Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Britain still needs a kick up the behind to get them into shape with the digital age, IMO.

Ofcom and industry ought to take note that users thirst for connectivity is huge, and Digital Britons are miles ahead of the policy makers in our thirst to do more.

The forthcoming Digital Dividend process provides a great opportunity to complete some more pieces to the Digital Britain jigsaw. Available here are some user oriented changes to the proposed BIS direction to Ofcom on auctioning spectrum to the highest bidder. I am proposing some spectrum is allocated so we users can link our fixed and mobile connectivity in out home routers and begin to get more of what is possible in connectivity terms.

Ofcoms priority for 2010 will be to secure as much cash for Treasury from the auction process, keeping in place strange notions that fixed and mobile are different markets, when all connectivity constituties a cable with an attached radio.

The potential to improve Digital Britain is much more interesting than Ofcom's propaganda on average speeds. The real issue is whether our national data transport is suitable to support critical applications, like replacing our legacy voice services (fixed and mobile) with a multi-media communications service? This is very do-able but it requires a strategy to achieve, something you will not find on Ofcoms website.

Note if we combine our payments for affordable broadband, affordable fixed voice and affordable mobile (voice, text, and broadband access) there is plenty there to pay for a better quality connectivity, but it will require encumbent operators to actively replace legacy revenues. Rather than tackling this issue in a systematic way Ofcom is publishing this propaganda, a shame when they have so many clever people more than capable for setting the appropriate direction.

I still find it ridiculous that Britons cannot expect to receive the advertised download speed from their ISP. I recently signed up to a premium broadband service from one of the market leaders in this country, which is for 'unlimited monthly usage at speeds of up to 20Mb.' Now, I regularly check my connection speed at all times of the day, and receive on average about 1Mb at peak times and no better than 6Mb at about 2 in the morning when no-one else other than me is online. And I apparently live in a high-speed broadband area. Why are ISPs allowed to keep advertising for much higher speeds when surely they know that they are being deliberately deceptive with these figures? I signed up for a premium contract (not cheap) in the hope that I would get a guarantee of fast and reliable broadband and frankly I feel cheated once again by yet another of Britain's best known ISPs. The high-speed fibre optics continue to improve nationally so why doesn't the service?

I empathise with you, that the programme you were listening to gave out part way through in the middle of what should be decent coverage area. I have had this happen frequently - even in good WiFi coverage.

But is the problem coverage, or the dependence on streaming media. This is a technology choice by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ that limits how their programs can be enjoyed. As Stephen Fry has pointed out (, its not really that hard to get around the restriction, but its fiddly. It is however only a matter of time before someone cracks the UI problem.

Clinging to restricting content is failing to appreciate how fast communications technology is moving, and how the paradigm HAS shifted.

I am thrilled the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ provides iPlayer, I will be more thrilled when they take the next step and make their entire historic collection available, on demand and on multiple platforms for on and off line viewing.

Living in a city where the majority of the population travels underground makes a reliance on constant connectivity seem to be missing the point.

Hmn.

Saw some bod on the news this morning from DB basically shrugging and saying, "Yes, we've screwed up in certain places, but if it's where you are... tough... go out and pay a bloke to fix what we couldn't get right'.

Apt metaphor for much in the UK today.

Until Ofcom are brave enough to hold Broadband providers to task on "up to xMbs", unspecified "fair usage policies" and "unlimited download limits" this situation will continue to be a joke.

Its one of the only industries where they are allowed to set unspecified limits, but restrict you once you've gone through an invisible barrier.

Rory:

That is very informative news regarding Britain is a Digital Champion....

=Dennis Junior=

The problem, is that we are building lots of services on top of very narrow foundations. There is little infrastructure spend - on wired or wireless capacity - simply because content providers and infrastructure providers are arguing over who pays. The whole enterprise is very unstable, with good commercial ideas fading out due to lack of take-up because of little core bandwidth and poor coverage. Of course the government should lay the cable and put up the masts, but it sold off that capability to the mobile phone companies and when it privatised BT . . .

And 10 million people don't use the Internet, mainly because they are too poor, too old, or don't have the ability to do so. But they will pay a stealth tax on their phone bill so that those who are rich, young and educated can stream video and play fancy games.

=Dennis Junior=

Are you going for some sort of record for the greatest number of irrelevant and illiterate comments posted to Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ blogs? You're everywhere, saying absolutely nothing.

with a country this size we should have 100% coverage. There are larger countries with more harsh landscapes which get broadband out to people. Speed is good if you live in London, but even in towns the broadband is significantly much poorer.

