UK Government To Back Broadband-For-All

Barence writes to mention that the UK government is throwing their weight behind a broadband-for-all initiative with an initial round of £250 million in funding. Using money left over from the digital television switch, the initiative aims to have a 2Mbit/sec broadband connection or better in every home by 2012. "Analysts welcomed the proposals, but say there are still many details to be hammered out: 'The Chancellor... needs to consider how to remove the barriers that prevent the people who cannot afford broadband to get connected. They need to ensure that competition in the market remains fair and consumers are given choice rather than one or two providers.'"

Only 2Mbit

[telchine]

I guess it's a start, so they should be congratulated on that.

However 2Mbit seems remarkably slow. Even now, I'd find it too slow to bear. By 2012, in 3 years time, I'd imagine it will seem even more obsolete as services change to take advantage of higher bandwidth.

I have 10Mbit at home and that's about the lowest I can bear. I will upgrade to 50Mbit soon.

Re:2mbits? woo-hoo!

[drinkypoo]

I live in the boonies of the USA and my connection peaks just over 1 Mbps (I have a WiFi connection to a tower on the local volcano. Not a typo.) 2 Mbps would make me dizzy with joy, especially since at peak times I sometimes get under 500kbps. A lot of people out there are still using a modem, like me until a few months ago.

Utility

[superpaladin]

Internet is more and more a utility. People can't live without it, so I think the governament stepping in and offering free/cheap internet access for those who can't afford it is only fair. Plus they can pass it as a education initiative.

Re:socialism

[Mprx]

Network effects. The more people on the Internet the more valuable it is to everybody.

Re:2mbits? woo-hoo!

[BlueParrot]

I guess it depends on whether they are targeting 2mbit as in actually 2mbit or "2 mbit UNLIMITED at 1:1000 contention with 4gb /month cap". If it actually ends up averaging 2mbit and not 500kbps then it's not so bad.

Re:33kbps modem? Woo-hoo!

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, I was getting the same kind of connection speeds, the copper out here is pretty bad. Even if satellite worked on your site, it would still suck. However, people who live in the boonies don't get to complain about that last mile (Well, you can complain, but just don't expect anyone to be sympathetic) any more than they get to complain when civilization finally does show up, and they start getting traffic on "their road". In the mean time, is there anyone near you with whom you might form a co-op? You could put a solar-powered repeater on a peak visible to you and your compatriots, and pipe the signal up there from the nearest place you can get a signal (Even satellite, if need be.)

Sorry, 2Mbits is NOT enough!

[Wonderkid]

Having been on Virgin's fibre broadband at 20Mbits (yup, 20) for 6 months, while it is indeed very fast and so far, reliable, it is NOT fast enough. As soon as another occupant of the house beginds to watch an HD stream or download something, it slows down - sometimes even grinding to a halt altogether during busy evenings. Furthermore, with the advent of widespread cloud computing, considerable strain is going to be put on the Internet as a whole. Already, using Google Docs on anything but the fastest connection is impossible, with it timing out if the connection slows down too much. (Not Google's fault.) For the sake of the economy, like the autobahns, highways and motorways of the past, the governments of today (Singapore has already done this) needs to build a super/mega/ultra/wikkedly fast national network of at least 40Mbits (yes, 40) with a 5Mbit or more downlink to make uploading content and teleconferencing practical. The ideal way to achieve this without digging up half the planet to lay fibre to the home will be to use 4G LTE wireless technology. We MUST invest now!