News UK Government releases Digital Britain report

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/06/16/uk-government-releases-digital-britain-repo/1

The UK Government has published the Digital Britain report today and the main points were outlined in parliament today.

 

I'm intregued by the 50p a month addition. On the one hand, spreading the wealth to secure universal high-speed connection is a good thing, but on the other it IS a Broadband Tax, and new taxes are always a little bit scary.

 

Bravo! About time we got a proper broadband network rather than that sh*te copper stuff BT make us use. Roll on Ghost In The Shell ^^

 

Actually isn't it 2Mbps not 2MB/sec - and that doesn't seem that 'Digital Futuristic' to me... maybe 5 would have been a better target?

 

Typo, fixed.

 

Seriously? Ensuring every tiny farm in the highlands of Scotland 50 miles from the nearest exchange has a guranteed 2Mbps is going to take a crazy amount of investment and time. There are some places in the country that don't even get any broadband, let along 2Mbps.

 

yeah, the poor sods don't have any mobile coverage up there either... what I would do for a world without email when I go home!

 

I wish my parents could get 2Mbps, they're lucky to get over 700Kbps and they live in Oxfordshire.

 

50p per month ain't all that bad.

But I'd just love so see them try and stop illegal file-sharing.

 

Meh, if they're aiming at 2Mbps I assume they're going to continue using telephone lines - we need an optical cable infrastructure really.

Also, who bets that it'll be assumed that P2P=piracy?

 

Who's betting they just give all the extra cash to the CEO of Tiscali to pay himself as a bonus?

 

No qualms with this.

So long as it means those of us not in the back end of nowhere start to get modern broadband services - IE: better than the **** we have at the moment, approaching SK speeds preferably.

That's hardly a fair bet

 

The 50p per month will go to paying for a "fact finding mission to California" amongst other expense claims.

We already have systems that can do 8Mbps in our area, but that is worthless when the ISP doesn't have enough network capacity at peak times (i.e. 8am to midnight).

If such a broadband tax is introduced, will this mean the government will start levying demands on ISPs in exchange for access to the fund?

 

just read chapter 4, what a complete waste of time, all this report does is pander to the copyright industries. it claims "The BPI claim P2P file-sharing costs the UK music industry £180m pa (2008) while IPSOS gives a
loss in the UK for TV and films of £152m (2007)." thats right, they CLAIM, and we all know how they get these kind of figures, from the notion that a download is the same as a lost sale, yet just 2 points later it states "A recent study in Scandinavia has shown that the biggest users of unlawful peer-to-peer material are also the biggest paid-for consumers of music." ... i'm really disgusted with this section of the report.

On the plus side i do like the idea of upgrading the countires infrastructure, its long over due

 

So let's get this straight. Privatised telecoms can't be bothered to pay for it, so we'll pay for it.

Then it'll be run, for profit, by privatised telecoms.

There's something wrong here.

Yay, privatisation!

 

I'm all for paying for it, so long as it means securing net neutrality.

 

50p extra a month isn't alot of cash to pay out, but what i dislike is the fact that i am already paying for a service and to pay out some more just so the government can take a slice just makes me very disappointed in everything.

The joke is i am on fibre with virgin and should be getting 2MB/s and three months ago was told the connection was being upped to 10MB/s, none of that has happened and i am lucky to see 1.5MB/s at midnight on new years eve or someother event where everyone else is doing something other than being online.

Now i know my problem lie's with my ISP, but an extra £6 a year isn't gonna fix squat in my view, all the millions of metres of cable to be replaced, all the exchanges to be upgraded, not to mention anything else that needs doing.

 

i read about this today, gordo the clown was claiming glory for it.

I saw his name and switched off, obviously it will never happen, more lies from the gormless unelected dictator nobody in UK wants

 

Where's that mentioned?

You think by giving the telcos a billion-pound gift of infrastructure at the public expense they're going to immediately become nice?

 

ok so i read the article, gov want us to pay for piracy surveillance whilst "unfortunately missing the targets originally set out"

this may actually happen, as its taking money from us and will not really benefit the majority of UK voting public.

yeah its dressed to look like a good thing, like the terror laws brought in to allow councils to go through your bins, i dont for one min see this as anything but bad for us.