UK Broadband not fast enough

molinaalexis

Broadband in the UK is not nearly fast enough and action needs to be taken if Britain wants to stay competitive in the high-speed internet market.
This is the view of Martin Thunman, Chief Executive of PacketFront, a Swedish infrastructure firm which is at the vanguard of a new type of broadband.

Fibre to the home can theoretically provide speeds up to 100 times faster than current DSL and cable services, offering a host of multiple applications including video telephony, digital TV and video-on-demand.

"If other countries such as France, Germany and Scandanavia start to deploy this type of infrastructure and the UK is stuck with DSL and cable it will lose in competitiveness," said Mr Thunman.


Already in countries such as France, Italy and the Netherlands, local governments and communities are banding together to offer fibre to the home as an alternative to DSL - broadband over the copper telephone line.

Fibre to the home is also being deployed in the US and in Japan, where it is seen as a way of allowing employees to work from home, cutting down on commuter chaos.

In Sweden, 50% of all broadband connections are over fibre and both the Swedish national government and local authorities are investing heavily in fibre networks.

In fact local governments and community groups have been some of the earliest promoters of fibre access and it is a technology ideally suited to rural residents where neither cable nor DSL reach said Mr Thunman.

More importantly it provides enough speed to satisfy even the most bandwidth-hungry application he said.

"In a few years time DSL broadband will be viewed as dial-up is today, simply not good enough," he said.

He is not impressed with BT's admittance that it has no social responsibility for broadband and is equally scathing of government plans for the technology.

"Stephen Timms [the UK's e-Minister] demonstrates a lack of vision. He is not proactive, letting the market take care of itself," said Mr Thunman.

Instead, he argues the government should see a high-speed broadband infrastructure as a basic societal right in the same way that other utilities are viewed.

"The government needs to act and to start looking at where the country needs to be in the long term," he said.

The UK government takes a more conservative view, saying broadband is a journey that must be taken in small steps.

"Broadband is a process and we need to think about the here and now. Fibre networks could be the big thing in ten years time but if we invested millions in it and it wasn't then that would not be a good idea," said a spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry.

Fibre to the home has long been viewed in the telecoms industry as a kind of Holy Grail, ideal but unattainable.

The biggest barrier to widespread adoption of fibre networks is the cost - around 30 to 40% more expensive than DSL - and the disruption caused by digging up roads.

IDC analyst Jill Finger is not convinced that fibre to the home will become a viable alternative to current broadband any time soon.

"Operators have invested too much in DSL. It would be unrealistic in the current climate," she said.

"Obviously it would depend on what applications were developed but copper will provide sufficient bandwidth in the next few years."

Mr Thunman remains convinced that large-scale infrastructure investments will be vital to the future development of broadband.

He pointed out that the billions the UK government made from selling off third generation mobile licenses would have funded a nationwide fibre network.

And it is not just a decision for governments. For residents cut off from the current broadband revolution, fibre to the home could provide a viable alternative, said Mr Thunman.

"For rural communities I'd say don't bother arguing with BT. Fund your own roll-out, it is already happening in other parts of the world."

News source: BBC News

BKtje

I wish we had a competitve edge too lose

Slutmonkey57b

This bloke heads up a company that... sells hardware for fibre optic networks.
He's hardly going to say that DSL is the bees fu.cking nees is he?

I wonder if he's trying to play on the British government's embarrassment at the problems with DSL rollout and hoping to land himself a nice big fat contract.

Cast: Lazy Hack Reporter, BBC News.
Your magic bounces off, the Lazy Hack Reporter is already active.

LFCFan

Originally posted by Slutmonkey57b

I wonder if he's trying to play on the British government's embarrassment at the problems with DSL rollout

The British Governments Embarrasment? Christ, what does that say for our shower of no-hopers!

dahamsta

The British Governments Embarrasment? Christ, what does that say for our shower of no-hopers!

You can't be embarassed if you don't know there's a problem.

adam

LFCFan

Originally posted by dahamsta
You can't be embarassed if you don't know there's a problem

It's the Irish Government Way! Plead Ignorance.

pork99

Its like being in a race were our competitors have not just overtaken us but are now disappearing over the horizon

dahamsta

It's the Irish Government Way! Plead Ignorance.

Oh, they don't need to plead...

adam

bricks

Then we've been laped several times.

LoGiE

In a few years time DSL broadband will be viewed as dial-up is today, simply not good enough,"

*Stunned* It's embarassing now talking to relatives abroad who have ADSL and Cable but when I'm still stuck on off-peak "Flat Rate" and they're enjoying fibre connections to they're doors....How long can our goverment continue to deny the people of ireland services like this??

