Rather than wasting money on boosting small parts of the country's infrastructure, how about looking at why none of us existing mug, sorry customers, are getting no where near the speeds we are paying through the nose for? Oh yes sorry, fixing things makes it look obvious that they were broken in the first place and doesn't make for good PR.

15 or 30GB per month? That would be pretty cool on a 100Mbps line. Not.

Point being, these days the line speeds don't mean much if not told about the "fair use policy" limitations. Paris because it's hot, nevertheless.

Megabasmatis per second?

Never mind about faster, down here in Cornwall we could do with anything other than dial up! ADSL isn't available to a good portion of us rural folk mainly due to Aluminium cables, DAC's units and bodged cable runs!

I'm now on the 3G network and I think it may well be the easiest route to faster speeds.

Thinks like a Monoploy.

Talks like a Monoploy.

Acts like a monopoly.

If I didnt know beter I'd say it was a deliberate government ploy to subjugate us ?

When will those we've put in charge, realise this, and break em up, or make em pay for licences by infrastructure investments, ot something creative like that.

BT = Bloody Theives,

Signed:

Bitterly Twisted !

The key problem for large scale fibre upgrades[1] in the UK is that the first company to raise the money and actually do it will never get a return on investment.

There are a couple of reasons behind this. Firstly the regulator would ensure 'competition' and force the operator to open the network to competitors. Secondly the government will step in and force the operators to reduce wholesale prices and therefore their wholesale prices to make the service accessible [2].

This is the reason why IMO all fixed line UK telecoms infrastructure (including the NTL kit) should be nationalised and operated by a single company [3] that is not allowed to operate any services on the network. Of course this will never happen...

[1] All this looks like is a slightly more permanant trial than the last few.

[2] Just like they did with broadband, which is largely responsible for the slow progress of ADSL2 (lack of investment funds).

[3] I wouldn't trust the government or the idiots at offcom to do so, so it would have to be a PLC which the uk.gov owns a controlling share.

try over 33GBP /month for an effective 1200 down /200 up here in Oz.

Paris because the telcos here seem to think we all have that much money.

..way back when, befre ADSL had been heard of? .... to lay fibre to every single home in the country, on condition the goverment removed the restriction on their licence, prohibiting them from carrying TV programmes.

What a pity they werent taken up, cause then they would have been easy to break up.

As it is, the licence restriction was dropped recentl.

Too little too late !

"try over 33GBP /month for an effective 1200 down /200 up here in Oz."

At the rate your government are legislating there will be no content on the net though.

I agree with Anonymous Coward. I believe all the gas pipes etc. are owned and maintained by Transco, so why not do the same for the telecoms infrastructure

Kimbie

Why should NTL/Virgin have their backbone taken off them, it was built by private investment, the various companies who did the work ended up being bought out and it is now a wholly owned asset of VM?

Why don't you nationalise the 3g networks as well then, that way you get a far greater coverage across the country than you ever will with cable?

Think about it this way, do you really want to have the government actually trying to run the internet infrastructure in this country? They can barely keep the roads open as it is.

BT had their infrastructure paid for by you and me (and our parents), and as I recall it was everyone bleeting that they couldn't just walk away with the profits that stopped them in their tracks.

Not from bloody BT I don't...

Having been born and brought up in Swanscombe (its that grotty little village next to the shining wonders that is "Ebbsfleet Village" I am astounded by the plans I see for the area. Where we used to play in the woods south of the the village - which were eventually dug up by the cement companies for the chalk underneath - they are planning a rather large housing development! Well I guess its time for the old place to come upmarket...

This topic has been raised many times over the last few months as ofcom have looked into broadband speeds. BT will do these 'trials' to see if it works. They have no intention of actually doing a nationwide roleout of fibre to the home, it would be very expensive to do so, BT would probally go bankrupt just like the companies who made the telecommunications network as we know it today to be BT's. BT doing these trials is just a bit of PR, make it look like they are doing something and keep MP's quiet for a bit. In reality it is just not possible to do a nationwide role out. The more likely option would be fibre to the kerb, which is basically Fibre calbe to the street boxes and then over copper to your house. That would cost BT quite a bit less but still very expensive, enough to put them out of business.

Fibre to the Kerb though probally will happen eventually probally with government pressure but only for people who live in cities where there is money to be made and a lot slow roleout for people outside of it. BT could probally match Virgin Media's network which is Fibre to the kerb because it is quite a large company. Virgin media's network was made by three separate companies, just goes to show how large of a project it is.

Its all about investment and there has to be a lot of it to run fibre, consumers can expect to pay higher prices for broadband when there is invesment into fibre, and it really is question of when, 50 years we probally will have fibre to the home.

Hmm I wonder if Acorn's state-of-the-art Fibre-Optic system it installed way back in Cambridge is still on the go.

So how come when I point out that the author of http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/20/ds_lite_bundle_packs/

had used a Nintedo DS original instead of a DS Lite like the article was about, my comments are not published, no thanks, no nothing. Notice the nice pink DS lite in the article? It was a pink DS Original.

Yes I harbor my disgruntlements at this. : - P

Pfft.

No, not all gas pipes are owned by Transco (Now called NationalGrid UK), yes the vast majority are, but since 1995 there have been Independent Gas Transporters (IGTs), you'll usually find developers use IGTs to connect homes up to mains gas instead of Transco as they offer lower rates. However the IGTs charge more for the gas to go through their pipes, so you usually have to pay more for your gas if you are connected via an IGT instead of NationGrid UK (Transco).

America has had fibre to the home for a whille now, with the rather original name of FiOS (fibre optic service):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS

so it must be economically viable to run fibre to the home

"Meanwhile, the rest of the UK is being gradually upgraded to a contended ADSL service offering theoretical maximum downstream speeds of 24Mbit/s over copper wires."

Dream on! BT's very own CTO admits that the ADSL2+ service will reach only half of us, and even if you're lucky enough to be included in that half you'll get the full 24Mbps only if you live inside the exchange.

Meanwhile nobody has any plans yet to provide the "unserved" half of the population with real broadband. The threat to our international competitiveness is only now being realised, with increasing alarm, in government circles.

Which BT Director has bought a house in Ebbsfleet then?

or should I get out more...

We've got ISPs saying they can't handle all the BBC iPlayer videos and other multimedia downloads us customers try and do.

We've got telecomms companies wanting to charge us extra for downloading content they deem as problematic.

And finally we've even got ISPs "managing" certain types of network traffic.

BT are installing fibre for their Video on Demand service, I don't think the focus is internet traffic.

with fast access when the UK ISP industry is based around restrictive caps due to poor infrastructure.

With a 100MBit you will eat through your 10GB (ish) monthly allowance in no time!

Its not the the trunk networks that are the issue; legislation or consolidation of the Local Access would help reduce risks and costs to the comms companies if any vendor could by access - much the same way as railway companies could gain access pre-grouping.

100Mbit/s connections have been around for a while now in other countries. BT should have had this planned 5 years ago, and currently be investigating the generation beyond that.