Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Why pick on one result out of a table of 50? The average percentage of people on under 3Mb in that chart is 27. And that's just in the top 50 towns and cities.
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Because that's where I live and hence the only area I care about.
---------- Post added at 16:13 ---------- Previous post was at 16:10 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Point taken ... Though its hardly an improvement, is it, given the reality for far too many people. 16Mb would be more than 5x faster than the best speed someone on sub 3 Mb could dream about.
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Well the average speed across the *whole* UK is above 12Mbps now and probably nearer 16.
As for those on sub 3Mb - not necessarily true either. As we keep being reminded, there's still plenty of people on 512k to 2Mbps cable connections simply because they couldn't care less about anything higher. The same applies to ADSL - how many of those on sub 3Mb are on sub 3Mb because they have no other options, and how many are on 10-year-old-or-more contracts that they just see no damn reason to change? Over 98% of the UK have access to 3G, which does >3Mbps in *all* areas (though not necessarily 24/7), yet there's little demand because people seem happy with their <3Mbps ADSL.
Similarly most people on cable opt for the lowest possible package available to them - currently 30Mb - and certainly average speeds would be higher if everyone was on the highest package, but demand simply isn't there.
Simply put, the bottom line is this table represents average speeds of connections that people
choose to pay for not the average speeds of the best possible connection available to them.
---------- Post added at 16:23 ---------- Previous post was at 16:13 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kushan
Yeah absolutely, it doesn't detract from your point at all. The "not-spots" they're talking about could really do with being targeted now. The problem is that it's not cost effective for many.
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To be honest most "not spots" could easily be dealt with by the community themselves, with a bit of technical knowledge and minimal investment. We've all heard the great stories about farmers digging up fields and laying their own optical fibre to serve local communities, yet those sorts of cases are isolated and rare, when they should really be the norm.
Setting up a 200Mbps+ wireless link to serve a remote community 50Km away from a decent connection costs a few hundred quid at most, or equivalent to less than a years' line rental for a single subscriber. People really ought to quit whinging and do something about it, given it's so damn easy to do.