back to article Use your loaf, Europe! Eat more fibre - high-speed web lobbyists

Lobbyists demanding superfast web access in Europe fear the continent's economy could suffer if nations fail to hook fibre-optic broadband directly into homes. Hartwig Tauber, the director general of the European wing of the Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Council, told The Register that high-speed broadband uptake is sluggish …

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  1. DF118
    Flame

    I've always found it galling that the telcos assume everyone wants the cheapest possible deal regardless of service, and it must always be in some kind of shitty bundle. It's a race to the bottom and consumers are stuck with a pitiful choice. Take my money, dammit! Give me the service I want!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You do have a choice...

      Go for one of the many enterprise level services available if domestic broadband isn't up to speed. Also, if you think there's no choice in broadband then you must not be looking too hard. I'd say the UK broadband market is pretty competetive.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: You do have a choice...

        Why the downvotes? If you think my advice is wrong then feel free to tell me why.

        1. DF118

          Re: You do have a choice...

          See I thought about mentioning in my op something to the effect of " there's nothing between the cheesy consumer packages and full on enterprise service". I would guess the downvotes are from people like me who want a full fat broadband without paying through the nose for enterprise uptime and other SLA considerations, and who also don't want forced tv/ phone bundling.

      2. feanor

        Re: You do have a choice...

        Bollocks, BT is a monopoly provider for the majority of the country. Sure I can change ISP, but the damp piece of string that is my broadband can only be BT, because BT made damn sure that no competitor could afford to get in the exchange. If you think there is competition in this country then you live in a city.

        1. 96percentchimp

          Re: You do have a choice...

          There's lots of competition at the exchange level - that's what LLU is all about. It's the last mile between the exchange and customer that's restricted to BT Openreach, but on balance that's a good thing. Can you imagine the disruption if anyone was allowed to start digging the streets for fibre?

          1. Tim Wolfe-Barry

            Re: You do have a choice...

            Really; you don't.

            Sure if you happen to live in a city somewhere where LLU is economic or where Sky or Virgin have fiber in place then you have a choice.

            Unfortunately I don't. My local exchange has about 900 connections and we're 7 miles from the nearest town; so I'm stuck with ADSL and 'up to' 8 mbps. Despite the fact that Virgin's main fiber trunk passes within a mile or so of here it's still not worth their while to put connections in.

            Any moment now someone is going to say that I should move house to somewhere there is FTTP if I care that much; unfortunately I can't afford the £20,000 it would cost (in fees and taxes) to move, even if I did think that having better broadband was more important than a garden for the kids to play in.

            The point is that we shouldn't HAVE to choose like that, and that people living in farms and villages shouldn't find themselves cut off from the rest of the world just because rotten ADSL connections don't have the capacity to get them on-line.

    2. Alfred
      Unhappy

      The bundling

      They know you don't want it. It's a way they can make more money while fibbing to your face about how they're doing you such a big favour.

  2. frank ly

    An unfashionable idea ......

    If it is vital to the economy and an essential regional/national infrastructure, like roads, then why don't the government plan/make/fund it, like they do with roads? They could then hire it out to ISPs, and if it was worthwhile then a consortium of ISPs may even be willing to buy the completed project from the government.

    One caveat: In the UK, BT would not be allowed to bid for the initial laying of this national fibre network.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: An unfashionable idea ......

      Point 1: Who pays? Taxpyer or broadband customer? "The Government" don't have any money, only what they take in from the public.

      Point 2: If the govt own the network infrastructure, what's stopping them from implementing a content filter "for the children"?

      Point 3: The government don't have the skills to plan and build large scale networks in-house, so they'd contract the job out to the same companies to the same companties your suggesting buy the finished netowrk.

      Why not simply create an environment where those companies can just build the bugger themselves?

      1. frank ly

        @AC 09:14 Re: An unfashionable idea ......

        You raise good points and I did make the comment hoping for discussion.

        Point1: Who paid for the roads, the national grid, the NHS, etc?

