Digital divide, which side are you on and does it bother you?

As an aside from the telemarketers thread and a recent rant I was having at my brother about the digital divide (I hate perpetuating a government buzzword but it is inescapable) I wondered does it bother anyone else?

Those in big cities get more services than they can wish for (usually they get forcibly upgraded for "free") yet anyone >5 miles outside of those cities can struggle to get much at all. I know I'm rather lucky to be able to get 6-7mb broadband on my ADSL Max line because I'm not far from the exchange but I'd still like the option to have the newer faster services. We are such a small country really and businesses realise that technology propagation is subject to the law of diminishing returns, you can connect 7-10 cities and cover 70% of the population and rake in the money, why bother extending to the rest of us? 4G is the next thing coming along but I can't reliably get 3G for most of my daily movements (one local town doesn't even have reliable GPRS!?) which makes SIRI absolutely useless to me as it can't get enough signal to process information. I just WISH for at least one generation of communication rollout they would involve the whole country.

If they cabled it up right in the first place then upgrading the nodes should be easy surely? Government should place the data infrastructure in place and then let companies buy usage.

[garynortheast]

We have no chance of a broadband signal down the phone lines here. Until three years ago we were all still on dialup in the village. One or two people on the eastern edge of the parish have a high power wireless connection courtesy of Airband, but here in the village we have set up our own community run wireless broadband network.

Mind you, BT still keep sending us junk mail to tell us we can have BT Broadband. Yeah, sure! Not with 13km of poorly maintained phone line between us and the exchange they can't.

[DarrenSV650S]

I can't see it ever happening evenly across the country. When you consider some places don't even have radio, what chances are there of the government installing fibre?

[Geodude]

I only get 0.75 to 2mb max and pay for 20mb also its hit and miss that you stay connected from minute to minute as its so unstable and dont even think about iplayer or streaming grr even youtube buffers alot, the reason im given is that i have aluminium phone lines so 2mb is the best i can get. So pay for 20mb and get 1mb if your lucky but pay for a cheaper package 5mb and its not even 0.5mb hmm.

[timwilky]

Bt say I can get 0.75Mb. But when they did try to install and ADSL service for me about 10 years ago, they said no way when they came to my house and decided their cable wasn't upto it.

Thank Feck for Telewest digging up the pavement all those years ago. 120Mb from them

[TamSV]

We're in one of the small areas covered by Smallworld's fibre optic network. Got phone, broadband and TV with them. I pay for 20Mbps and usually get it. Could have up to 50Meg but I don't really need it.

It's a contended service but never really gets much under 15 at peak times. I think it's had two short outages in the 7 years I've had it.

Right now I'm getting 16Mbps on my phone via the wireless router.

I just wish I could get something nearly as good for my business.

Originally Posted by Brettus

We are such a small country really...

We're not really, not if you factor in costs especially government imposed costs.

Originally Posted by Brettus

and businesses realise that technology propagation is subject to the law of diminishing returns, you can connect 7-10 cities and cover 70% of the population and rake in the money, why bother extending to the rest of us?

Well it IS being extended... as we speak. at least as far as landlines go the rollout continues just as fast as it did on day one, faster infact.

Originally Posted by Brettus

If they cabled it up right in the first place then upgrading the nodes should be easy surely? Government should place the data infrastructure in place and then let companies buy usage.

Unfortunately not a lot of thought was given to the need for faster internet from 1960-1980ish.

Originally Posted by Geodude

So pay for 20mb and get 1mb if your lucky but pay for a cheaper package 5mb and its not even 0.5mb hmm.

You've been lied to I'm afraid.

If you don't get 5mb then it doesn't matter what over that you pay for you'll still get the same rate.

Originally Posted by Spank86

Unfortunately not a lot of thought was given to the need for faster internet from 1960-1980ish.

No, I know that. I wasn't meaning in the beginning but if they upgraded the entire country once then it'd be easier to upgrade the core next time as the decent lines between would already be there.

And yeah I know most of my post was idealistic rant

Originally Posted by Brettus

No, I know that. I wasn't meaning in the beginning but if they upgraded the entire country once then it'd be easier to upgrade the core next time as the decent lines between would already be there.

And yeah I know most of my post was idealistic rant

Thats what's happening now.

The fiber is going in to the cabs because a lot of the wiring after isn't ducted. That fiber can then be extended where it IS ducted and eventually duct put in where needed.

If each line was totally fibered now we'd have sorted a LOT less people than we have and there would be a lot more complaints but TBH the first complaints about people not being connected came less than 3 months after the start of the rollout...

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by Brettus

As an aside from the telemarketers thread and a recent rant I was having at my brother about the digital divide (I hate perpetuating a government buzzword but it is inescapable) I wondered does it bother anyone else?

Those in big cities get more services than they can wish for (usually they get forcibly upgraded for "free") yet anyone >5 miles outside of those cities can struggle to get much at all. I know I'm rather lucky to be able to get 6-7mb broadband on my ADSL Max line because I'm not far from the exchange but I'd still like the option to have the newer faster services. We are such a small country really and businesses realise that technology propagation is subject to the law of diminishing returns, you can connect 7-10 cities and cover 70% of the population and rake in the money, why bother extending to the rest of us? 4G is the next thing coming along but I can't reliably get 3G for most of my daily movements (one local town doesn't even have reliable GPRS!?) which makes SIRI absolutely useless to me as it can't get enough signal to process information. I just WISH for at least one generation of communication rollout they would involve the whole country.

If they cabled it up right in the first place then upgrading the nodes should be easy surely? Government should place the data infrastructure in place and then let companies buy usage.

Funnily enough our offices (in the city centre) get appalling internet service. 3-5mbps down. Constantly going down and or flooded/attacked by contractors doing road works.
3-10 miles out the Internets great. 15-25mbps £9 a month (plus line rental).
Out in the sticks...worse than the city centre

RE. the infrastructure; I don't like that BT have been privatised yet own it, and any government upgrades go via them. Anything other telecomms companies want/say is usually ignored by BT.*

Or that's my understanding of the situation at least!