Re: Sigh - let the flaming begin
I'm going to try to avoid this being a flame, and try to stay rational.
The internet has in the last 10 years turned from something cool to part of the fabric of consumer and business life.
The internet was supposed to free us rural folk from the need to all migrate to cities when we grew up. I grew up, I migrated to a city. I would love to go back home, but the infrastructure just ain't there.
Leaving rural areas on dial-up is like giving them cycle paths instead of roads and saying the cost of their choice to live in the countryside is that they can't get access to fast transport. It's the country dwellers who need cars most, and it's the country dwellers, without access to the bright lights of the west-end party scene and close access to offices etc that need the internet.
The Western Isles were so badly served by BT that they had to develop their own too-clever-by-half wireless system that 8 years in is badly outdated, underspecced and riddled with faults. And not yet finished.
BT are a business, but they are also a monopoly, particularly in the sort of places we're talking about now. Capitalism abhors commercial monopoly. Socialism abhors commercial monopoly. It's time to nationalise the internet.