BROADBAND will SAVE THE ECONOMY, shriek UK.gov bods

admitted that its report was peppered with "gaps in the empirical evidence base".

So, not worth jack shit then.

Like most reports out of Govt

A pile of shite.

Frankly, all this hand-wringing about BT having a monopoly on rural broadband is utter bollocks. We - the potential recipients of said broadband - DON'T CARE as long as *someone* rolls it out before we all die. Perhaps then we in the sticks can finally get something a little faster than 1mbps DSL...

And the very next thing they should do is filter it to hell to protect us from the children*

*or whatever the reason was

(IWF are heroes, I'm taking nothing away from those guys)

They havent invested anywhere near enough in broadband. The joke is that they invest money in the non rural areas where bt and others would go anyway. We dont have roads, broadband or mobile signal. its a big deal nowadays as everything is streaming or online in some way. I think we should get a disability benifit for our crap broadband. we would certainly be more deserving than most people on it at the moment.

Govt. in the wrong business?

> would return £20 for every £1 spent

That would require those rural users to consume an awful lot of porn. Will HMG then start financing other errr ... "industries" to satisfy this demand from these newly connected folk (assuming their tastes are the same as their urban cousins).

Or will these benefits to the economy be more pedestrian and largely illusory? Such as being able to tell the estate agents that your house in the boonies has high-speed internet, thus increasing its value by 10 or 20 grand?

No competition

Our local exchange has just been enabled for fibre and they are rolling it out to a couple of cabinets in town.

We however are located 4k away from the exchange and nowhere near the cabinets.

we do have a live fibre connection (which was previously used for ISDN30) to the local exchange unfortunately as Openreach control virtually all of the rural broadband in the country there is no way I can find of getting the fibre, that connects our building to the exchange, used for broadband.

BT did offer me a leased line though at £800.00 per month. :-(.

Bumpkins

If you insist that we in the country are termed bumpkins, does that mean we have free reign to call those people who live in urban areas a bunch of c**ts?

Note to Journos. Not every one who lives in the country is a bumpkin (although I know a few) in much the same way that not everyone who lives in urban areas is a c**t.

Except BMW drivers. They are c**ts in the country as well.

Roll out broadband > ???? > Profit!!!!

The argument for expanding business I can understand, but why do children need an internet connection to do homework? Dont they use books anymore? Do they have to email the teachers?

Just because people ‘can’ work from home doesn’t mean they will, for the majority of us ‘work from home’ means that either you are sick, have a child to look after or can’t get to the office due to bad weather or lack of transport, otherwise BAU applies, and most business want most of their employees to congregate within the same building(s).

Not that I am against the roll out, (although am dismayed at the way it has been handled) I just wish politicians would grow some balls and didn’t feel the need to justify everything in terms of profit, its infrastructure, just like repairing and building roads, it might not make money, but that doesn’t matter, its just what should be done, government shouldn’t be run for profit, I pay my tax, spend it on something useful, be cost effective yes, but don’t ignore things because they won’t turn a profit, and don’t try and spin and lie to imply things that won’t, will.

Can they not just say “This will cost a bollocks load of money, but it will be useful and good for the country!” ?

BT Infinity is here - so says the email from BT

Oh no it's not, and there's no scheduled date either. This location, out in the boondocks, no not quite it's the industrial park next to Gatwick airport

Sarcastic, useless commentards!

You think you know it all! You will criticise anything, just to air your negative attitudes. And yet you haven't a clue what you are talking about.

Did you know, for instance, that Blighty has a HUGE cat video industry?

Did you know that this industry is carrying the hopes of a nation?

Do you realise how important high-speed broadband is to the development of this, and other similar industries?

There is enormous potential here, and if we are to tap into it, we need fast internet. Your government is working tirelessly to provide this Internet so that commentards like you can get rich from the comfort of your home, filming your cat, or someone else's cat (subject to acquiring all the relevant rights), and posting the video on Google, to generate advertising revenue, which is the crux of the new economic model.

So please, think a bit. (Not too much)