Completely OT Super-fast net planned across the UK

Darren

Q: "What is the right type of snow?" A: "The weather is an interesting topic, but one that I cannot comment on myself. I can, however, provide a link to how to find out if weather will affect services."

Our government is spending $43bn (£27bn) on a National Broadband Network, and that's for 20m people. In our recent election it was a major issue - the Liberals (=UKCon) wanted to scrap it, and after a tied election, Labor's commitment to it brought three Independents from rural seats on side.

Because it wouldn't be profitable.

The privatisation has been a complete mess. BTY is still a de facto monopoly, but it cant be alowed to make a p[rofit.

They should spilt openreach entirely away, get it properly funded as a national service on a not for profit basis, funded by bond issue, underwritten by government and get OFCOM to draw up covenants for each stage of the national rollout of whatever it is we want.

BT the wholesaler and retailer and business supplier can go to hell in a bucket.

I think so...

If you are going to have general purpose computers online at all these days, then there is a minimum level of connectivity required that has long since left options like dial up as hopelessly inadequate. Its not uncommon for even a low use computer to need to shift tens of megabytes a day, just updating applications and OS to the latest patch state, and getting your email. That's long before you decide to browse the web, watch on demand TV / Radio, or use voice over IP etc.

Having enough connectivity to work from home means be able to have reliable use of a VPN for access to corporate data and resources, and enough throughput to allow remote control of machines elsewhere.

Quite. I work from home and looking at the statistics on my firewall, I move about 2Gb a month up and down my broadband. And I don't play online games or steal^Wdownload any significant amount of digital media so that's mostly work stuff. Running a quick speed test I get 1.19 Mb/s down and 0.22 Mb/s up. It's not enough for videoconferencing (I've tried various systems) or indeed, reliable VOIP. And I don't live somewhere *that* rural; although we're surrounded by fields I can get a curry delivered ... :o)

Are you not paying for "up to" n Mbps?

Rather like the oft quoted myth about 640K ought to be enough for anybody.

Try watching iPlayer where the only copy available is in HD.

tell me about it.

I recently used my local councils website to query a parking ticket. Ignoring the fact I got no email acknowledgement (so had to call up to make sure the query was received) they decided to reply by *post*. I think their irony filter is broken as it comes from the "Environment and Culture" directorate.

My personal experience is that videoconferencing is vastly overrated. Unless the other party simply *must* present charts that for some reason (poor organisation?) can't be emailed ahead of time, almost all the actual content comes from the "conference" part - not the "video". So far as telecommuting goes, it depends on how efficiently your company implements it. 2GB a month sounds like it's well within the capabilites of a 2MBit/sec connection (since 2GB/mo => 10MB/day) or even a 3G link. The crucial element is the reliability of the link, rather than its speed.

Having a windows client connected to a windows server over a VPN can use phenonemal amounts of bandwith, if you're not careful. A lot of MS software seems to be "always on", and boy, do thy like their indexing !

...

I recall one computer review asking whether anyone would really need the extra speed of a 386 processor.

Colin Bignell

It sounds as though someone has dusted off Eliza from the 1960s and renamed her, without making any improvements.

Colin Bignell

No wonder dribble has not been posting here as frequently as in the past!

Good point(s) and I largely agree. I do find that if there are a large number of participants, it is very useful for people to be able to share a desktop, which doesn't really count as "video" conferencing, I guess. I suspect telepresence style of video conferencing is mostly vanity by senior management.

On Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:11:10 +0000 Nightjar I recall one computer review asking whether anyone would really need

There was a time when PCs had a turbo button so you could choose between slow and really slow.

I even remember having to use it, so that older programmes would work.

Colin Bignell

I can answer that one. It's stuff that isn't really fine and powdery, like the stuff you get in the Alps and almost never in England, where the snow is wet and soggy. The right kind of snow doesn't require you to remove two seats from every carriage in order to fit roof mounted air intakes which don't pick up this fine powdery snow from the track.

Mind, if you're talking about the Eurostar failure - that was just bad design.

Andy

Some people clearly agree with you. ;-)

Eh? We rarely get wet and soggy snow. It's nearly always powder and dry. Makes building or snowball fights almost impossible as it doesn't hold together. The inch and a half we had last night just blew off the car. Just as well it wasn't windy or the roads would have been interesting with the ensuing drifts, mind you being fresh, light and dry you can pretend to be a boat and just drive through the drifts and they flow like water. That doesn't last long though 24 to