www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33957559
Been for a walk this morning around Quainton, another village campaigning against HS2.
While the two things are not mutually exclusive, I question whether it would be better to kick HS2 into touch and spend some serious money on getting everybody connected to superfast internet.
HS2 will benefit relatively few people, and the benefits are hotly disputed. Arguably it will make the country even more London-centric.
The UK is one of the most internet-reliant countries in the world, but lags in the availability of fast reliable service that would benefit everybody and has the potential to reduce commuting and its impact on resources, capacity, and the environment. High speed internet could be delivered more quickly and with less disruption than HS2.
In the 1930s, the Grand Union Canal between London and Birmingham was modernised to allow 14' wide boats to travel from London to Birmingham. It created employment and probably helped to stimulate the economy but within 20 years it was irrelevant.
HS2 will create economic activity in its construction, but so would connecting the country with fibre - and it would not despoil the countryside or blight anybody's home. Neither would it have to be completed to bring any benefits, which would start immediately and build with every new fibre connection.
Compared to HS2 it could be a bigger, and easier, win. If it isn't done quickly, our economy will surely suffer in the future and it could take decades to catch up.
I have written to my MP to this effect, for what good it will do!
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 17 Aug 15 at 15:51
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I understand that BT wanted to invest in fibre-optic infrastructure in the 1980's but was forbidden to do so by the Govt. of the time as they would have been too big a threat to the fledgling cable communication industries (Cable and Wireless etc) of the time.
It is a real case of competition slowing down the market as the cable companies had no intention of investing in poorer towns or poorer areas of towns where take up of their services would have been higher.
We now have the poor substitute of Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) when what we really need is Fibre To The Premises (FTTP). As I understand it, Sky and Talk Talk are planning to role out FTTP on a trial basis.
I work from home and when I moved a while back it was a nightmare getting files downloaded whilst waiting for a broadband connection to be set up even though there was one to the house already.
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>
>> We now have the poor substitute of Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) when what we
>> really need is Fibre To The Premises (FTTP). As I understand it, Sky and Talk
>> Talk are planning to role out FTTP on a trial basis.
FTTC is not a poor substitute, do you really need internet faster than 30-40 mb? really?
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>> FTTC is not a poor substitute, do you really need internet faster than 30-40 mb?
>> really?
>>
Yes, when a client calls and asks me to look at a 1gb data file he has just sent me it is annoying to have to wait before it can be opened.
There are 4 high intensity internet users in my house and a great deal of video streaming from Amazon, BBC etc.
Even at 30mbits per second we get buffering.
Upload speeds are only 2mb per seconds.
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>> >> FTTC is not a poor substitute, do you really need internet faster than 30-40
>> mb?
>> >> really?
>> >>
>>
>> Yes, when a client calls and asks me to look at a 1gb data file
>> he has just sent me it is annoying to have to wait before it can
>> be opened.
Wow like how long does it take to download one gig at 35-40mb internet speeds. 5 minutes at most?
>> There are 4 high intensity internet users in my house and a great deal of
>> video streaming from Amazon, BBC etc.
Not all at the same time
>> Even at 30mbits per second we get buffering.
>>
>> Upload speeds are only 2mb per seconds.
Seriously I would suggest your use is not typical. At the end of the day, FTTC is good current cost effective technology.
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>> >> Yes, when a client calls and asks me to look at a 1gb data
>> file he has just sent me it is annoying to have to wait before it
>> can be opened.
You cannot expect to open a 1GB file without downloading it. a 1GB file will take a few minutes at most to download on a fast FTTC connection. I know I have such a connection. But please, to expect faster for 1GB files.... then yes order FTTP from BT.
>> Wow like how long does it take to download one gig at 35-40mb internet speeds.
>> 5 minutes at most?
>> >> There are 4 high intensity internet users in my house and a great deal of
>> >> video streaming from Amazon, BBC etc.
Tell them to get their own broadband. If you had ten times the download bandwidth the leaches in the house will use it and you're not better off.
>> >> Upload speeds are only 2mb per seconds.
My upload speed with BT is about 15-17 Mbps on their Infinity product. Very happy with it (Still) after 5+ years.
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>> We now have the poor substitute of Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC)
FTTC and the Internet connection from cable are very closely related. Main difference is the last section with FTTC is still an old BT twisted pair line and cable is coax.
I bet a lot of people still think the Virgin fibre broadband is to the home... which it never was. It's to the street cabinet.
