Do we want faster or more widely available BB?

I see from Andrew's always interesting news column that the think tank Policy Exchange is suggesting we concentrate on making BB more widely available rather than making it faster.

While realising that this site tends to attract the enthusiast, I am inclined to agree with Policy Exchange. How many firms other than printers or publishers receive very large documents? Does it matter that an engineering or architectural drawing takes five minutes to download rather than 30 seconds?

I know fledgling businesses in a rural community which would be delighted with 6Mb rather than the 2/3 they get at present. I'm happy in retirement with 5Mb never mind the 9Mb I get following FTTC down the road last year.

TV down the aerial does me just fine. However, BT Infinity regularly invites me to join and I notice my speed falls when there are good programmes on TV (not often!) How much of this investment is going to provide TV and/or film download?

More widely available.

Take mobile telephony as a comparison. EE have launched their 4G service and it is costing hundreds of millions and will benefits a small proportion of the UK (area wise). In Scotland where I spend quite a bit of time there are places where there is NO coverage whatsoever, or it is so patchy. They should have been forced to prove that they covered 99% of land area before being given the 4G licence. In some areas it is doubtful that coverage will improve for 10 or 20 years ...

The same could happen with Broadband connectivity - further investment from Goivernment, BT, and other ISPs should be in place to get a higher baseline before faster speeds are rolled out here. The profits from current FTTC installs should be channelled, with subsidies to the other areas. Maybe there should be a 50p/month/BB connection in place to fund the remote locations.

What profits from FTTC?

The 50p fund was tried by Labour and thrown out when they lost election, and I remember lots of moans about the idea.

Labour wanted a 50p per phone line which would mean someone who did not use any form of connectivity ADSL, Dial-Up or ISDN would still pay to subsidise a service they had no interest in. At that time we had 5 lines here.


There are profits from FTTC - depending on how it is analysed. Overall not yet but use the area/exchange models used for installation and some areas are showing profits.

Lots of people (to the tune of £300m) are funding the roll-out via the digital switchover fund - which is where most BDUK money is from, next lot direct from TV licence fee.

Five phone lines - why not voip?

At that time VOIP was not available at decent quality level.

I would support a levy on Broadband lines as I know the problems I and friends have up in Scotland but not a generic levy on phone lines. When questioned, one response from labour was that it would be on every phone number which would have included VOIP.

Perhaps you should only pay the levy if you have broadband available and do not sign up.

I would pay the levy even if I was voice only.

The reason it was at a very affordable 50p would be the fact everyone pays it, once you start adding conditions like only people who use broadband pay it then suddenly it maybe £5 for each person paying it.

Taxes and levies are not there to provide value for money to everyone who pays.

Mute discussion now tho as its an abandoned idea.

But that would penalise those with multiple lines again.

How much of this investment is going to provide TV and/or film download?

Most of it, not much else in domestic use requires the bandwidth.

I think those with no broadband want widely available and cheap, those with sub 4M want faster and another group (probably early adopters and multi-user households) want superfast - but the takeup isn't great.