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.