Oi, don't leave Cymru in broadband slow lane, MPs warn The UK government's broadband rollout plan fails to address the needs of businesses in Wales, MPs have warned in a report published today. The dossier highlights an apparent "gap" in internet access in more remote parts of Cymru. The House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee cautioned that too many "slow spots" and "not spots" …
Pah! You AC's have no vision.
Think what a dedicated satellite system could do for Wales. Imagine the proud launch of Yakidah 1 from the Bangor Cosmodrome, a global centre of space-faring excellence putting Wales as the very hub of the 21st Century! As part of a Welsh state funded network of satellites, the Welsh language could be broadcast round the planet, opening the way for a new global news service "Voice of Wales". The new bandwidth could also carry live procedings from the Welsh Assembly, as well as live coverage of all of the important committees of the Assembly. The new high speed internet would be known as Cymruweb (Koom-ri-oib, since under Welsh law you can't mix Welsh and English pronunciation in the same sentence). Immediate benefits would be to introduce the sort of tele-coommute or work-from-home facilities that the rest of the world has had for twenty years - the most important aspect of this would be to enable the Welsh unemployed to sign on from home, saving carbon emissions on the journey to the nearest JobCentre Plus. Similarly, the Welsh speed camera network, envied throughout the world for its valued contribution to road safety, would be web connected, to issue electronic notices of intended persecution via DVLC, itself recognised as a global centre of excellence in sick leave and demoralisation.
Not only would the Welsh State Space Corporation launch a satellite, it would oversee the Welsh State Software Corporation in the authoring of a new high speed communications protocol in Welsh, the Cymru rapid access protocol. EU and Whitehall funding would be used to re-employ workers at the former Unilever site in Swansea to deisgn and build a coal powered rocket, and the former Burberry workers at Treorchy would be tasked with planting trees to offset the carbon emissions of the rocket, giving Wales the world's only zero carbon space programme. In Cardiff a new software science park would be established at Llanederyn, with a goal of building devising a new computer language in Welsh, to be known as Cobollers. This would then be the mandatory language for all Welsh government and local council software contracts, and would be the precursor to a unique Welsh productivity suite, Orifice. Further exciting developments could include a Welsh version of Android, inclding a Welsh language personal assitstant, called Myfanwi, and a new Welsh langugage tablet, called the Slate. This last one would be a unique piece of Welsh low environmental impact technology involving a chalk stylus and a piece of slate, and offer advantages over other tablets in that the device would not be battery dependant, could be operated in any orientation, and would be fully compatible with the teaching tools currently used in Wales' high performing schools sector.
So, AC, you have no vision!
Internet access just outside Cardiff is shockingly bad and our work connection will drop numerous times every day screwing up our VPN's. There is no realistic alternative available other than paying BT £6 K to install a fibre connection that will cost around £4 K a year or wireless access from a local IT company for around the same price.
Thank god for auto failover to a 3G USB connection, its not ideal but at least it works better than our ADSL !
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The dossier highlights an apparent "gap" in internet access in more remote parts of Cymru.
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Really, poor internet access speed in rural areas? Whodathunkit?!
It's not like Wales is particularly special in this regard ... at work, in Shropshire, the Internet connection is something like 5% that of my connection at home (Wolverhampton).
Since the entire population of Wales is less than that of just the West Midlands (by a considerable margin) in a much larger amount of space (even more if you flattened out all the uppy-downy bits :P ), it's not exactly surprising that the information infrastructure is somewhat lacking.
I call bollocks on that!
nothing to do with BB, more to do with:
1> it's mostly in the middle of fucking nowhere
2> the natives are hostile
praps i should have called bollllocs on it
(it's not racist! im a welsh ex pat.. land of my fathers, my fathers can keep it etc etc etc)
North Wales has always been behind the curve which surprises me. They have private fibre following the A55 but only got ADSL2+ in Llandudno last year. I'd have thought it fairly cheap and very effective to roll-out FTTC at all the major N. Wales coastal towns.
But - I refuse to accept it's some kind of silly 'We hate the Welsh' crap from BT. Same as I don't think they hate rural dwellers in general. It's just that I do struggle to understand why the service isn't more up to date along the A55.
Broadband is important to Government, that's why they tax fiber connections at so many thousand a year per mile. It's because they want to encourage competition in Broadband.... Wait a minute!?
There you go, that's your opportunity Wales, make a big fuss about broadband tax hurting competition and access and see if you can get tax relief. That might do something interesting.
I think BT is doing a pretty good job in Wales. So, I live pretty much slap in the middle, the nearest community is 2 miles away and has about 500 people living in it and my house is half a mile off the nearest road (i.e. its up a dirt track).
So, I have ADSL at a consistent 8Mb and its only gone down once in two years. While I accept its not going to give me stutter-free full-size streaming video (although I've never had a problem using iPlayer on the laptop), it works just fine enough to run a business. Well done BT :-D
Ok, now I'm running for the bunker before I get drowned in a million (harmonised, we are Welsh after all) howls of protest!
OTOH My 10k line exchange STILL doesn't have ADSL2, and might get it next year (if the date doesn't slip again) My less than 3 k copper line has been prone to drops ever since 512k broadband, so despite an LLU operator saving us from the BTw Crawl the service still sucks as you cant get proper repairs done and currently struggles to maintain a 6500 sync on a 43db line - having been below FTL on ADSL1 for months without any sign of a fix from Openjoke.
The Welsh Assy .Govt. might like to remember that Wales does extend BEYOND the M4 corridor and its surrounds, As we are good enough to provide the oil gas and power for the UK infratsructure - we surely deserve some return on it my way of decent comms.
Its time Cardiff bay took their collective fingers out of the dark place they have them and did something rather than talking about it. We are sick of reading how every other part of the UK is forging ahead while we slip further behind - either that or give up the power and let London sort it out - they at least seem able to organise a pi** up in a brewery - a skill that seems to elude Cardiff bay.
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