I’ve spent the last week or so digesting the much heralded Digital Britain report and the views of the so called experts (who cant seem to see beyond the nose on their face).
Notwithstanding all the chat about spectrum and how to divvy it up (who remembers the last one? – thanks Gordon for single handedly almost killing the telcos in the UK with that little one – 3G anyone?). My interest is on, of course, the digital services side.
The main conclusion here is that it wont be an urban/rural divide but a socio-economic one. Well there you go! and theres me thinking the opposite. I haven’t been harping on about that very thing here for a few months but outside this Blog for over 18 months (to anyone who would listen). Whats the government response? if I may paraphrase, ‘we will make broadband accessible to all the UK population’. Oh really? I thought the government in previous reports has said that broadband was accessible to the majority of the population. And making is accessible helps the digital divide how exactly? Accessible DOES NOT mean used (see the same aforementioned reports). It needs to be accessible and affordable with the kit made available to make it useable at an affordable price to everyone.
The so called ‘experts’ (dont make me laugh) have said that broadband needs to be made available and that next gen networks should not be the focus and that 2Mbps is more than enough bandwidth….er well for whom exactly? Surely thats not limited by BTs steampowered network is it?….well excuse me for dosing up with a lump of salt there…….I have a well sited line close to my exchange in a major UK city and the best I can get is 3Mbps! on an ‘up to 8Mbps’ service. Oh, its time this ‘up to nMbps’ marketing was stopped. I have NEVER had more than 3.5Mbps……
Next generation networks are deliverable to day (and I dont mean by Virgin either) with no change needed to the BT backbone. These so called ‘experts’ just don’t see whats right in front of them, theres no innovation, they just pander to their own partnerships and BTs networks (not necessarily mutually exclusively I might add). After all they just want to sell kit and BT just want to lock you in with proprietary hardware – have you tried to get BT Vision without a BT home hub? – IPTV NOT they cant/dont stream any Telly…….and dont even get me started on VoIP…….
One day the smaller operators who can actually deliver this now will get our chance…that time is approaching my friends…..just watch this space.
