back to article UK.gov imposes broadband deadline for councils

It's been a week since the Countryside Alliance made a noise about the lack of activity around the rollout of a broadband network in rural areas. That came after a Freedom of Information request from the pro-fox hunting group revealed that councils were bumbling along with the fibre upgrade process. Now, perhaps in response to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ya Ya- Heard it all before..

    But have you asked OFCOM yet? For their infinite wisdom and opinions?

    Can we at elast get half the advertised speeds within the current setup?

    Jeremy Hunt makes nice soundbites.

    Wankers all!

  2. Lee Dowling Silver badge

    Stupid name

    I can just see the situation in a few decades.

    "No longer must community struggle along on super-broadband speeds. As of today, BT are required to provide super-mega-turbo-hyper-fighting-edition-broadband-alpha speeds."

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Won't happen.

    All that money will end up in some overpaid bastards pocket.

  4. Chris Miller

    Am I just being thick

    But what are these 'business benefits' from high-speed broadband? If your business model depends on delivering a 100Mb stream to all your (potential) customers, may I suggest that it is 'flawed'. I've nothing against people asking for and getting 1Gb Internet access, but I strongly object to paying for it through my taxes.

    1. Luther Blissett

      "business benefits"

      I guess Flash. And more Flash. Lots more Flash. Effing Flash everywhere. Whole websites full of Flash this Flash that. All so you can Flash your cash. Meh.

  5. b166er

    Just get BT back on the 21CN WBC track that they've sidelined, that just involves upgrading kit in the exchanges and not pulling fibre.

    They've just got their knickers in a twist pulling fibre, so that in marketing material they can compete with Virgin for speed. This to the detriment of the millions of other homes who have had their ADSL2+ upgrades shelved.

    That said, we asked Virgin Business for cable into our new premises yesterday. The ductwork comes to the edge of the building, yet they've been told the installation budget has been frozen for the time being and they're only taking on customers at premises that have already had the cable pulled.

    The only way they will put a cable through that duct, is if we pay £20,000 for a dedicated line :(

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Hooray

    Does that mean they will upgrade the 15Mb offering that I can get at the moment.

  7. Seanmon
    Meh

    letters and/or digits.

    Nothing identifies a dickhead like the term "Superfast broadband".

    1. JulianB
      Happy

      Unless they go on to tell you that it "turbocharges the Internet"...

  8. spiny norman
    Coat

    local authorities to submit their daft plans

    was how I read it at first.

  9. john loader

    About time

    BDUK said in October 2010 that they hoped to place contracts in N Yorkshire in 2011. Yet 2012 beckons and no plan has been submitted yet.

    There will always be places where broadband will be impossible even by satellite but most of us in rural areas want to retain our ISP and get the benefit of the packages on offer. There is a danger that the obvious but least competitively acceptable route of bribing BT to equip every exchange with FTTC which would give all properties within 3 miles of a cabinet OK broadband and many very fast will go down the pan and a plethora of one off solutions which the big ISPs will refuse to conect over will result.

    The only alternative is a carrier with both a local network and a backhaul one and for those of us outside the big towns (they tell me they have buses and Post Offices and Libraries as well) that's pie in the sky

  10. David Gale

    Show me the business case...

    The only business case for public investment for superfast broadband that I can conceive is:

    A NATIONAL PUBLIC SECTOR fibre network to deliver shared IT services to public sector organisations - that's publicly owned, NOT the over-priced charade that's 'supplied' by the telcos. The business case for shared services disappears the moment a private network supplier is factored in.

    Everything else can be a condition of a telco licence to be funded by the private sector.

    David Gale

    CEO

    SITFO.org

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