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.