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.