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Excellent post Sir. As I type to you and send it at between 0.6 and 1.4 meg. :-)
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Openreach say that fibre uptake, when available, is about 20%. Ironically it must be significantly higher in rural areas like this where ADSL is not fast enough for video streaming as here, but we are well down the list (our cabinet is "under review") because we have only c 200 houses on the cabinet and we are 3km from the exchange. And I am 35 miles from London, not in in the Outer Hebrides.
www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/faq/ (when will you get it, etc)
While the government is aiming for 95% FTTC coverage, I would like to see internet provision treated as a "universal service obligation", or something approaching it, like mail delivery. For it to be adopted as the default method for people to work together in all sorts of situations that don't actually require them all to be in one place, the target needs to be virtually 100%.
What will the London-Birmingham HS2s be full of at peak hours? My guess is that many will be going to work at a desk or attend a meeting. Wouldn't they rather do that remotely? And if they could, how much better would that be than defacing the landscape with more roads and railways? Never mind the general quality of life.
This would be the real opportunity for making the country less London-centred, and spreading the opportunities further afield.
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>> HS2 will benefit relatively few people, and the benefits are hotly disputed. Arguably it will
>> make the country even more London-centric.
HS2 will benefit far more than you think, its not just about high speed trains, its also about relieving some capacity on the west coast main line, which is clogged by both freight and passenger.
>> The UK is one of the most internet-reliant countries in the world, but lags in
>> the availability of fast reliable service that would benefit everybody
The UK is about as internet reliant as any other country, and has far wider faster access than most. You may be surprised that we have better and wider coverage than the USA. (one of the benefits of being on a small crowded little island)
>> In the 1930s, the Grand Union Canal between London and Birmingham was modernised to allow
>> 14' wide boats to travel from London to Birmingham. It created employment and probably helped
>> to stimulate the economy but within 20 years it was irrelevant.
marginalised by the railway, which 200 years later is still relevant and growing.
>>
>> HS2 will create economic activity in its construction, but so would connecting the country with
>> fibre - and it would not despoil the countryside or blight anybody's home.
digging up roads and pavements is not without its problems to the inhabitants and environment.
>> quickly, our economy will surely suffer in the future and it could take decades to
>> catch up.
Our country is growing faster than most of europe, we have internet access well up there with the best, so you are pushing a perceived issue well out of proportion.
>> I have written to my MP to this effect, for what good it will do!
There wis no reason why we can't have faster growing internet (because its paid for from a commercial operation) and HS2 (government funded infrastructure)
You could even put a fast T2 internet trunk up the HST line.
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Google Blaster Bates, 'Dynamite in the Cut', if you never have. Excellent in its way, audio only though.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 17 Aug 15 at 20:45
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>> Google Blaster Bates, 'Dynamite in the Cut', if you never have. Excellent in its way, audio only though. >>
Absolutely hilarious stories from Blaster (once saw him live). Steeplejack and steamrollers and mechanical engineering fan Fred Dibnah, another I saw live as well as on TV, was yet another remarkable character whose tales were rib-ticklingly funny.
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At least two sides to every discussion of course. You are right about pavement trenches, some of the cable work was of a terrible standard. But the mess can be made good, and does not leave beautiful landscapes scarred forever; and when I say house are blighted, I mean those that become what most of us would regard as uninhabitable either for the duration of the works or forever.
I just don't believe it is as necessary as we have been told - and we all know that it will just make Birmingham a dormitory for London, rather than benefitting the majority of Brummies.
Too many vested interests now of course.
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and we all know that it will just make Birmingham a dormitory for London,
Already is, fastest morning train to the smoke is 1hour 13 minutes
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Really? That's impressive.
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Especially when you consider that Norwich, which is virtually the same distance from London as Birmingham takes 1hour 59 minutes in the fastest train.
I think you could do in in 1 hour 40 in the thirties by steam. Progress is a wonderful thing.
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Virgin achieve times of around two hours, seven or eight minutes from London Euston to Manchester, Liverpool and Preston, including two stops en route.
How much faster would trains have to travel to make any worthwhile improvement? Previous best from Euston to Liverpool was around two hours, 40 minutes and that's going back several decades...:-)
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Is this Virgin Broadband? Which tariff? I can download from a London based server quicker than 2 hours unless the file is huge.
I always say if you need to copy/move a lot of data, putting it on a drive an travelling with it increases latency but improves overall bandwidth?
:-)
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Falkirk BT exchange area has FTTC - I connect via another local exchange and get only 4-6mbps - even less when there is heavy rain (& no timescale published for upgrades).
My son declined to pay for Fibre - his current connection gets him 12mbps+ - in his mind perfectly adequate for what he & the family needs - he was getting 6+ but with all the work BT did he benefited by doubling his line speed @ no extra cost!!
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UK Broadband speeds - zippy
