News UK trails in broadband speed study

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/12/14/uk-trails-in-broadband-speed-study/1

Figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development put the UK 21st out of 30 in terms of available Internet connection speeds.

 

Hardly surprising but a little disappointing for a developed country like the UK

 

Which party is going to stand up and say "Le'ts cut spending on these things, to fund a high speed network across the country".? Not one that wants to get elected, that's for sure!

 

I can't say I really care anymore, I'm very happy with my 800KB/s~ download speed I just wish I could get more upload without paying through the nose, Virgin may offer 50MB/s but the upload speed is still a pile of crap *sigh*

 

I just wish I could get an internet connection faster enough to stream video. I'm lucky to get 1Mbit at the moment.

 

Not wanting to get political as this topic isn't about the politics but BT have been left for decades to let their network to slowly rot away infront of our eyes. Now we have a genuine need for an upgrade of the system and they come cap in hand while they have been reporting huge profits for years. They either foot the bill themselves or give Virgin the permission to expand their fibre network.

 

I can see how businesses need high speed internet and how the current state of infrastructure may well be holding them back, but from a personal point of view pure speed doesn't interest me. What I want is a good connection ratio so the internet doesn't slow down in the evening when everybody's online.

 

It's all in how you approach these things... if it can be sold as 'investment for health/education/transport/communication/add-other-stuff-you-think-of-here' then it could be a winner.

If you marketed it as 'wasting money for high-speed internet for gamers and global e-peen' then of course voters aren't going to go for it.

Then again, most voters will vote for whichever party says they'll cut taxes the most... whether or not they actually do, after they've got in. And most voters seem to be blissfully ignorant of the wonderful collection of 'stealth' taxes that sneak in everywhere: you pay tax on tax, in several situations; VAT is paid on Fuel Duty Tax for petrol, for example.

...

One thing is certain; without the Govt. spending money on it, the ISPs sure won't. They already complain they aren't making enough money and that their networks are over-stressed. With how much money BT and others make, investing some of it back into the network is a very good idea... to everyone but the shareholders. Which is why they don't do it, as they want their shareholders happy.

 

Ad for the service I use: "Up to 24Mbit/s!". Actual service I use, according to the very router via which I currently communicate: Data Rate Upstream: 3008 Downstream: 704 kbps

Yes folks - I'm promised 24 and I get 3. Somehow, this is not perceived as lying.

But it's OK - the government has implemented a broadband tax so that the taxpayer can fund a faster national network, which will then be given away free to profitmaking commercial entities so that they can make money out of it! Marvellous - I wish I'd thought of that!

 

Am I imagining this or are headlines claiming "UK lagging behind in X,Y,Z" becoming increasingly common?

I know it's human nature to remember the bad and not the good, but I'd really like to hear the opinion of any bit-tech'er with knowledge of our social/economic/political landscape and why (imo) we're so slow with stuff like this.

 

I wonder if you notice the difference above 50 Mbps, I sure don't.

Moreover, most people I know have a wifi connection of 54 Mbps and those who have a "draf n" router for wifi (400 Mbps), it connects to the rest of the network via 100Mb Ethernet connection (which is a bottleneck).
This makes all these adds claiming speeds above or equal 100 Mbps here in Portugal misleading. And even if you spend some money converting your home network to gigabit+"draft n" wifi+cat6 cables (to avoid a bandwidth saturation/bottlenecks), don't forget that computers don't keep up (yet) - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html
If you use 100 Mbps home network don't forget that's the theoretical speed (I doubt such network is able to provide maximum speed at all times).

 

Strange. Portugal has 100mb too.

 

Greetings!

In some areas. PT is now installing fiber optics cables through main portuguese cities.
According to MeoFibra site (PTs brand), my area has 100Mbps/10Mbps available. Just asked for the 20/2Mbps service, though.

Lets see how that goes...

 

When was the 50p broadband tax ever a 'ridiculous notion?'

A high speed network will doubtless come - wondrous businesses like http://www.h2onetworksdarkfibre.com/ are seeing to that - but it's not half as crucial as the think tanks that pump out these reports would like us to believe. Currently, the average consumers experience would only be improved by improved filesharing, smoother streaming of HD Video and better gaming speeds - hardly things to drive huge Government investment.

Until business needs a vastly improved network or someone comes up with a way to make revenue out of it there's no reason to upgrade a perfectly passable system when the national deficit is overwhelming finances.

 

i am just lucky that i live in an Virgin cable area, i have got 50mb my self but there are issues with virgins bandwidth provider tele as in it does not give me any more then 5mb (500KB/s) and i get 70% packet loss on top of that(norm only lasts for 10 mins then it goes back to sull speed but internet is unusable in that time), getting to the point now i going to buy an patched 20mb virgin modem and copy my MAC address over to it so i can get 47mb BB all the time on the older dosci 1.1 network as they do not have speed issues with there bandwidth provider

(Most N routers are 150mb some do 300mb as well)

Wifi 54gb can only handle 24mb speeds (peak 30mb),

Wifi 150 or 300 N routers do on avg 50/80mb on good signal (some newer netgear and belkin N 300 routers can really do 150mb over wireless but they cost more then £100)

most computers nowadays have gigabit lan onboard and so do laptops but laptops norm lack N wireless (only windows 7 laptops i have seen with N yet), its norm the routers that do not have gigabit (like virgin provideing the WMR2000 router for 50mb but they going to have to replace them again when they start to offer 150MB as the WNR2000 only has 100mb ports, the WNR3500 has 1000 ports all of them, i think the D-link routers that VIrgin are useing now are 1000 based {the ones you have to pay for the cheaper one is 100mb based but has N 150})

 

Average figures mean nothing....just headline grabbing nonsense...

Here i am, in the UK and i can choose from multiple companies upto a 50mb service, which will no doubt rise to 100mb when the competition demands it.

If people abroad who read this get the impression that all of us in the UK are stuck on 1mb lines in the slow lane, they are wrong.

 

True, but if you put it that way, some parts of the country doesn't even have copper wires for phones.

 

I ofter speak to users (via our Servicedesk) and when asked what service they are paying for they don't have a clue. They think because the have "broadband" they think it should be fast. It's a shame BT and others sell services which can't be much faster than 256Kbps and have the bare faced cheek to call it Broad!!

Still, I'm content with my 20Mb fibre

 

I am on a 13Mbps (theoretically up to 24Mbps) down, 1Mbps up ADSL connection here is Australia. Which is still considered quite fast. I am envious. We do have a national broadband upgrade in the works - but that is still a little ways away.

 

UK government will do something, it will cost a fortune, run years over schedule and then fall over not being completed