In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by JohnR:

The idea is the public fund the infrastructure and any upgrades, so everyone gets the same and not a select few, due to the fact they live in a area that is going to bring in a lot of profit. The isp's then pay to access this service.

So..a lot like the national road network, then?

Hmm.

At least roads are owned by the public purse.
Unlike the phone/water/gas/electric infrastructure. Which are all in private hands. Some not even owned by UK companies....

To be honest if the roads are an example of how broadband could be run then I think it would be no better than what we have now. Roads have not been able to keep up with increase in car usage. Investment has been very low for years with most roads improvements cancelled a long time back and failing to get them going again - like the improvements to the A27 along the south coast. Not enough budget to repair potholes with many roads getting worse each year.

So, I am not sure how them being owned by the public purse improves on the situation - the public purse is just not big enough (or targetted to) improve roads.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Is that a road network where the roads are of different "sizes" - more rural tend to have smaller roads? And where key trunk roads are maintained more often than those in more rural areas?

Yup. With potholes that are deemed 'not serious yet'. With speed limits imposed for 'public safety'. With ANPR cameras along every major route.

In reply to a post by JohnR:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by JohnR:

The idea is the public fund the infrastructure and any upgrades, so everyone gets the same and not a select few, due to the fact they live in a area that is going to bring in a lot of profit. The isp's then pay to access this service.

So..a lot like the national road network, then?

Hmm.

At least roads are owned by the public purse.
Unlike the phone/water/gas/electric infrastructure. Which are all in private hands. Some not even owned by UK companies....

And the networks you mention generally run very well for most people, most of the time. The road network on the other hand.. As I wrote: 'Hmmm'.

And yes I include telephony in praise of private ownership. UK internet usage and adoption has been amongst the highest per capita in the world for a couple of decades now. For all that a small, vocal, minority like to whine and moan the truth is that broadband provision in the UK has clearly, clearly been good enough to encourage and sustain some of the highest rates of take-up globally since the last century.

That's despite not really being needed for TV given that we've had universal satellite TV coverage for about as long for those who wanted it. Residential internet usage in the UK has a been a huge success story. I dread to think how bad it'd be if it was still owned and operated by a state-owned Post Office.

So, yes. Hurrah for private enterprise!

Edited by Andrue (Fri 02-Feb-18 14:08:08)

This history of the phone network in Hull, may yield some clues-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCOM_Group

In reply to a post by Andrue:

And the networks you mention generally run very well for most people, most of the time. The road network on the other hand.. As I wrote: 'Hmmm'.

As do most of the roads.

The only time I have issues with the roads is at peak time, which causes congestion.... Which strangely is exactly the same issue a lot of people have with the internet.

Private enterprise strikes again...

Neither option is the best, but we have to live with what we are dealt with.

Public can lead to reduced investment to keep costs down.
Private can mean exactly the same, but has the added mix of shareholders who want to see a return on their investment.

I haven't experienced congestion on my internet connection for a long time. And if I did I'd just switch to a better ISP.

However I experience congestion on the roads every week day and I have no choice other than to put up with it.

ofcom is a pretty big barrier right now to progress.

openreach the local loop owner get less than half the line rental most consumers pay, their share is capped and regulated by ofcom.

in addition BT is bloated by pension obligations amongst other things.

We have political intervention as well, tying to have X amount of spent in rural areas everytime X amount of money is spent in urban areas.

The efficiency of rollout's is also questionable, a desire for it to be all underground, inflated costs under highways and so forth.

talktalk have claimed they have it under £500 per home passed, what is openreach's latest figure?

The gift card, changing isp annually etc. I agree is not a healthy market, we see this rubbish in other sectors as well like gas/electric. Its seen to be consumer friendly as long as people can hop every year and take up new customer offers, but many of these deals are loss leaders and not pro investment.

yes completely unregulated is definitely not perfect. Some people in america report some nasty stories isp related, and we have the likes of comcast holding content providers like Netflix to ransom under the guise "we have the customers you need to reach, we will congest your traffic to hell and back unless you pay us XXX amount of money to peer with us".

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

we have the likes of comcast holding content providers like Netflix to ransom under the guise "we have the customers you need to reach, we will congest your traffic to hell and back unless you pay us XXX amount of money to peer with us".

But is that so unreasonable given the amount of capacity streaming services require?