        Point 2: They could and they might. That would be for planning and discussion and El Reg would do it's usual job of keeping us informed (or inPhormed) I'm sure.

        Point 3: Disregarding my tongue in cheek final comment, would it matter who built it?

        "Why not simply create an environment ......."

        Why not indeed? Why isn't it happening? How the heck did this country ever get a national motorway network, A-road system, national electricity grid, gas grid, water network, sewage treatment system, NHS infrastructure, etc? I am beginning to wonder.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @AC 09:14 An unfashionable idea ......

          1: Again your not actually answering the point. What your suggesting is a massive government funded fibre network that'll cost BILLIONS. Roads are paid for out of general (and that includes motoring) taxes, the grid is paid for by electricity customers and suppliers and the NHS is again paid for out of tax. Which one would you cut spending on so that you can play CoD all night?

          2: There's no might about it. At least with independent network providers there's a slight bit more of a hurdle in the wat.

          3: It would matter who built it. Government doesn't have the best track record in infrastructure implementation (but is getting better) and if it was a govt scheme you just know that certain areas will get preferential treatment simply because it's politically expedient.

          1. frank ly

            @AC 10:20 Re: @AC 09:14 An unfashionable idea ......

            1: I'm not answering the point because I'm asking the question. You say it's too expensive and we can't afford it. (Note: I don't play computer games and consume about 15GB a month. Don't try ad hominem stuff unless you're sure of the facts.) Others say it's vital for our future and will pay for itself in terms of increased productivity and economic activity in the future.

            2. You might be right.

            3. Another reason why 'it can't be done'. Oh well, I'll stick with 10MB/s down, 1MB/s up for the foreseeable future. I'm fine with what I have.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @AC 10:20 @AC 09:14 An unfashionable idea ......

              1: I'm not saying it's too expensive or that the govt couldn't afford it, it's a question of priorities. If you want the government to fund it without any extra charges to joe public, then it has to come out of general taxation. If it comes out of general taxation some other expenditure has to be cut to pay for it. "paying for itself" doesn't take in to account the fact that you have to pay for someone to dig a hole and pull a cable.

              So, what expenditure would you cut? Or what level would you set your "new fibre network tax" at?

              2: we'll leave that...

              3: If you want an example of Govt letting politics get in the way of infrastructure, pop up to hull and have a look at the Humber Bridge. A bridge from nowhere, to nowhere, used by a handful of cars and only built so Harold Wilson didn't lose a by election 1966.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @AC 10:20 @AC 09:14 An unfashionable idea ......

              10% broadband tax... as long as google build a nation(s)* wide 1 Gb/s symmetric ipv6 only

              * inc Wales, Scotland &NI if they are still part of the UK by then

        2. TheOtherHobbes

          Re: @AC 09:14 An unfashionable idea ......

          Indeed. "Politics says no" is the new "Computer says no" excuse.

          An important aim of government - good government, anyway - is to provide and manage high quality state-wide infrastructure.

          Other countries get this, especially in the Far East.

          In the UK we've had an endless succession of clueless econo-drones repeating the idiotic mantra that all government spending is bad. I have no idea who put these pinched-sphincter spendthrifts in charge of policy, but reality-based economists understand they're a menace to everyone.

          The reality is that successful government projects are much better growth multipliers than anything the private sector is capable of.

          Of course for 'successful' you also need 'well-managed' and 'non-corrupt' - which is unlikely, at least at the moment.

          But it's happened in the past, and there's no physical or economic reason it couldn't happen again.

        3. Rampant Spaniel

          @frank ly

          Didn't the romans do all that?

          BT would consider fttp if they didn't know they were at the mercy of a quango . BT pretty much has a monopoly, the market wouldn't sustain more than one fttp network, hell ntl went bankrupt and they didn't manage to do the whole country and they only really did fttc (although it's possible to argue their buying spree aided in their original demise).

