UKC

Of all the possible topics that the Government might choose to spend money on for 'public information films', do we really think that advertising 'super fast broadband' is money well spent?

It's not as if the broadband suppliers aren't advertising their wares every five seconds...

Surely some more deserving topic could have been found? Some aspect of public health? Some advice on not driving/cycling like a complete tw*t?

In reply to captain paranoia:

Are you going to provide a link or leave us to wonder what you are moaning about

In reply to timjones:

Adverts on TV, so, unless they're on YouTube, hard to link to...

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/12/superfast-broadband-delivery-u...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6756-superfast-broadband-nation-to-be-he...

Aha!

youtube.com/watch?v=Rs0v8geQDK4&

In reply to captain paranoia:

I find it odd how super-fast broadband seems to have become some sort of human right. Priorities seem to have become a bit mixed up at some point.

In reply to Trevers:

I love how super fast of today will be dead slow of tomorrow.

In reply to all:
Spoiler alert <<election 115 days away>>
Steve

In reply to felt:

You obviously are not dependant on BT for broadband. Their superfast of today is so slow that even youtube sometimes struggles. They say it is up to speed at the exchange, but that is where they stop measuring. At my computer/hub, after an independent check, instead of the 7mb they promise (advertised as 10, but "everyone knows that 10 means 7!" BT call centre!) I vary between 0 and 3 on a good day! Their call centres are a waste of space, as my questions are not on their tick sheet.
I will be sending an e-mail to the requisite Govt dept as soon as I can figure out who the hell is the responsible office!

In reply to Trevers:


I'd settle for indifferent-speed broadband tbh...

I take your point regarding priorities, but not having access to the Internet deprives people of basic services such as banking, renewing car tax, contacting the local council, applying for jobs etc. I couldn't care less about downloading gigabits of music, films or whatever. However it should be possible to have:

A. Basic Internet access, say 10Mbp to every property in the UK
B. Website providers to have an option which doesn't involve waiting 10minutes for flashy but useless graphics to download before you can use the site.

In reply to johncook:

I feel your pain. It's made even worse when BT phone you up and ask if you want to spend a fortune on subscribing to BT infinity then start telling you about all the fabulous speeds of connection you can have. After patiently pointing out anything reliably over 1Mbps would be fantastic, but they don't provide that in my area, they seem unable to comprehend that I don't want to spend more for the same shite service.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I'd rather the government hit BT with a stick until they let me have my 3rd party broadband without having to pay BT line rental charges for a landline and all the telephony infrastructure that never gets used as we don't even have a phone. Just charge me for the copper from my house to where ever the ADSL is injected. Monopolistic scumbags.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Our superfast broadband has just gone live and we've gone from 3.5mb to 40mb. For us it means that more than one person in the house can use the Internet at the same time. We are very happy with it.

In reply to Ridge:





You're perfectly correct on point B, we used to be able to all the essential tasks that you list above on 14k dialup ;(

I'm not sure about getting 10Mb to every property in the UK, that's a big ask for rural locations and sometimes you have to accept that you can't have everything.

In reply to ranger*goy:


What on earth do you do on the internet? We get 3mb and that is more than enough for 3 people to be online at the same time.

In reply to timjones:
Iplayer sucks it up. Anything that streams I think. Just generally slow.

In reply to ranger*goy:

Yes streaming media can be an issue but 3mb is more than adequate to watch one thing at a time and still allow other family members to browse the web or catch up on emails etc. I'm not sure that streaming multiple programme's into one home simultaneously is a priority worthy of government intervention.

In reply to timjones:
we just found it slow even if no one was using Iplayer. My husband sometimes works from home so a faster connection is better for him. The fibre has been put in so we may as well use it.

In reply to ranger*goy:


Based on our experiences it sounds like your 3.5mb wasn't reliable or consistent.

In reply to timjones:
Most speed tests came up 3.5. I guess our usage is different to yours. My friend round the corner has the same problem and will be signing up for a faster service.

In reply to Ridge:


Point taken... I still find it weird, but then I am a bit of a Luddite.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I'd settle for reliable value for money broadband. I'm stuck with virgin that keep justifying their ridiculous price increases (almost 12% this year) by increasing the speed of the service (50 meg of which I rarely get above 30 at the last check). The thing they don't seem to understand is that having a super fast service 90% of the time and no service at all for the rest of the time is a waste of time. If they could just be reliable and moderately fast I'd be happy.

In reply to ranger*goy:

I don't doubt the potential utility of 'superfast broadband'.

What I do wonder is why the f*ck HMG feel they need to spend our money advertising it, when a) every ISP under the sun is already running saturation advertising, b) we're supposed to be trying to cut public spending, and c) there are so many other topics that might be far more worthy of public information spending.

I'm reminded of the scene in the film 'Dave', where he's trying to cut the budget to keep a children's home programme running, and one of the cuts is a TV ad campaign to make car buyers feel happy about a US-built car they've already bought...

In reply to captain paranoia:
I find it hard to believe anything the government says these days. On the one hand my MP tells me how good I have it now everyone in his constituency has superfast broadband (a lie, barely 50% of houses have access) and on the other hand BT are telling us that we are in a consultation period (not involving consulting us) about the viability of keeping our connection to the landline network. It looks to me like BT are trying to prune the network in order to make the superfast broadband rollout look better on paper.

Just for the record, I live in a village that is less than 5 miles from Derby and about 8-9 miles from Nottingham so it is hardly the back of beyond yet I am on a downgraded connection and most days I get 0.25-0.5 mbps. I even struggle with the new UKC layout and TV or Radio are but a distant dream. If the landline goes along with the proposals to move TV and Radio to internet based streams then this village will be back in the 1920s again technology wise.

In reply to Clarence:



The other issue is that everyone tends to focus on download speeds. You can have a practical but not superfast downlaod speed but still be hampered by slow upload speeds. We'd like to be able to remotely access thinks like calving cameras but our upload speed prevents it. A faster upload speed would be more valuable than the ability to download streaming media for us.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I do see your point about the advertising