What is this, some talk up the UK propaganda! UK is way behind Asia, let alone our major European competitors. In Asia they have adopted fibre optic to house, apartments are rated on speed of Internet connection and Wi-fi is mostly free in shopping malls, coffee shops and other public areas These governments realise IT and IT skills are the future enablers of business and wealth generation; you see it in the people in coffee shops working on laptops conducting phone calls and business. Our Government is just useless; no vision or strategy, no wonder we are becoming just an industrial museum

To deliver a streaming HD video you need a nailed up 6Mbps. It's pretty unlikely that a contended ADSL connection will deliver that, and slightly less unlikely that an ADSL2+ connection will be able to do it at a 50:1 contention ratio.

"Super Fast Broadband" is coming soon which is Fibre the the Cabinet then VDSL from there which should, fingers crossed, deliver a "head line" speed of circa 40Mbps. But whether this will be able to support more than 1 HD stream, or even 1 HD stream, remains to be seen.

Of course what we really need is fibre to the home.

Hey ho.

To deliver a streaming HD video you need a nailed up 6Mbps

Of course, that's only true if you need it delivered absolutely in real time, which more or less means it's true for the iPlayer, which unlike every other online video system, perversely refuse to buffer the stream.

Texting is just a new way of being rude to your companions, while they stand there patiently, thinking,... :)

in the countryside in england the connection is terrible at highest ive had 450Kbps and normaly i get about 125Kbps and we have the "10Mbps at peak times" service.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

For an "apparently" high tech digital Britain we are certainly lacking in many areas.

Public WiFi is pretty much non existant, especially where it matters.

Stable connection speeds are pretty much unheard of judging by my connection and others that i have spoken to.

Pricing for broadband services doesn't reflect on the quality of broadband connection

Coverage is basically on par with the Dark Ages

Im sure there are more points too ^_^ just cant think of them

I'm sorry but Britain is most certainly NOT the digital champion. For Euro countries, that award must go to one of the Scandinavian countries. We're rolling out 4G mobile technology now and have complete 3G coverage ... even in Lapland. Our internet (here in Finland certainly) is clocking 110Mb/Sec with an average of over 50 (second in the world only to Japan). We have 100% digital TV coverage and were the first in the world to switch of terrestrial. Flawless, free WiFi in most public areas in most major towns. No limits on 3G data usage on our mobiles... the list goes on.
I laughed when Britain announced the were planning to have 50Mb to the whole country by 2017.. sorry but by that stage the rest of the world will probably clocking well in to the hundreds if not at least 1GB (Japan currently peaking at that over fiber!)
Wake up, in some respects, Britain is doing well. In most (especially internet), you're way behind.

Ofcom are living in a dreamworld, Britain is sadly a digital has-been. We have no national champion companies to drive the technology forward in this sector so we get the communications service sector we deserve as a reward. Can anyone list a British high-tech producer of leading-edge communications products, like Nokia (Finnish), RIM/Blackberry (Canadian), LG, HTC (Korean), Sony (Japanese), Ericsson (Swedish), Apple, Nortel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Cisco, Netgear (USA) ? In slow-lane UK, science and engineering are not valued. Neither are hard work, technical excellence and endeavour, long-term thinking and investment in solid activities like research and development, manufacturing, production and technical education. Our backwardness in the service available reflects our backwardness in the world of science, engineering and intellectual property. Now we reap the victory of form over substance that marks the UK's decline into world-wide insignificance. Ofcom, stick that in your report!

When I was living in Japan 4 years ago I had 20Mbit/s broadband. That was pretty much standard, I didn't have a high bandwidth connection. There's a limit to what can be achieved over copper, going to fibre optics is long overdue, unfortunately it's also expensive to put in the infrastructure required. But if we don't, we'll continue to sip further behind other nations. And lets not forget there's many a place in the UK now (like my hometown in mid Wales) which dream of getting even 2Mbit/sec!

It's a shame that we Britons are so in love with our technology. Yes, it may be the easiest way to keep up with what's going on in the world, but we've got radio, television and the press for that.

I know many people with good broadband connections who barely have time to attend to anything else. The rise in availability of broadband in a typical family home has led to the kids sitting upstairs all day on their computers, alienated from their parents by the lure of Youtube and Facebook.

And now that these technologies have stretched to [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]mobile phones there's no telling what effect it'll have on daily interaction between two people, face-to-face. Recent studies have shown that young adults are more comfortable chatting online or texting than in person. It's very worrying.