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back to article What? What? Which? Former broadband minister Ed Vaizey dismisses report

The UK's former digital minister Ed Vaizey has dismissed a report published by consumer charity Which? today finding more than 11 places in Blighty still receive broadband speeds of less the 10Mbps. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Vaizey said he did "not agree with the premise" of the report. Average speeds were low …

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  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    Yeah fuck the Good Friday agreement, Northern Ireland's getting £1.5 billion and some of that will give them faster internet.

    For what? So they can witness the total destruction of what took 20 years to put together without buffering and in HD?

    Total bloody idiots. Be in no doubt about how much respect Theresa May and the Conservatives have not only for Northern Ireland but the UK in general. Even John Major, as up against it as he was, wouldn't do a deal with the DUP to keep him in power because even he knew the mess it would cause. Still, Frau May didn't sign the deal the Tory cheif whip did. So at least to be fair to her, when it does go Pete Tong she won't be in power to deal with the fallout. Some other idiot behind her will.

    22 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      When Labour tried to do a deal with the DUP in 2010, was that dangerous too?

      How about the SDLP taking the Labour whip?

      5 2 Reply
      1. wolfetone Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        "When Labour tried to do a deal with the DUP in 2010, was that dangerous too?"

        Well yes, that was equally dangerous and stupid. While my time machine is currently in the shop being repaired I'm not able to go back and check this, but I'm pretty sure that deal didn't work and the Tories got to power in 2010. Not Labour. So, I'm not really sure where you're trying to go with that? But like I said, time machine is in the shop so I can't fact-check that.

        I mean, that's almost like bringing up the fact Joey tried to propose to Rachel a few years before she got back together with Ross. Irrelvant to any modern discussion.

        "How about the SDLP taking the Labour whip?"

        Again, Labour not in power. Irrelevant to any sort of discussion. Unless, of course, you're in to this alt-history conjecture type of thing, talking about "what if's" etc. If that's the case Reddit might be a better place for that sort of bullshit.

        4 3 Reply
  2. iron Silver badge

    a strong and stable government...

    Provided your religious extremist pals back you up.

    8 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: a strong and stable government...

      Are you referring to the Tories and the DUP or Labour and the Jewish community?

      2 9 Reply
  3. Richard 81

    "...able to legally request 10Mbps..." - oh whoopie

    "By 2020, anyone will be able to legally request 10Mbps as a minimum download speed under the government’s Universal Service Obligation (USO)."

    So... what happens when you make this request? Can your ISP tell you to "f**k off"? Or will they say "OK, we're happy to oblige! So long as you pay us a ton of money to upgrade your exchange."?

    Having a right to request something is a bit weak isn't it? I mean, all employees have the right to request flexible working hours, but that doesn't stop an employer from telling them to "f**k off". They have to go through a whole load of bureaucratic procedures, but ultimately the answer will still be "f**k off".

    11 1 Reply
    1. Martin an gof Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: "...able to legally request 10Mbps..." - oh whoopie

      "OK, we're happy to oblige! So long as you pay us a ton of money to upgrade your exchange."

      I'm not a Vaizey fan, but what he said kind of made a bit of sense. People want faster broadband, but not so much that they're willing to pay through the nose for it. The point he made about Orkney was that they now have a "nice fat pipe" to the islands, but only a third of people have upgraded, and it's not entirely to do with whether or not it's available at the exchange. A huge number of UK exchanges are now FTTC-ready, or alternatives (cable) are available, but people aren't rushing to upgrade. Yes, yes, I know there are parts of the country still running on bits of wet string.

      Vaizey did say that you need a minimum of 6Mbps for iPlayer, which isn't actually true as you can get away with significantly less, but to an extent he's right; there are very few in the way of essential internet services at the moment, nor in the near future, that realistically need as much as 8 to 10 Mbps. Where you will come unstuck is a: if your connection is highly contended or b: if you have a lot of people in your house, all wanting to watch cat videos at the same time.

      Our hamlet now has FTTC available. It's quite a long way to the exchange and my ADSL2 synchronises at somewhere over 6Mbps down with throughput slightly lower than that, but I find it perfectly acceptable for most purposes. Line checkers estimate I should get around 35Mbps with FTTC, but at 50% more per month than I pay at the moment. I'm not sure it's worth it, just yet.

      M.

      5 0 Reply
      1. Arthur the cat Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: "...able to legally request 10Mbps..." - oh whoopie

        A huge number of UK exchanges are now FTTC-ready, […] but people aren't rushing to upgrade

        My sister-in-law in the wilds of Powys has an FTTC enabled exchange, but that's sod all use. She's 17 miles from the exchange and BT's own site rates the cabinet as "up to 1Mb/s". She tried it but actually only got ~300 kb/s intermittently which even BT admitted wasn't any use.

