long way down their list of priorities... and probably deferred in favour of yet more investment in other areas which mostly already have faster services, and I could not see any reason to remain with them, yes I know my line is still generating revenue for BT group but the retail margin has gone, small as it is - they didn't deserve it - they have invested nothing here in terms of 21cn broadband, and even getting a line stability issue sorted has proven to be a battle.

Not everyone expects bargain basement high speed services, we need a dose of reality in the UK and an end to the ridiculous £9.99 tariffs that stifle investment and create unrealistic expectations of "all you can eat forever for a few pennies", they are a major part of the reason for the growing digital divide in the country.

Just My Opinion YMMV

There are a substantial number of people that would pay the price for HS Internet. Virgin for example proves that.

Some posters here seems to try to exagerate the costs of HS Broadband by costing in the Line rental but the line rental is a cost that is already there if as most people do and have a fixed line phone.

The cost of HS Broadband is not a major obstical for most people if they want it. It can at present costs as little as £20 a month which is not excessive. There will of course be those that dont want to pay more then £7 a month who will presumably not take it but there are enough people who would pay £20 a month. The numbers would increase as more uses came on stream for it and as costs fell with competion and lower costs for the technolgy.

The major problem is BT is always unwiling to invest in new techonlogy at any real pace it was the same with ADSL the rollout was slow and they got their marketting totally wrong and mostly enabled the wrong areas early.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

There are a substantial number of people that would pay the price for HS Internet. Virgin for example proves that.

Really? The last take-up figures from VM I heard about suggested the opposite. Take-up of their top packages has been quite poor. They even have to force customers to take a faster package by getting rid of the lower speed packages.

BT's Infinity isn't exactly taking the country by storm either.

Edited by Andrue (Sun 13-Feb-11 18:30:18)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

There are a substantial number of people that would pay the price for HS Internet. Virgin for example proves that.

Really? The last take-up figures from VM I heard about suggested the opposite. Take-up of their top packages has been quite poor. They even have to force customers to take a faster package by getting rid of the lower speed packages.

BT's Infinity isn't exactly taking the country by storm either.

another thing wrong with how we got it here.

takeup in the uk is substantially higher than other countries for 2 prime reasons.

we have higher broadband coverage, particurly in rural areas (this is why I keep saying urban are paying the price for this). and the prices are at artifically low levels due to ofcom.

Is this a success, I think not, O2 are fighting with customers to try and charge prices that are perfectably reasonable. VM have people crying over one off £30 fees for a massive speed bump and new equipment, and BT are underselling FTTC at prices barely higher than what VM charge for 10mbit. This is a broken market, it stifles investment and encourages oversubscription practices. It will remain broken until prices go up, and it has to be across the board, just one isp selling at silly prices breaks it as customers of other isps can use that to threaten to leave for retention deals. I think the key to that is increasing the BT wholesale price for adsl ports and reintroducing price premiums for port speed. But no chance with ofcom they are obsessed with takeup and keeping retail cost down.

Ultimately profit margin is much more important than takeup, if you making 10p profit per month per customer there is no headroom for unexpected costs and investment.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sun 13-Feb-11 18:57:31)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Is this a success, I think not, O2 are fighting with customers to try and charge prices that are perfectably reasonable.

Which is an education in itself - comparing Be pricing with O2 pricing. As a Be customer I hope they are charging enough to keep going but I have my doubts. Maybe their wholesale product is covering any shortfall.

VM have people crying over one off £30 fees for a massive speed bump and new equipment, and BT are underselling FTTC at prices barely higher than what VM charge for 10mbit. This is a broken market, it stifles investment and encourages oversubscription practices. It will remain broken until prices go up, and it has to be across the board, just one isp selling at silly prices breaks it as customers of other isps can use that to threaten to leave for retention deals.

Yup. I do think that our national take-up is a good thing - but somehow Ofcom and ISPs need to progress beyond that. Somehow they need to persuade people that it's worth paying a decent price :-/