RSSBritain considers whether its citizens are entitled to 2 Mbps broadband
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 30, 2009, 11:59 AM
In a sweeping proposal yesterday, the UK's communications and technology minister, Lord Carter, has proposed a system whereby all citizens are guaranteed broadband Internet service with as much as 2 Mbps bandwidth, by 2012.
The interim report entitled "Digital Britain," published officially by the country's Department for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform (PDF available here), outlines a possibility for ministers in Parliament and the Prime Minister to consider. Just as the government mandated mail service to all citizens in 1840, and basic online data service to all citizens in 1984 under what the UK calls a universal service obligation, the report -- written with the blessing of Lord Carter -- suggests a similar USO be applied for broadband service.
The reason: Even in this negative economy, and perhaps especially so, Britons need the tools to educate themselves, keep themselves informed of their surroundings and their world, and acquire the skills necessary to obtain and keep jobs.
"While we may not always be able to stop someone losing their current job, we can invest in helping people get the next job," remarked Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a speech yesterday in London. "And as we do so we are investing, not cutting, our crucial investment in the jobs and the infrastructure of the 21st century. And it is a pivotal element in our plan for stability and recovery that we do so, for there is no credible plan out of this downturn that is not also a plan towards building a better long term economy that can create jobs.
"Today we have an interim report from Lord Carter setting out the scale of our ambition to compete in the digital economy, and that is a market worth about ?50 billion a year in Britain alone," the Prime Minister continued. "It affects every community in our country who are looking for the best digital infrastructure, the best access to broadband that we can offer them. And our digital networks will be the backbone of our economy in the decades ahead, just as roads and rails were the backbone of our physical infrastructure, and still are. And we know that every aspect of our lives in local communities, every school, every hospital, every workplace and even every home will be dependent on the services that the digital network provides. It is as essential to our future prosperity in the 21st century as electricity, roads, bridges and trains were in the 20th century. And building these bridges to the future will need a clear lead from government, combined with a strategic partnership between the public and private sectors."
As the Digital Britain report points out, "The Government remains committed to the principle of universality. We believe that principle can be updated to reflect the changed market and customer expectations in terms of technology. The existing USO model has been appropriate during a time when the fixed line was the norm for communication and [British Telecom] held a pre-eminent position in the market. Now that communications for voice and data have become accessible by different means and through a market that is considerably more complex, we need to ensure our ambitions for universality are delivered in a way which reflects reality today."
BT was allowed to take itself private in 1984, but only on the condition that it provide phone and even data service to all citizens at some basic level. Without an obvious "Ma Bell-like" national player today, the UK government would be compelled to rely upon a coalition of private industry leaders, including competitors, to make possible universal service -- which could be the tallest order of all.
Last night on the BBC's Newsnight program, Emily Maitlis pressed Lord Carter as to how businesses are to be expected to contribute their share to a universal rollout of broadband, when the British economy is experiencing one of its worst recessions on record. "I think what's very clear is, if you look at the state of our economy -- or indeed, any economy in the world at the moment -- all economies are looking for bridges to the future. Where is growth going to come from? Where are the new industries, the growth industries? And there's a universal acceptance that the digital economy is at the heart of that," Lord Carter responded.
Three tiers of universal service are being considered under the plan: 512 Kbps, 1 Mbps, and 2 Mbps. Although the former would be the least expensive to implement, and may require only upgrading the capacity of 5 - 7% of the nation's data lines, the report estimates, the 2 Mbps service could be the most "future-proof," representing the average bandwidth that real broadband customers use anyway, and least likely to require repair down the road.
The government mandated service may not be free to all citizens, but may instead carry a licensing fee similar to what Britons currently pay for public television service such as the BBC and basic channels.
Uhm. There are many utilities that will you you to save streaming content. Some of it takes a bit of tweaking, but ANYTHING on these streaming ports/protocols can be captured.
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|What I believe needs to happen is a full fibre roll-out across the country (UK) to peoples homes and this be available at a price similar to the cost of todays broadband. By 2012 we'll be wanting much more than what copper can deliver at the moment.
Virgin has just released up to 50Mbit in the UK but only available to those who can get cable. (Which I can't)
I believe that in this day and age 100Mbit broadband should be becoming available to the masses.
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|Gah...
And who's going to pay for that roll-out???
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|Way before virgin media took over the two leading cable company in the UK, the government stepped in and stopped them laying more fiber cable down because residents in certain areas didn't want the paths dug up outside their homes. This was in the late 90's early 2000. I bet the same people are pleading for the government to take action now as a lot of them will be relying on BT's poor broadband service.
I'm quite lucky, I can get the 50mbit service provided by VM, but due to the distance from the local exchange, BT's DLS service is limited to 1mbit (at best).
