[QUOTE=mojo]This is the problem with the British: we suck but that's 'cos we are British so don't complain. If we complained more, as consumers are beginning to realise, we would get a better deal.
I disagree that comparisons with other countries are meaningless too. There are many comparable countries to the UK, and it makes sense to compare ourselves to them in order to judge our own performance and improve it. Saying that they have "better infrastructure" and we would need "massive investment" isn't an excuse not to do it, it's a reason
to do it! It's admitting that we are rapidly falling behind. It's not like other countries were somehow blessed with super fast IP networks, they had to make the investments too. They just realised that, in the long run, it would be worth it.
Let's look at our clostest neighbour, France:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by slashdot
20Mbits/sec DOWN and 1Mbit/sec UP. No cap. and that's for 30 Euros per month.
The service comes with free telephony [adsl.free.fr] to any french landline (calls to mobile phones cost something), and very cheap international rate, like 3 eurocents to europe.
...
Additionally the modem is free, includes optional router functionnality and you can add a WiFi card for a mere 20 euros.
Oh and they now give you 1GB hosting space with no ads, PHP, MySQL[/QUIOTE]
I think that's a legitimate reason to put pressure on NTL and all UK ISPs to improve. To be fair, for most ADSL providers it's BT that is holding them back, but still...
|
Words cost nothing but actions do. You make it sound oh so easy so explain how it can be done and where the money to do it comes from.
There is a lot of talk about the British not complaining and that is why we are lagging behind. If you stop and think about it you might cotton on to the fact that complaining in the past is one of the main reasons we are lagging behind. Unions complained about job losses and prevented the country from moving forward. If you were to look at the newstrade some forty years ago and compare it to today you would see how progress was held up by the unions. Now, a few people do the work that hundreds did before Eddie Shah came on the scene and brought the industry up to date technologically. We were once World leaders in many fields but others have overtaken us because they did not complain about the effects of change but accepted the changes and got on with it.