          So you have a monopoly, by default fttp will not be cheap to the consumer. Not only is it just expensive to do, but BT would want to charge a premium on top. This would piss off 'the public' who expect it to cost 7.95 a month. Not you or I or the majority of the people who read el reg, but 'the public' in general, the type of keep Jeremy Kyle and Bargain Booze in business.

          So they bitch, politicians smell a chance to win some votes, they whip the quango staffed with their cousins who couldn't keep down a job in Argos and the quango demands BT sell it for whatever cost they magic up after a fact finding trip to Manilla. So BT is then left screwed because their lenders require them to keep their business within certain performance criteria as part of the loans but their selling cost is dictated by a publicly funded halfwit asylum and they have to maintain a sizeable company yet their competition can sell their products for less.

          Now remove the halfwits altogether and BT go back to charging a fortune and innovating at the pace of a rock. What they need to do is sit down and work out a fair amount for BT to sell it for wholesale in advance that BT can live with without it being too high for other companies or consumers, then guarantee they won't shaft BT by cutting the rates in half 2 years later. That requires common sense which appears to be harder to find than the Higgs Boson.

        4. AndrueC Silver badge
          Thumb Down

          Re: @AC 09:14 An unfashionable idea ......

          Point 1. Have you seen the state of the roads recently?

          The A43 between Croughton and M40 has persistent potholes. They are left to grow and fester for six months then they shut one carriageway so that some numpty with a bucket (or so it seems) can pour some spare tarmac into them and tamp them down a little. This time around I was hoping they'd redo the entire run but no. Just more fill-in - and barely tamped down at all. I swear that the surface of the B roads through Cottisford is now better than the A43.

          And anyone accelerating up the hill from Barley Mow in the outside lane has to put up with several square metres where the top surface has gone. Been that way for several months. It took them over a year to fix the same damage on the inside lane.

      2. Alfred

        Re: An unfashionable idea ......

        Point 2; they don't have to own it to legislate it. They don't own my car but they make laws about what I can and can't do with it.

  3. b166er

    I don't know about my fellow readers, but I would actually give a weeks labour free to help pull fibre to the local houses if that's what it would take to get Britain a decent service, and I know plenty of people that would do the same. But the point is, we shouldn't have to do that, BT should be hanging their heads in shame over this, but it suits their business model, which has always been trading on the name and precious little else.

    1. JC_

      Really? You're volunteering to spend a week digging ditches with a shovel and lifting concrete slabs? That kind of work isn't much fun at the best of times, and it's snowing outside right now.

      This is what makes getting FTTP for everyone tomorrow a pipedream - laying down the cable involves a lot of work, a lot of disruption and a lot of money.

      FTTC works pretty well, in my experience. New builds and areas where it's reasonable to upgrade should get fibre, of course, but 1Gbps to the home isn't a human right and no one should expect Openreach to throw away the cost/benefit calculations just so they can have fast broadband while living in the middle of nowhere.*

      (*Yeah, I know there are some areas which have been unjustifiably ignored, and that sucks, but in general the prioritising makes sense; greatest good for the greatest number and all that.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        What JC_ said

        There's no chance in hell of anyone tearing up their copper local loops in preference of fibre unless it's due to be replaced anyway. As my networks lecturer said "[within reason] it's not the cable that determines your service, it's what's nailed on each end".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Stop

          Re: What JC_ said

          In the case of fibre, that is absolutely true. Once you have a decent quality bit of glass to send the signals down, it is what's at each end that determines the speed. You can replace each end and increase the speed as the technology matures and becomes cheaper.

          But with copper or aluminium then there is so much more to it than that, you are limited by the weakest link and that is bound to be said copper.

      2. b166er

        All I can say to that, is man up!

        I spent 18 months pulling cable at T5, sometimes in the snow, on an airfield, and you know what, that kind of work is good for the soul sometimes.

        If we're going to compete with the chinese, we're going to have to re-evaluate your kind of attitude!