LFCFan

they'll continue to deny it as long as there's people like Bertie Ahern in office taking backhanders from the likes of €ircon.

BigEejit

Cast: Lazy Hack Reporter, BBC News.
Your magic bounces off, the Lazy Hack Reporter is already active.

heehee very funny ...

but seriously, do you think some company (or even a bunch of them) could have enough cash to dig up the whole country to put fiber into even .1% of houses!! .. nope they wouldnt be able to afford it .. so the governemt would pay for it and then the muppets would GIVE it to Eircon no strings attached, (minister for receiving brown paper envelopes would be going to the bank) and eircon would charge everyone 200 euro per month for the NEW service

Off topic ...what gear would you use at the other end of the fibre cable ... at work we have loads of fibre switches brocades, qlogics, ancors .. but used for SANs, would the same type of kit be needed for ip networks ?? or is there cheaper stuff...

PiE

Never fear lads, we may not have nationwide DSL for another 3 years, but in 15 years we can all listen to how the government "planned ahead" by sticking as much fibre as possible in Irish turf now.

pork99

we may not have nationwide DSL for another 3 years

Optimistic, aren't we?

irishguy

"Broadband is a process and we need to think about the here and now. Fibre networks could be the big thing in ten years time but if we invested millions in it and it wasn't then that would not be a good idea," said a spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry.

this is the kind of thinking that is holding back broadband in this country, all the important decision are left up to people who have no interest/knoll age of IT, to make a statement that the information age is just a passing fad is ridiculous, we are hardly going to wake up in the morning and realise that the internet is a waste of time. These were the kind of people who said television, telegraph etc were a waste of time, now these services are seen as essential would a company setup somewhere they could not receive a telephone line or electricity. I have been saying that we need "fibre to door" or even "fibre to neighbourhood " for ages, but this is noting got to do with the telecoms I wouldn’t expect them to even consider doing this as the cost would be astronomical [when they wont even invest in ADSL] but this is more up to the government they should lay fibre to all houses in the country [within reason] and build up a very fast reliable network then form a body where profit isn’t the objective but service is. They would lease bandwidth to Telco’s, ISP’s, TV providers etc in 10 years this organisation would be making money hand over fist and would have one of best if not the best telecoms infrastructure in the world. The answer is not in broadband alone but in offering multiple services over one medium. But hey this relies on us having a forward thinking country and we do have a history of not taking on new ideas at first and they when these work we jump in with both feet and employee even more sioficated technology

irishguy

just saw this is seems south Korea stole my idea ,this is what i am talking about ,i know we wouldnt be able to have the same service as South Korea as they have a much higher population dencity but i think we should model our communications expansion on theres,as it is proven to work

J@ck Chri5tie

The company your man in the article works for:

packetfront.se


Some interesting links there too.

Wonder could he come and save us from eircons deathgrip....

JC

STaN

sure the government promised us speeds of over 5mbps by the end of 2003 i believe

flamegrill

Originally posted by STaN
sure the government promised us speeds of over 5mbps by the end of 2003 i believe

I think it was year end 2005.

Paul

J@ck Chri5tie

Mary in the BathTub may have said 5Mb in 2005, but did anyone tell the ODTR. Do they even believe it?

At the ODTR's National Conference
, Ovum presented 'Future Delivery of Broadband - Technical & Costing Issues .

This document 'only' talks about how much it would cost if we got 512kb or 2Mb in 2007!!!!!!

Don't hold your breath


JC

Balfa

That korean thing is deadly. I knew they were the world's leaders in broadband, but it's very interesting to see how they did it.

Our government needs to spend a few hundred grand or so to get a small team of the decision-makers behind Korea's broadband to come out here and provide the people/government/businesses with the best options for getting fast, cheap net access in this country as quickly as realistically possible.

We all may have our own opinions as to how this should be done, but i'm thinking korea still knows best

sceptre

The one dodgy thing about using SKorea as an example (and they're a fine example of a government taking the initiative) is that Etain Doyle (for one - see PK interview) can trot out a response like "yeah, well, they're different, they all live in apartment blocks"

Leaving aside the little fact that this isn't the case for many of the 90% of South Koreans with easy access to broadband, it's an easy rebuttal for someone in her position to make. Others will make the same claim.

Either way, the level of commitment and initiative from the Korean government leaves us sorely in the shade.