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

[andrewsmith]

I've currently got a 10GB/s line!! Well thats what it achieves

Downloaded all the internet **** servers in 24 hours

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by andrewsmith

I've currently got a 10GB/s line!! Well thats what it achieves

Downloaded all the internet **** servers in 24 hours

LOL OK Dave20046 wins the internet for today, try again tomorrow fellas

Originally Posted by Dave20046

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!

Quite the opposite.

Openreach is more or less ruled by the other companies. We do what they ask us to.

Government money can go via anyone but as it happens there were only two companies that won any bids, BT and Fujitsu, Fujitsu then decided they couldnt make the maths work and pulled out.

Talktalk who have complained the most... never even bid.

Somehow they believe it's both unaffordable AND that BT are ripping everyone off... slight contradiction there but never let it get int he way of a good news story.

[Dave20046]

*takes a bow*
*waves with my skinnier arm*

Originally Posted by Spank86

Quite the opposite.

Openreach is more or less ruled by the other companies. We do what they ask us to.

Government money can go via anyone but as it happens there were only two companies that won any bids, BT and Fujitsu, Fujitsu then decided they couldnt make the maths work and pulled out.

Talktalk who have complained the most... never even bid.

Somehow they believe it's both unaffordable AND that BT are ripping everyone off... slight contradiction there but never let it get int he way of a good news story.

There are definitely claims open reach only listen to bt. Was covered on watchdog recently actually. I can't claim to know the ins and outs though, is it just spin?

[andrewsmith]

Openreach works for the highest bidder. They work for everyone up here

Originally Posted by Dave20046

There are definitely claims open reach only listen to bt. Was covered on watchdog recently actually. I can't claim to know the ins and outs though, is it just spin?

Pretty much.

We offer all products equally although there does tend to be more work done with BT retail as to products they might want that's because they are more keen to work with us.

Also most of our prices and obligations are set by the regulator so we can't change them.

[ethariel]

Actually BT has to sell access to thier network to other companies for less than they charge thier own customers to allow for 'variety' in pricing.

BT as a company has shelled out an awful lot of money upgrading infrastructure just to have all the other 'providers' jump on the 'i want in your exchange' bandwaggon that ofcom (or whatever they call it these days) rolls over and says yes to.

So BT Openreach is still a BT subsiduary and if you get a fault then you call your supplier who calls BT so paying a little more means at least you speak to the organgrinder if you have an issue (or better when you still have the MK duty manager number)

That said i did work for them and do truly feel sorry for amy 'monopoly' holder under Uk law!

That said for £26 a month they give me 76 Mb(bits)per second down and 19 up (thats 8.5 Mb(bytes) per second which will do for now, upgrading to 150 drops my upload to 15 for some strange reason!

[timwilky]

What I don't understand is why with BT's fibre roll out, they target the areas that already have some service. Not spots don't get a look in. I am desperate to leave Virgin, but cannot get ADSL and fibre will probably never happen.

Originally Posted by timwilky

What I don't understand is why with BT's fibre roll out, they target the areas that already have some service. Not spots don't get a look in. I am desperate to leave Virgin, but cannot get ADSL and fibre will probably never happen.

They don't.

They target the areas that are most economically viable down to the ones that are least.

This is based on number of residential subscribers off a cabinet.

The subscribers also have to be within about 2km from the cabinet and currently the number that they'll put it into runs to about 90-100 subs.

This is done so that after the most economically viable areas are done there's actually some cash to do the less viable, doing it the other way round would slow the rollout as we'd run out of money.

The uneconomic areas are the ones that the government is funding but even with that there will be some not-spots which still wont be viable. Once the rollout finishes in 2014-15 I'd imagine they'll look at those again.