        In theory BT are slinging fibre along the poles to deliver FTTP, but every time the date gets within 3 months of the supposed deadline it gets pushed back another 6-9 months, and no slinging has been seen. She'd probably be better off implementing RFC 1149.

        5 0 Reply
        1. tony2heads
          Reply Icon

          RFC 1149

          She will need to check there are no peregrine falcons around

          1 0 Reply
          1. Arthur the cat Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: RFC 1149

            She will need to check there are no peregrine falcons around

            That's what the acknowledgement windows in TCP are designed to handle. UDP you expect some data loss.

            1 0 Reply
  4. Steve Button Silver badge

    "...fibre to the premise..."

    So, basically they like the idea of having fibre?

    Or should that say premises? Either that, or El Reg adds [sic] ??

    4 0 Reply
    1. Martin an gof Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: "...fibre to the premise..."

      I heard the interview this morning, and he definitely said "premise".

      M.

      0 0 Reply
  5. ElReg!comments!Pierre
    Meh

    I don't live in the UK or Spain

    I can remember when it was hard to get cable or fibre to the premise here. It was quite a long time ago, by government tunover rate (10 years perhaps?). But we we never had a ministry of broadband doing "a brilliant job" over here, which may be part of the explanation.

    (OK, I'm not so young as not to remember the times when it was hard to get a dialup connection to a private home, but that's beside the "brilliant job" point).

    Take-home message: when you really, REALLY don't want to do something but want to appear to be doing it nonetheless, create a Ministry and declare it to be your "number one priority". Protip: you may declare any number of "number one priorities" at any one time, the proles won't notice before you're out of office because of a sex or money laundering scandal anyway.

    9 0 Reply
  6. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    This summer

    Information superhighway blocked by parading Ulstermen throughout the marching season.

    7 2 Reply
    1. Rich 11
      Reply Icon

      Re: This summer

      They'll argue over the routing tables and the firewall will get firebombed.

      5 1 Reply
    2. smudge
      Reply Icon

      Re: This summer

      They refuse to adhere to OSPF because "We have walked along this route for over 200 years, so we have!".

      And don't even start them off about BGP.

      6 1 Reply
      1. wolfetone Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: This summer

        "And don't even start them off about BGP."

        Ulster says no?

        0 1 Reply
  7. lglethal Silver badge
    Trollface

    How does it feel to be scottish now?

    A lot of scottish voters changed from voting for the SNP to the Conservatives. But funnily enough I'm not seeing any extra cash coming your way for doing your part in propping up May's government.

    Dont you feel a wee bit daft now?

    11 3 Reply
  8. Simon Rockman

    Believing BT bollocks

    BT has a lot of copper in the ground. More than many copper mines. And it sweating that asset. Rather than put in fibre as proposed by the CN21 proposal decades ago BT wants to use G.fast which is bloody clever but incapable of delivering the speeds. BT has a link between Martlesham and the BT Tower which delivers terrabits over a single fibre, adn yet it has persuaded the government that 10Mps is all anyone needs.

    Hong Kong has 95% availability of 1Gb and a 10Gb service. BT weasels the statistics by redefining "Europe" as five countries on some spurious data and then claiming we are "leading".

    The government should stop listening to BT and go out and look at what the rest of the world - particularly Asia - is doing.

    10 1 Reply
    1. Commswonk
      Reply Icon

      Re: Believing BT bollocks

      Hong Kong has 95% availability of 1Gb and a 10Gb service. BT weasels the statistics by redefining "Europe" as five countries on some spurious data and then claiming we are "leading".

      Without going so far as to defend BT consider the following:

      If Wikipedia is to be believed Hong Kong has an area of about 1000 sq miles and a population between 7.25 and 7.5 million. Orkney, OTOH has an area less than 400 sq miles and a population of about 21,400.

      These figures result in population densities of about 17,000 per sq mile and 52 per sq mile respectively.

      At which location is it (a) easier, and (b) economic, to provide high - speed broadband to individual customers?

      3 0 Reply
      1. Captain DaFt
        Reply Icon

        Re: Believing BT bollocks

        "These figures result in population densities of about 17,000 per sq mile and 52 per sq mile respectively.

        At which location is it (a) easier, and (b) economic, to provide high - speed broadband to individual customers?"

        Depends. Which one is the company being reluctant to do?

