According to the news today, we here in the sticks (i.e "rural" areas") will be getting fibre broadband - with speeds up to something pretty impressive. BT, who are rolling this out - with funding from the EU covering the cost, naturally! - claim "90% of people in Cornwall will get speeds of blah blah".
Right, now being Mr Cynical and all that, I can imagine that the 90% are those who live in the big towns - Launceston, Bodmin, St Austell, Newquay, Truro, Falmouth, Camborne and Redruth, St Ives perhaps and of course Penzance.
Now I suspect that covers the "90%" very nicely - and very conveniently - for BT. Of course, many residents in those areas are already able to get speeds ranging from 4Mb to 20+Mb, depending on their distance from the exchange etc.
The rest of us - who live in the real "rural" locations and are already left waaay behind in the digital divide which is the UK - won't be seeing any increase I suspect.
I have 512kb - and that is all I can get. I would happily pay for 20Mb if I could get it, but here there is not even a glimmer on the horizon for 1Mb, never mind the speeds that fibre might provide.
When I look at my daughters - who live outside Cornwall whilst at Uni - and they get 20Mb+ speeds for the price I pay for my 512kb connection, plus they get TV and telephone thrown in to the deal - it really makes me annoyed.
Unlike many of the people who can get these fast speeds, I actually could provide a business need for it. I download a lot of Linux stuff for development and research - and many people with fast speeds simply visit their FB accounts, send a few emails or watch vids on YouTube.
The BBC - who brought this to my attention today - don't seem to have any "post your comments on this story" thing for this - so I am ranting here instead.
I wrote to the Minister responsible when the new Coalition Government too over, commenting about the awful speeds here and volunteering myself to trial any of the ideas they have to get faster interwebs around the UK - but just got a basic reply back.
Well, I still stand by my offer to trial any of these ideas to get a vaguely acceptable internet speed.
Apparently, the average speed is between 4 and 8Mb in the UK - well, Mr Govt Person, I am getting 1/8th of the lower end of the scale. Hell, even the EU says that 2Mb is a minimum speed - but unless BT replace my entire line - which trundles merrily across field gateways, ploughed fields etc etc - I can't see me getting that.
And yes - I realise that there are people worse off who get slower speeds or even no broadband at all! My rant is for all of us!
1 comment:
Just to comment on my own post - I have spoken with the chap responsible for the roll-out of fibre in Cornwall (waves to Ranulph!) and there is apparently a reasonable chance that many of us in rural areas could get the fast speeds as the distances will be to the cabinets, not the exchanges. No promises, but it should offer many more rural people a decent speed - if not the top end stuff. The further from the cabinet, the slower the speed will be of course. Still - good news for many of those living in the sticks.
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