Surely, if you really want 50Mbps then you can get it by Leased Line / EFM / Bonded DSL?

And what do BT have to provide, a voice capable phone line last time I looked

Why don't you ring up Virgin and rant at them for not being in you new location?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I wouldn't normally post this, because I will be stating the bleeding obvious for most posters to this site, but at the moment I'm trying to put together a 5Gbps radio link scheme to carry broadband at 6Mpbs to some friends of mine in a Scottish community that's currently getting ADSLmax at 256kbps and paying the same as everyone else with 8Mbps ADSLmax.

That's outrageous. They must have a far longer cable than most people and are probably forcing the DSLAM to operate at peak power. They should be charged extra.

Okay so I'm not really being serious but it's a serious point. Nothing about their circumstances is making it significantly cheaper to provide them with a service and it's quite likely that the extra long line is making it more expensive to provide the service. I'm glad to hear that something is being done to improve their service but let's kill this idea of linking ADSL connection speed to price, please. It's a none starter. The costs of ADSL are pretty much fixed regardless of line length and end-user speed. Any slight increase in cost resulting from high usage by faster connections is most likely offset by the increase in power consumed by longer lines.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

b) That's the biggest problem imo. One person paying less for 50 Meg than someone on 256k is criminal. If ADSL2+ was £5 more expensive, some would not take it. Many would, but at least those who could not reach said speeds would not have to pay more. Same goes for fibre.

But that doesn't always make sense. Look at the poster in this thread talking about people only getting 256k on ADSL Max. There's no good reason for giving them a discount - should prolly be a surcharge if anything. If you forced a price drop on their provider they'd likely just treat the connection as not viable and terminate the contract.

I do agree that pricing in the UK is out of whack (too low) but simply pegging it to speed is asking for trouble.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 27-May-11 07:54:30)

If the country is willing to pay the true costs for installing and running faster speeds I'm sure they'll be happy to oblige.

As most of the country only want to pay buttons (your words) they won't. I find you comments astounding. Yet another poster who hasn't got a clue how things work.

If those speeds are so important to you you shouldn't have bought the property or maybe negioted the selling price because of lack of VM access so you could have used the savings to buy yourself a leased line.

Choice is everything, you had a choice where you wanted to move and you made it. If it wasn't hooked up to a gas main and you had to use oil heating would you also be ranting at the national grid gas pipeline service?

Whiners like you are holding this country back... most would rip your arms off for 19Mbps

I agree with the sentiments but people don't always have a choice as to where they move to. Economic and social drivers could pretty much force a move on you that you otherwise would not consider.

But, the OP is indeed highly misguided. I've always felt a little fortunate that I can get broadband at 10Mbps where I am as I know much of the country are nowhere nearthese speeds (including most of my family).

And BT were looking to be ahead of the game with fibre in the 80's. It was even on tomorrows world. But, the government wouldn't allow BT to offer broadcast TV over it so it was not economically viable. The areas that did get it then ended up having to have copper overlay in order to get broadband! Plus the fibre then was probably nowhere near as good as modern fibre.

And as far as Virgin goes. They didn't come to my area because my local council wouldn't give them permission to dig up the roads to lay the cable! So, not even Virgin's fault where I am. Seems to have been central and local government slowing us down here rather than the fault of the providers. Now gov wants to force them to spend money to do what they were going to do but now possibly can't finance due to the current climate.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

a) I agree with that in as much that it has to be cheaper to get existing infrastrucuture up to the highest speeds it can handle, rather than upgrade to new stuff (talking purely about copper over fibre btw). While much of the country can use fibre due to copper's limitations, 90 odd percent of residential and a decent percentage of commercial businesses do not need it to operate. They perhaps need web access, a website and e-mail. That does not need fibre speeds for the most part. Large companies with masses of employees or data networking, yes, but your average small to medium, non-IT related company just wants necessity services (as above).

OK, but... some of the arument comes down to the services offered over the line too - especially video-based - and those are expanding as fast as we can get the line to carry more. So ...

In reply to a post by camieabz:

In that sense, both the residential and commercial customers should be pushing for ADSL2+, rather than fibre. Get the country up to a reasonable speed, and see if the infrastructure can handle it. While that's all happening, the networks are being upgraded with a view towards fibre.

... it might turn out that ADSL2+ isn't really fast enough - at least not for those further from the exchanges.

The solution to *that* can be just to put ADSL2+ out in the cabinets, rather than VDSL. Kcom seem to be doing exactly this in Hull - or rather, in the villages of East Yorkshire outside Hull.

I'm not sure if the equipment would then be in a good shape to switch over to VDSL2 at some point - that would depend on whether there would be much interference between cabinet-based VDSL2 and the cabinet-based ADSL2+.

But putting ADSL2+ in cabinets wouldn't necessarily be much cheaper than the current FTTC rollout, except to end-users who keep the same wiring and router/modem setup.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

b) That's the biggest problem imo. One person paying less for 50 Meg than someone on 256k is criminal. If ADSL2+ was £5 more expensive, some would not take it. Many would, but at least those who could not reach said speeds would not have to pay more. Same goes for fibre.

