COMMENT
Compiled in a San Diego coffee shop where bandwidth seems plentiful and the connectivity is free. Dispatched the next day via a free wireless LAN at my hotel.
On 11 February the UK government publicly committed to broadband for every home by 2012. Hurrah! But the bad news is they see 2Mbps as broadband.
By contrast, a day later the South Korean government made a similar pledge for a 1000Mbps net connection to every home and office by 2013. That's 500 times faster than the UK - whoops!
On reading Lord Carter's report is seems to be ideal for MPs and people who were clueless about the digital economy some 10 or 15 years ago. It is so wide of the mark for today as to be useless, and certainly does not address what any nation needs.
It tells us nothing we haven't understood for a very long time, and it doesn't offer a grain of hope for the future. For example there is no comprehension or consideration of the following impending issues:
- Migration from web 1.0 to web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc
- Crippling limitations of asymmetry and contention
- Real needs of business, home and mobile workers
- Changes in broadcasting and entertainment
- How content generation and distribution are migrating
- Interplay of high-speed fixed and mobile networks
- Demise of DRM and all attempts to control content
- Creation of new business models and services
I could go on - the list of omissions is endless.
And where oh where is the aspiration to join the world broadband leaders like China, Japan, Korea and Scandinavia?
Some of these countries already have a 100Mbps basic service for home and office that, by law, has to be uncontended. Yes, you actually get the full speed in both directions, up and down - meaning no sharing or unexpected slowdowns.
And no marketing hype, or small print about speeds 'up to 8Mbps' and so on.
A connection that fast means videoconferencing, IPTV and the downloading and uploading of modern-sized content really work.
Why would any government want to trumpet an ambition that will place their country at the back of the pack? In effect where Korea and Japan were some 10 to 15 years ago is where the UK will be in 2012.
I can only surmise that they don't get out much, and they certainly don't use the technology or understand it. But then again, it seems they never drive on the M25 either. So the impact of congestion and a general lack of transport capacity also escapes them.
All over the UK I see businesses unable to develop and expand because they cannot move atoms or bits fast enough. The general lack of transport capacity is now probably the number one stifler of progress. Unfortunately, it seems government just doesn't get IT!
Comments
There are 15 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
yep our own government is the biggest millstone around our collective necks
2. Stuart Fawcett
So why are the cost bases so different, if its £15 grand for my 100Mbit uncontended home connection where are the hidden cost multipliers that justify this. It can’t really be the same cost as a family car to provision a fast connection?
3. Peter Cochrane
Karen = It is interesting to contemplate how we might get them educated. It seems we have to wait until they are replaced! Peter
4. Peter Cochrane
Stuart = This is almost entirely what the market will stand! The cost of copper and fibre are about the same as are the cost of providing 2,10 or 100Mbit/s! Peter
5. Karen Challinor
Peter = unfortunately due to the party faithful, the constituency system and tactical voting out of spin generated fear we have a two party system, so the replacements are likely to be just as ignorant and slow to innovate as the current incumbents
so don't count on us clambering out of the stone age just yet
6. Simon Allen
I recall watching a live demonstration of fibre for home use and all the things we are now talking about in 1988 in Stockholm from Ericsson. That was before the Web and they had the technology in working form then.
If memory serves correctly ... in the 1980s, the Tories trumpeted that they would put cable into many/all/lots of homes.
Naturally, they declined to put any money into the project so it never happened. They just wanted the headlines that they were doing it. But not doing it.
The same is true now but
but
BUT BUT!!!!!!!!
I wonder how the recession will change this? Will companies see their chance to get more customers by offering better bandwidth and lower contention? I saw that Virgin were doing a big splash about speed but did not read the small print. That might be the last hurrah of the old style 'broadband' or it might be the first of the new.
7. Brian Murray
Couldn't agree more with this article.
I have to fight the simple route of just becoming depressed by the short termism of the UK government - the important thing here is I don't just mean the current government, I include (even more so in fact) the previous government and (more sadly) the foreseeable governments to come!
One thing has been borne out by the resilience of the Scandinavian countries to the 'recession' and was brought out very well by a recent Horizon covering the US fusion power investment programmes ... If we are to be successful we need to take a longer term view, accept economic risks, focus on a pro-technology agenda and embrace the inevitability of change.
We need to just accept our historic mistakes, re-address the privatisation of the Telecom industry infrastructure monopoly (and the rail infrastructure monopoly come to that), in the same way as we have started to do with the core Finance industry infrastructure.
We also need to accept that, even with a change in investment attitude, it will take some time to get results.
I also don't think the above should any socialism agenda, its about putting our businesses on a platform to enable them to compete with the rest of the world. Protectionism is coming, we should not overly embrace it, but we should be ready for it.
8. Richard Sarson
Provincial telcos in Canada were marketing 10mbps to the home in 1998, and the government had set up a venture capital company and lab to think up broadband software applications.
I learnt this tagging along with a Parliamentary delegation to Ottawa in November 1998. When they came back, they beat the hell out of Peter's old friends in BT, who then continued to sit on their hands before bringing out an affordable BB package several years later. Three of the MPs are still around. I hope they have guilty consciences that they did not kick up more of a fuss back then.