        Openreach should have become a public instrument when BT were forced to fracture. Then the cost/benefit calculations would be ours and not in the hands of parasitic profit seekers.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge

      > I would actually give a weeks labour free to

      Thanks but that invariably means some digging work. BT cables do usually run in ducts but ducts can get blocked or collapse. If someone is going to dig up any roads I drive on or pavements I walk on I'd rather they have the experience and knowledge to avoid damaging existing infrastructure and to put them back in a half way decent fashion :)

  4. The Alpha Klutz

    filthy degenerates

    BT are run by vile people. If I ever see the guy who interviewed me at BT on the street I'm going to make him find out what I think of him.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: filthy degenerates

      With an attitude like that I think we can figure out why they didn't hire you!

      1. The Alpha Klutz

        Re: filthy degenerates

        this is before companies like BT destroyed my attitude. i went in there all innocent like maybe if i do a good job i can climb the greasy ladder or whatever. but i get there and immediately its like "listen sonny we're not gunna hand you the top jobs on a plate" and i'm like woah when did i ever say anything about being handed things on a plate? thats some bullshit YOU made up and put on me.

      2. The Alpha Klutz
        Flame

        Re: filthy degenerates

        turns out because I was wearing a nicer suit than him, he thought I was a rich kid. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obviously the guy was a working class lad and not too bright --with a belly full of pork pies. He was one ugly guy. Seeing a handsome intelligent boy like me was probably too much for him. Certainly wouldn't want anyone like me around the place making that sack of shit look bad at his job... whatever the hell he did. He's probably dead now anyone. Coronary disease is a killer you fat bastard.

  5. MeBeTheTim

    Fibre my arse ...

    Well, I tried to get Virgin and the whole road except my house and the one opposite can get it. Virgin came out and said the neighbours connection was one foot further away than they would extend. I offered to pay for the extra foot, no go.

    BT upgraded the area at last to fibre and guess what, one cabinet was not upgraded as it was not economically viable ... yes, the cabinet myself and four others are on.

    BT kindly advised me that there was no way to get your line moved from one cabinet to another, and that they have no future plans to upgrade the cabinet. If I want it upgraded, I will have to lobby my MP who of course will do sod all.

    Therefor I am forever stuck on 2.5MB on a good day.

    Absolute farce.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Fibre my arse ...

      > one foot further away than they would extend.

      I sympathise with you, but also with Virgin. If they have a rule that says "x feet", but bend it for you to have "x+1" then another neighbour will say "Oh, go on, x+5 won't hurt" and eventually they'll be handing calls from people complaining about how flakey their line is. Replying "well, we told you you were too far away" will of course only result in "well, why did you agree to install it, then?". They can't win.

      Have you considered asking your neighbour if you can rent a cupboard in his garage, have Virgin install there, and then run some Cat5 or fibre (or WiFi) under the fence?

      1. MeBeTheTim

        Re: Fibre my arse ...

        I did offer to pay the extra 1" for them and they were going to quote me but never did.

        Mentioned it to me neighbour before but he was too scared in case something dodgy happened over it and he was liable. Also offered to pay half his costs and share the broadband with him. Still no go!

        Their house is up for sale at the moment, so fingers crossed the new owners will be more obliging!

    2. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Fibre my arse ...

      > BT kindly advised me that there was no way to get your line moved from one cabinet to another, and that they have no future plans to upgrade the cabinet.

      The kind soles at BT can move lines to other cabinets.

      They can when it pleases them to do so.

      My housing estate currently has two cabinets, one at the top half the the estate and then there is the one I'm connected to for the other half of the estate.

      Checking BT's availability site wanting to know when I can finally get FTC I notice that they are now showing the same cabinet number for the whole estate (you type your mates numbers in to find out) so although FTC is coming here eventually, the copper will go twice as far as expected, so the speed will be half what is expected.

      Of course, BT don't give a fig as they'll charge people not getting the full benefit the same price as those lucky few who get a better service.