I agree. Someone later points out that it costs the same to provide ADSL2+, whether it carries 24Mbps or 256Kbps. But actually it doesn't...

With the copper in place, it is the capital expenditure that stays the same. However, when you actually use the connection on a day-by-day basis, the 24Mbps one is using a far bigger proportion of the core network, instantaneously; more people at 24Mbps then requires a broader core network to avoid congestion.

Finally, someone on a 24Mbps line is more likely to download a larger volume in the course of a month.This too requires a broader core network.

The cost of broadband isn't *just* in the access network; the core network, peering connections, and ISP network all come into play too.

I remember this article:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/07/08/is-fibre-bro...

Nice article, but it points out the real problems of estimating how much this will actually cost (and it wasn't obvious that it meant FTTC at first, rather than FTTP). And one commenter pointed out that that the £75k could well have only funded 1/4 of the village.

The hassles that BT are having in their pilot for FTTP have already caused delays to further pilots. I guess they really need to work out how to re-arrange the install work so as to minimise the expenditure.

c) I don't agree completely. I'll go more with "isn't willing to pay substantially higher prices". There are so many savings to be made by online shopping, information gathering and so on, that a fiver is nothing.

I can go with that. But not everyone can see the savings so easily. It took a long time to persuade my parents to jump from dial-up to DSL, where the nature of an always-on connection that doesn't tie up the phone ought to make it a no-brainer, never mind the speed advantage.

The cost of putting ADSL2+ into street cabinets is not dissimlar to putting VDSL2 into cabinets, i.e. power for DSLAM and backhaul (i.e. fibre)

ADSL2+ might manage with smaller kit, and some small ten line bricks can cope with power from existing phone lines.

What is not always clear is how many FTTP overseas deployments are really FTT to a box in the basement, and then CAT5/6 to flats in the property.

You are right as far as the cost of the access network (assuming that it is already there, and has repaid itself), but not if you consider the cost of the core network.

The core network needs to be dimensioned so it doesn't cause congestion in one (or both) of two ways:
- It needs to handle the instantaneous demand for the volume of data, needed quickly
- It needs to handle the average demand for the volume of data

The first requirement places the larger demand, and is tied to what people want to do *now*. We might want fast page-loads on the browser. Or stream video without buffering-pauses. Or get command-line/GUI access over SSH or a VPN without lag. Or gaming with low latency.

These kind of demands are very much tied to the speed of the line, while some are additionally linked to the volume of data (especially video)

The second requirement is smaller, as it allows the data to be slowed down when outright speed isn't the foremost requirement. Things like P2P, Usenet and FTP. The volume can be huge, but the timing is much less critical.

These kind of demands are tied more to the overall volume of data transferred.

The total cost of broadband really includes all 3 elements - so ISPs pay out for all 3 elements, even if the ISP isn't charging the end-user that way.

Someone on a 256K link isn't getting as good a service on the second part - the instantaneous demand for data - but isn't placing as large a demand on the core network either. They can certainly get a discount for *that* aspect.

They are less likely to be running huge data volumes either. Where the ISP offers "unlimited" packages, then someone else is almost certainly using "their share" of the total bandwidth available to the ISP. They can get a discount for this aspect too, but only if the ISP stops offering "unlimited" packages, and starts charging based on volume usage.

So... some amount based on basic provision; some amount based on speed above the basic, and some amount based on the volume of data. That would be the fairest way.

Unfortunately, there are two hurdles to this:
a) Ofcom doesn't seem to allow it. Speed doesn't seem to factor in to their price controls
b) It is confusing, and hard to predict on a month-by-month basis. The marketers will tell you that a confused buyer doesn't buy - so they want a "simple" offering - that, of course, has to compete with others.

If everyone were to pay their fair share for what they are using (including something to repay the cost of deployment in the first place), there would be no problem. But not everyone thinks of that as fair!

Yep, its a bit of everything really. its not as simple as the OP basher makes out.

Maggies fault for stopping BT when they were going to do it off their own back - Would they have done it? Who knows if they had the broadband landscape might have looked very different in the UK, not sure if it would be better or worse in terms of competition really.

The customer/markets fault for ridiculously low broadband prices, less profit less to invest

Virgin's fault for not covering the whole of the UK so that a real broadband competition can take place, BT vs Virgin everywhere means proper competition

Governments fault for not leaving BT alone to do their thing, everything was sold to BT 20+ yrs ago yet the Government continues to meddle via Ofcom, they are a private business with a remit to provide voice via the USO. Ditch the USO and let them provide what they want to provide where their is demand and profit, just like everyone else gets to do. Forget SMP its a stupid phrase and doesn't even work. BT are required to open up ducts (PIA) because they have SMP, what.. everywhere? Surely they only have it some areas and not others, Sky/Talk Talk/Virgin must totally dominate some areas yet PIA is required in that area also?

Ditch SMP in terms of duct access and use SIP (made up name) significant infrastructure power/presence.

Make BT and Virgin open up their ducts/poles together at a fair price, not just one of them.