A promised 'right' to fast internet rings hollow for millions stuck with 20th-century speeds

The Conversation, Phys.org, ^ | March 24, 2015 - 3 hours ago | Bianca Reisdorf And Anne-Marie Oostveen

[Patriot777]

In response to the government's recent declarations that internet speeds of 100Mb/s should be available to "nearly all homes" in the UK, a great many might suggest that this is easier said than done. It would not be the first such bold claim, yet internet connections in many rural areas still languish at 20th-century speeds. The government's digital communications infrastructure strategy contains the intention of giving customers the "right" to a broadband connection of at least 5Mb/s in their homes.

There's no clear indication of any timeline for introduction, nor what is meant by "nearly all homes" and "affordable prices". But in any case, bumping the minimum speed to 5Mb/s is hardly adequate to keep up with today's online society. It's less than the maximum possible ADSL1 speed of 8Mb/s that was common in the mid-2000s, far less than the 24Mb/s maximum speed of ADSL2+ that followed, and far, far less than the 30-60Mb/s speeds typical of fibre optic or cable broadband connections available today.

In fact a large number of rural homes still are not able to access even the previously promised 2Mb/s minimum of the Digital Britain report in 2009.

[Eva]

Most of the state of Vermont has no high speed internet.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

You and me both.

Where I live, in a semi-rural area with my house about 1400 feet from the nearest main road, we have no access to wired broadband.

The telco and cable company have told me, (albeit politely) to pound sand, I'm not getting a broadband connection as far into the future as they can see it.

So I'm stuck with satellite or wireless internet, with data caps that make anything other than web surfing or E-mail unavailable. Stream a movie? Yeah, maybe once a month, with a break for buffering every ninety seconds or so.

So when the broadband companies start whining about how they won't be able to "innovate", I find myself here:

[tophat9000]

As a network engineer I am amazed at the stupid of articles like this... ..

people....the “Internet” is a collection on data path for data to travel from you to the other device/ server you want to pull data from or push data too...your only as fast as the slowest segment of that path....and that path is dynamic.. it changes, it get congested and your sharing with others people.. and your not going the same place ever time.. it your roadway between your and anywhere else.. so why the focus on the last mile from your driveway to the street cornet as being the place your bogged down in your daily little Internet commute

Everyone seem to think the “last mile” is their speed to everything....

It like thinking changing your Ethernet interface to the Internet from 1 gig to 10 gig will speed you up..

When truth is it will not do a dam thing if that not an the point your bound....it just one of a hundred possible choke points

[tophat9000]

Look building a ten lane highway from your driveway to your street corner is not going to speed up your daily commute to work or to go shopping or to go to the movies or to do anything pass just going to just that street corner

People need this out of their heads of focusing on the ISP’s last mile connection from them to the isp will be that relevant to their overall Internet speed

[taxcontrol]

Check with your local carrier and not the cable company. Pulling fiber is not that uncommon. Once you have fiber back to the CO or more local point of presence (pop) that is common to your internet provider and your local loop (fiber optics) you will not have much difficulty getting connected.

Again, it is all cost base.

[Westbrook]

> So I’m stuck with satellite or wireless internet, with data
> caps that make anything other than web surfing or E-mail
> unavailable.

Lousy, lousy, lousy.

I was hoping satellite grew up and offered unlimited data. I guess not. What a debacle internet in NH is.

No cable except in the ‘burbs and cities. DSL is flaky at best.

Satellite is useless.

Well, back to the dvds.