      You canee break the laws of physics Captain, but it seems you can piss all over the normal laws of economics.

  6. Fuzz

    fibre not the problem

    I don't think fibre to the home is the problem here. I have a FTTC based VDSL product and it's connected at around 80Mbps, however if I'm downloading a file the download speed will only rarely hit 7MB/s usually I see 4-5.

    BT have a FTTH product but it connects onto the same backbone as the VDSL so I'd wager a lot of the time the improvement is minimal.

    At the same time the amount of data people need to download will plateau the big consumer of bandwidth at the moment is video streaming, but compression techniques are improving all the time. 80Mbps is already enough to stream native bluray content video can be compressed far better than it is on a bluray. Problem is that there are very few services that could cope with a lot of people all wanting to stream video at those kinds of rates.

  7. Chris Miller

    A few questions

    1. Can someone explain why a typical household would need 100Mb/1Gb Internet access? ('Bragging rights' is not a reason.)

    2. If everyone had FTTH and every user actually consumed 100Mb, how much bandwidth would be needed at the 'exchange' (not to mention the Tier 1 providers) to avoid contention issues?

    3. If (as I suspect) there's only a tiny demand for such services, why should the poor old taxpayer be expected to fund them? It's not as though they're not available - it's just that they cost money.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A few questions

      1: The only reason would be so that 4/5 devices can all stream HD movies at once. This will become more common, but an FTTC service could deal with that easily.

      2: A truckload. Most (if not all) exchanges are fibre backhaul, and considering that even with the limited 8/24mbit links connections can bottleneck/be throttled back at peak times it's probably a massive issue.

      3: They shouldn't be. If you want broadband then it has to be paid for. If you want damned good broadband then you have to pay more

    2. MeBeTheTim

      Re: A few questions

      Personally I don't need that much, but because I work from home and video conference lots I just want more than 2.5MB (and that's downhill with the wind behind me!) and I'd be happy to pay for it myself but that's not an option either.

      Anyone know how to get your line moved cabinet?! If you cancel your line and get a new one does it go to the same cabinet?! Can I Banksy them and change the numbers round?!

      Damn cabinet 51 ...

    3. b166er

      Re: A few questions

      1 640K is more memory than anyone will ever need

      2 It scales, doesn't it, when you upgrade infrastructure, you do the whole lot.

      3 see 1

      1. JC_

        Re: A few questions

        1 640K is more memory than anyone will ever need

        2 It scales, doesn't it, when you upgrade infrastructure, you do the whole lot.

        3 see 1

        That's a pretty good analogy. Back in the days of the 640k limit (1985, let's say) your modem would've been around 2400 Baud. So, both the PC and the modem were slow and limiting and this was obvious at the time.

        Five years ago, home broadband was at least a few Mbps (unless you were unlucky) and a PC would have a Core2 Duo; most people would get by just fine on that same equipment today.

        IMHO, the jump from 1Mbps to 1Gbps would be nowhere near as beneficial as the jump from 1kbps to 1Mpbs was; sure, it'd be nice to have, but what's the killer application that justifies the huge cost compared to FTTC?

        1. b166er

          Re: A few questions

          On demand TV, cloud hosted media libraries, remote working. clustered computing projects like SETI and Folding, bandwidth for the ever increasing number of devices in the home or office that use it, lower latency, less reliability issues......

          It's obvious to me, that replacing ancient cabling, in some places aluminium, with glass is the way forward.

          Hell, Japan, most of Scandinavia and a large part of Europe already have this. Some of them have had for ages.

    4. feanor

      Re: A few questions

      Can someone explain why a typical household would need 100Mb/1Gb Internet access? ('Bragging rights' is not a reason.)

      Indeed I can. 10M should be plenty for everyone, but providing 10M to everyone is expensive and affects profits. BT have spotted that the countrys broadband network is judged by average speed, so -

      Assuming that you have 20 million households connected at 2M thats an average of 2M. If you upgrade half of those to 10M you get an average of 6M for the cost of installing 10 million circuits.

