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).