And Peter is not without some share of the blame for not kicking his bosses into action, when he must have known what was happening in the world around him.
9. Brian Willis
It's all very well talking about all this but what is need is some action. Has anybody got some suggestions on how we can change this situation. I notice one comment stated that Peter was to some extent to blame but as an ex-BT employee I know he tried his best.
Unfortunately those who have the power to change things in Government rarely under stand the technical implications because they don't have a technical background. Also as anybody who works in a large organisation knows if you make radical statements all you do is get yourself branded as a troublemaker and people higher up the tree try to silence you.
10. Lindsey Annison
Just come back from the FTTH Council event in Copenhagen. Not only were there less than 5% of the 2500 delegates from the UK, there wasn't anyone we could have put on stage to boast about UK broadband, nor are we likely to be able to in 2010, 11, 12 or beyond at this rate.
The Carter Report appears to have been written purely as 'linkbait' to get the info out of the community to pay consultants and govt agencies to dither yet further. After all, those of who are attempting to live, work and play on the crap currently called 'broadband' in Britain know what is required.
All that is required is to let us get on with it - removing property rating from fibre entirely would be a start so I can dig where I live and not get hit with unnecessary rates to a council who don't even know what FTTH is or does.
If you break the figures down (and not the utter rubbish of £28.8bn issued by the telco industry group), it should work out as Fiver To The Home. £5/month for the capital cost of deploying fibre to every home in the UK with ROI in under 10 years.
Once you take into account the economic and environmental impact, as well as the social capital, there is no reason why we should be bailing banks out with way more dosh, and not enabling every single citizen in the UK to connect at equivalent speeds available elsewhere today. 100Mbps+ symmetrical, uncontended, as Peter says and has said for years.
This USO at 2Mbps, with delivery in rural and remote areas by mobile operators who can't even get voice to some of us yet is a poor joke that some of us can't laugh at much longer.
This country has become an embrassment within the EU as far as broadband goes, let alone globally, and I am looking back at Peter's speeches at our conferences in 2001 onwards and wondering how the hell we move this forwards 8 years later. Or would it just be easier to join the many thousands of others and emigrate to get a decent connection of myself, my business and my kids?
11. Anders Comstedt
Peter my friend, you forgot even to include Africa in your comparison. At least if you talk about next year. Even here you find an increasingly bigger crowd of politicans "looking east" in this matter, even if we have a hard time seeing it.
To disregard the evolution of applications in the way we see some do is just silly.
12. anonymous
In my opinion, competition does not exist (this also applies to most other privatised services) and until it does we can expect no significant change.
Regrettably, Joe Public and many varied business reluctantly accept a generally 4th rate service and support.
The providers are only interested in providing as little as possible for as much as they can get before they collect fat bonuses and retire - following the banking model.
Can we do it - yes. Will we do it - what and reduce my income, no.
13. anonymous
A wholesale upgrade of UK Broadband would have been an ideal spend of the £12bn flushed down the toilet on the barking-mad VAT change in November.
After-all, 'Tech Jobs' are supposed to be the savior of the UK.
Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 is highly amusing and sounds like there are still some dotcom crash marketeers out there :-)
14. Derek Chandler
I think everyone has missed the point here. The government is trying to set a minimum standard for broadband Internet connections for everyone in the UK, whether you live in the centre of London or half way up a mountain in Scotland.
First, let's be realistic about what most people get at the moment. Peter, you of all people should know that the infrastructure is insufficient to supply reasonable data rates across the UK as it is, hence BT's massive investment in the 21st Century network. Forget the headline rates; you're lucky to get 1 Mbps on most 16 Mbps ADSL lines. And as for mobile broadband, HSDPA may be able to deliver 14 Mbps but usually data trickles in at 50 kbps or less, often lower than dial speeds. As for me, I get 5 Mbps but I do live quite close to the local exchange. So the government - along with the Trading Standards Office - is trying to get providers to pull their fingers out, update the infrastructure and at least provide a good level of service. By 2012? That's not bad, 2010 or end of 2009 would be better.
What the government does lack is ambition and forward planning. Guaranteeing a minimum data rate is a start, but why stop there? So, what would be a good road plan? How about this: 2 Mbps by end of 2010 for everyone, then up to 10 Mbps by end of 2011, increasing to 100 Mbps by end of 2013 and finally reaching 1000 Mbps by 2018 or sooner. Now, that's leadership! Anyone want to vote for me to be the next Prime Minister?
15. Ian Savell
I'm sure a lot of this is to do with the dreadful state of the UK's in-street services. You may notice that every time a utility wants to add capacity they have to dig up the road and put in "their" pipe or cable. No-one wants the disruption so it is hard to do.
When my company wanted a 100Mb connection to their data centre provision took almost a year! The chosen supplier had no existing fibre cable past the office. I could watch the progress of the road works as new ducts were laid, uprated cable was threaded into existing ducts etc. The eventual cost was many thousands of pounds, it would have been cheaper to link together 100 phone lines.
In some advanced and not-so-advanced countries there are mini service tunnels below the pavements so new infrastructure can be put in without further digging. Add up the cost of all the little trenches, the road repairs, the searches and disruption and the service tunnel approach looks increasingly cheap. And it would sort out all utilities - gas, water, electricity as well as telecomms.