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 …
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.
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 :(
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
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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