        If Urban: Negotiating right of ways and permissions is prohibitively expensive and time consuming. We should be nearing completion sometime in the next decade. It's far easier to install in the rural areas, where there is more public right of way and fewer permissions needed.

        Ir Rural: It is cost prohibitive due to sparse population to reach every household in a timely manner. We should be nearing completion sometime in the next decade. This would be far easier in Urban areas, where population density is higher.

        3 0 Reply
  9. Toltec

    Really?

    "superfast broadband speeds of 24Mbps"

    I'll give him the broadband, but that figure is an order of magnitude out to apply 'superfast' to in this decade. No one seems to mention upload speeds either.

    3 0 Reply
    1. really_adf
      Reply Icon

      Re: Really?

      > I'll give him the broadband, but that figure is an order of magnitude out to apply 'superfast' to in this decade.

      "Full speed" USB is still defined as 12Mbit/s. Same deal here; "superfast" broadband means >= 24Mbit/s. (Not sure about an upper limit...)

      Perhaps, like USB, we will just get progressively more daft superlative-like terms for ever higher speeds as time goes on.

      > No one seems to mention upload speeds either.

      It doesn't matter to enough people, I guess. Unfortunately.

      0 0 Reply
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nobody had better tell the DUP about all the LGBT people that use the internet or abortion advice and charities and under no circumstances should anyone tell them about all the websites promoting evolution.

    I'm guessing they haven't actually used it?

    2 1 Reply
    1. davenewman
      Reply Icon

      Of course DUPers have used the Internet - to find old Sunday World photos of Sammy Wilson.

      2 0 Reply
    2. handleoclast
      Reply Icon

      Re: evolution

      I'm guessing they haven't actually used it?

      You are correct.

      2 0 Reply
  11. inmypjs Silver badge

    "many local authority areas in big cities,...

    including the capital, are getting below the national average"

    What a disgrace. Clearly everywhere should be getting above the national average.

    6 0 Reply
  12. Dave Bell

    It's more than just download speed

    I get an adequate speed from ADSL, but upload speed is terrible, and if I was sharing a connection with a family, several people wanting to do different things, it wouldn't be enough. Some things, like VR headsets, are claimed to need low ping times to work well, and the UK's backbone network probably fails that test: everywhere seems to be abour 50ms from everywhere else in the UK.

    That last problem may be why researchers are seeing people staring at the centre of a VR display, staying concentrated on the straight-ahead view. Is it bad design of VR, or is it that the slow ping times deter head movement by inducing motion sickness?

    This might be why one long-established VR company keeps deferring the launch of a new product and keeps hyping it with a touring show. They can't get low enough ping times. The ping times I get today are rarely any better than I got with dial-up a quarter-century ago.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Roland6 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's more than just download speed

      >The ping times I get today are rarely any better than I got with dial-up a quarter-century ago.

      And why would they be any better? There has been no substantive change in signal propagation speeds - okay we can just deliver more data in 50ms today than we could in the 1980's, but the speed of signals down a cable hasn't changed, and just because processors have got faster doesn't mean that your (ping) data gets processed substantially faster given all the additional overhead modern systems carry compared to those of the 1980's.

      1 0 Reply
  13. FlossyThePig

    FTTP?

    "The next great challenge is fibre to the premise (sic)"

    Wouldn't it have been cheaper, in the long run, to do that in the first place?

    1 0 Reply
    1. EnviableOne
      Reply Icon

      Re: FTTP?

      It would have been cheaper if BT started it in the 90s! They had the best telecoms network in the world in 1978 and sat on their laurels for 20 yrs, by which time, half the world had overtaken them, a random amount of the network (which bits they don't know) had been replaced by Aluminium alloy, and some lines couldn't even support 250kbps.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Roland6 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: FTTP?

        >It would have been cheaper if BT started it in the 90s!

        But then we wouldn't have had the opportunity to have a practical lesson in how a competitive market works!

        It is interesting how everyone assumes the fault is BT's and not one of government, who's "competitive market" has so clearly failed to deliver. BT's failure to deploy fibre was and is an opportunity for others to invest and satisfy the pent up demand. But as we have seen many have looked and either walked away or focused on profitable niches eg. Colt.

        0 0 Reply
  14. a_builder

    Hmme

    I am not sure people really grasp how poor FTTC coverage is in central London.

    Clearly dear old Ed does not either.

    About 30% of the projects at domestic premises we get involved with cannot get anything other than ADSL. Yes not even ADSL2+ never mind VDSL.

    I agree the issue is mostly the conflict with leased lines as in a lot of cases FTTC to small offices is perfectly adequate and a lot cheaper than leased.

    Marc

    0 0 Reply

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