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|Copper is capable of 50 megs down. The only reason it's not happening is because of all the video channels (mostly digital...mostly) that are also being sent through the line. If we can reach a point where these channels become IP addressable through the regular internet, then a s*** can be made to widen the pipe to such high speeds. This has more to do with MPAA/FCC rules and the will that cable co's have to actually do it. But, it can be done.
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|Umm yeah or you don't want to wait 4 days to download the 2GB patches for most modern games (as well as windows updates)...and for those that play WoW...you especially know this pain.
I get 10mbt to 25mbt (time of day) down and 2mbt up on my cable modem...and all for $55 a month. Thank the gods.
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|"and for those that play WoW...you especially know this pain."
Much better than my example. Yeah...that sucks.
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|Actually, 2Mbps is more than sufficient for most legitimate purposes. I'd do quadruple back flips if I could get 512, let alone something faster. As for fiber being a requirement to deliver double-digit bandwidth, that's hardly the case. Copper is readily delivering 12mbs in certain parts of the country already..and if you need more than that, you're either a government agency or a serious movie pirate. What sickens me is that here in the country that invented the Internet, about 25% of our territory has no affordable broadband available. That probably encompasses less than 15% of the population but its still annoying - some Third World countries are doing better than that.
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|"and if you need more than that, you're either a government agency or a serious movie pirate."
...
OR...
You don't like waiting and hour for the movie you *bought* to download. Just because it's always available doesn't mean you always have to use it, and while I enjoy being able to download the flicks I purchase, I would *hate* to have to wait for it to download on a 12mbit connection.
I have better things to do....like watch it.
You could argue that I don't *need* it, and as far as anything government mandated, you;d be dead on. But then, government shouldn't be in the business of selling internet services anyway.
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|It has to happen because data requirements increase all the time. The BBC iPlayer for example was brought out last year. This meant more people wanted faster speeds.
Now HD streaming is upon us, and people want faster still. Data requirements will continue to grow for a long time yet.
Just because you see no need for it doesn't mean there aren't people out there who would make very good and LEGAL use of it.
*Edit* What the hell is going on with the italic tags? They're correctly written in my comment.
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|The tags haven't been working right since the site facelift :( I'm sure they must realize it by now.
I'm a little confused by the "waiting to download a movie" argument: on 12mbs you can probably stream HD broadcasts, let alone anything else. Why would you need to wait?
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|Because I want to be able to manipulate it? Most streaming services do not allow it to be saved. As it is, I can download it (quickly) and rip it, re-encode it, burn it, whatever...
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|hmm
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|We could talk all day about what the government shouldn't be in the business of.
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|How is 2Mbps "future-proof"? It is barely even "present-proof". Their goal for a "future-proof" broadband infrastructure should certainly be in the double-digit speeds.
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|Further to my comment below: BT have for a long time been asking the Government to fund the roll out of Fibre Optic cabling throughout the UK. Thus far they have been unwilling, and now they come up with this (offering copper wires). That's pointless and useless as it'll be torn out in 5 years time and replaced with Opical Fibre because it has to.
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|The problem is that the government is being asked this.
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|""While we may not always be able to stop someone losing their current job, we can invest in helping people get the next job,""
What?!
By letting everyone have an internet connection you are raising the likelihood that those who already have it are LESS likely to get the job as there'll be greater competition.
@TLees: This is a minimum for every household in Britain. Currently there are some remote areas that are too far from the exchange to get ADSL and cable hasn't come out that far. Though of course satellite internet connections exist, but are expensive.
Virgin Media (god help us) have started rolling out 50Mbps already and 24Mbps is available in most towns already.
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|Guaranteed broadband Internet service with as much as 2 Mbps bandwidth, by 2012. What a joke the rest of world will be on 10 to 20 Mbps
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|One thing though. The so called 20Mbps broadband you are paying a fortune for is really only 2Mbps download speed which is pretty much your provider ripping you off by fooling you into paying more for less. Thats the broadband everyone is getting through this new government scheme, but they're putting the real speed on it, not the crappy fake "Make it look larger" speed.
A colour TV Licence costs £139.50. A black and white TV Licence costs £47.00.
Looking at them prices, I'd rather pay that a year and get myself out of debt than pay £45 a month virgin prices for the same speed.
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|There are 8 bits per byte, which is why 20mbps is 2.5mbyte/s download including overheads. ^_^ (connection bandwidth is always measured in bits)
So the proposed 2mbps is 250kbyte/s, which isn't alot depending on what you do with it. ^_^
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|Duh!
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|When I was using VM's 20Mbit service, I was getting 2.2MB/s download speeds. However, on 2Mbit service I get 255Kb/s
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|This is a very good point that alot of people miss. This is why you see harddrives report less available space than that drive is said to have (40gig drive showing 36-37gigs).
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