In one of my previous comments I talk about the report the BSG recently published regarding fibre to the home will cost £28bn. Well to follow up the report the BSG held a meeting last week at their offices in London for the industry to discuss it in more detail. On the promise of cheese and wine I made the trip only to find four bottles of wine and a few plates of cheese to support the fifty or so who had gathered.
It was quite interesting to see the industry squirm in response to this report and the lack of direction there is. I promise you it will take more than BT to make this happen and looking at who else operates in the UK we will be decades behind the rest of the world. I think only an EU directive will make it happen (as we don’t make any laws in the UK anymore but don’t get me started on that subject!) and even then it will require government money.
The problem is that people are stuck in the mindset that they have to use BT’s existing infrastructure for some reason. Everything is based on using BT ducts, digging up roads and using BT exchanges and cabinets to make this network happen. Fine if you are BT investing your own money but why continue to use an infrastructure that was designed a hundred years ago when we can start again? There are so many technologies such as fibre overland, fibre through the sewer or other services such as WiMax or PLT (Powerline technology). The industry can afford to deploy these services and then we wont have an incumbent or have to wait 20 years for fast internet services.
Totally agree with you. Both BT and Virgin seem only to be interested in upgrading instead of restarting. In terms of this the government should get involved and put £20 billion to make the UK a global internet power instead of a lack luster one. They can give struggling banks £200 why not give BT £20 because its struggling to produce high internet speeds.