      However you can achieve the SAME 6M average by upgrading just 80000 households to gigabit.

      So pick a few convenient cities where customers are densly packed, stick in fibre and voila a national average raised from 2M to 6M for a tenth of the cost. Wow, what a marvelous achievement! Except what it is is a marvelous bit of misdirection allowing BT to look like they are investing while actually continuing to make massive profits running the rest of the old network into the ground.

  8. Jess--

    as a business user I have to say that faster broadband would be a massive boost.

    in general a connection speed of <1Mb would be perfectly usable and would happily support most of our usage however there are numerous times when a much faster connection speed would be useful and would reduce the time spent on bandwidth intensive jobs by an immense amount.

    written while waiting for 300 x 50mb files to upload on the fastest connection available here (6mb down 468k up)

    Guess I'll go and make another coffee now

    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Go

      > as a business user I have to say that faster broadband would be a massive boost

      So what's the problem? It sounds like you have a business case for a leased line and there's plenty of companies will put one of those almost anywhere you want.

  9. jabuzz

    It's all Rupert Murdoch's fault

    Getting on for 20 years ago BT offered to put in fibre to every premiss in the UK. The only thing they asked for was to be let out of the bar on them offering TV over the fibre a few years early. Mr. Murdoch saw this as a threat to his Sky business and lobbied hard to get the government to turn the offer down.

    It was biggest mistake of any government in probably my lifetime. Had we taken BT's offer up we would right now be enjoying the best internet connection in the world bar none.

  10. Neil of Qld

    Sad that half of you seem scared of. FTTH.

    Try a NBN

    Half the politicians here in Australia get it .The rest are opposed on political grounds secretly some of them also want it.

    The secret to its success was not to let Telstra ( Australia's answer to BT )have anything to do with it.

  11. Christopher Rogers

    Yea hurry up and get Fibre to every home so i can have the choice to use it or not.,

  12. Roger Jenkins

    FTTH

    I have read the article and all of the well informed comments. I'm very surprised that no one has mentioned Australia and NBN. So I will.

    We had a similar situation to UK. A telecoms incombant that had been privatised and was a virtual monopoly.

    Poor legislation enacted at the time of privatisation that stopped just about anything being done.

    So, the government decided to break that monopoly by replacing most of the copper with a mix of fibre, wireless and satellite.

    How did they finance it and how was it implemented?

    They set up a company to do the job (NBN), on NBN's behalf the government borrowed the money, to be repaid later with a premium.

    NBN are set up as a wholesale broadband offering/ fibre landline company, no retail at all.

    NBN gave the incumbent major telcos a shedload of cash to give NBN all of their customers once the new connections were established.

    Exit the telco's monopoly/duopoly on landlines.

    That monopoly is going to revert back to the governement via it's wholly owned subsiduary (NBN).

    One day, it is proposed that NBN will be sold. A worry, but we'd like to think that the goverment of the day will be a lot smarter than the one that sold off the national telco to begin with.

    We, the people, end up with fibre connections to 98% of all premises, wireless to much of the rest and some of us with well subsidised satellite connections.

    This is Australia a vast land and it can be done here, UK is comparitively small though with many more premises.

    Surely something similar can be done, in effect, it will cost our governement nothing to achieve. In return, they gain back the telco monopoly via NBN. All they will do is facilitating legislation, borrow some cash and end up with a telco monopoly worth billions, after having already sold it for billions.

    Jees I'm in the wrong business.

  13. bcollie
    FAIL

    Openreach

    As mentioned before, OpenReach should have been properly farmed off from BT years ago. If this had happened and all telecoms providers made to pay into the pot to use it, there wouldn't have been any need for unbundled exchanges which are basically duplication of equipment.

    Everyone paying their share to use the same network would have resulted in a better network and fibre rollout years ago.

  14. Kubla Cant

    How?

    Every week or so, someone like this guy pops up to tell us that we have crap broadband and that it's crippling our economic prospects. What they don't explain is how.

    I can see how internet connectivity itself is an economic stimulus. I can also see that availability of broadband enhances this effect by increasing uptake and enabling new patterns of usage. But how does and increase from say 2Mb/s to 2Gb/s increase your economic activity? It looks to me as though the marginal return will be tiny in proportion to the cost.

    The article talks of "games consoles, smart TVs and other devices". I don't know about "other devices", but I don't see the first two as major engines of economic growth.

    An earlier poster mentioned "4/5 devices can all stream HD movies at once". The average UK household size is 2.4 people (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_259965.pdf), so each person will have to watch two movies at once. Even if they do, it's unlikely that they'll pay for them all separately, and even if they do that, we aren't going to fund an economic miracle out of online movie rentals.

    Of course I'd like superfast, or maybe even just fast, broadband, but that's because it would be nice to have. I could do some things that I can't do now, and many things a bit quicker. But it won't change my contribution to GDP much.

  15. AndrueC Silver badge
    Stop

    > how many people are on the network and so on

    So does a fibre network..unless he's really trying to suggest that the EU should be rolling out uncontended network access for everyone. It's true that xDSL can suffer from crosstalk when a lot of people are using it but it's not normally a huge impact. If we're lucky vectoring will address most of that with FTTC.

    But like others I remain unconvinced that there is any immediate requirement for FTTH/P. The takeup of BT's offering and VM's top of the range package has been lacklustre. BT has had to discount the cost until it's stupidly slow juts to stimulate demand. The truth is that most people just don't need those kinds of speeds now or anything close to them. The most common bandwidth hogging application at the moment is IPTV. But even there you can get a decent HD stream at 3.5Mb/s (BBC iPlayer is good enough for most people) and most satellite HD channels broadcast at around 12Mb/s. So 100Mb/s is more than enough to let a family watch multiple HD streams.

    And that's assuming we even think that IPTV is the best way of delivering content which I'm not convinced about. Most people don't even use their PVRs to simulate VoD so for most people boring old broadcast TV is enough. But get rid of IPTV and what's left? The mad torrent brigade and...that's pretty much it. Of course we don't know what the future will hold but no other country has yet come up with a killer app - even those who've had FTTH/P for many years.

    At the moment the only people in the UK are not able to get the best benefit from the internet are the people in the final third (mostly rural, but not all). Basically anyone that can't get a residential connection in excess of 20Mb/s. I think that's where money needs to be spent and an FTTP/H programme would not help those people - it would instead take away what little funds are currently available for those people.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    now we have carbon nanotube cable, doesn't that mean we can have 1 Zettabit per second broadband? ;)

    1. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Zettabit interwebs

      Of course you can have a Zettabit interwebs connection. You can have it on the same basis as BT FTC, it will be available tomorrow...

      always tomorrow...

  17. 96percentchimp

    If it was that simple...

    There are so many gaps in the FTTH Council's argument, you could run a nice bit of fibre through them.

    Most notable is that it doesn't have a single ISP member - this is just a kit manufacturers' lobbying company who don't have to worry about the economics of raising the capital for building networks, so long as it's spent on their kit.

    For those who point at Asia - in Korea and Japan it's often fibre-to-the-basement where the incoming megabandwidth is then shared between residents at much lower end speeds and contention issues. On top of that, there's often no choice of providers and the services they provide, so no competition. Korea Telecom last year started blocking traffic to Smart TVs because it was in competition to their own subscription IPTV. These countries are also densely populated, which makes it very easy to build FTTP, and have little copper to replace, and the suburbs live under a hideous cats-cradle of telegraph wires.

    BT's strategy may be too slow for those who think money grows on trees, but in addition to FTTC they will soon be offering FTTP On Demand - businesses who want it can pay for the FTTP to come to them from the nearest cab, and in many cases this will also create a node from which the neighbours can connect, or they could all club together.

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