[LINK] Australia shows US how a real broadband strategy works !!!!

[Adam Todd]

At 07:06 04/07/2008, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>Saliya Wimalaratne wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 02:16:47AM +0100, Adam Todd wrote:
> >
> >> Glad that was the US and not the UK.  The UK appears to have 20MBps
> >> fibre to the household in large populated areas.  Yes that's MB not Mb.
> >>
> >
> > No, it's not.
> >
> > Firstly, nobody talks about 20MBps (the nomenclature would be 160Mbps,
> > because nobody wants to explain to a customer that 20MB is actually bigger
> > than (say) 100Mb).
> >
> > Secondly, while 160Mbps to the home is certainly possible over fibre, and
> > while some offerings _are_ 100Mbps in places in Europe, they're certainly
> > not the norm, and they're not currently readily available in the UK. The
> > BT _trials_ of FTTH in the UK (to 300 homes!) are for a 2.5Mbps baseline
> > service with bursting to 100Mbps.

Well then explain why three of the service 
providers are offering 20MB for £20 per 
month.  Hey I just do the consulting work and scratch my head too.

Yes 20MBps is 160Mbps.  I suspect it's more to do 
with charging regimes base don packets and BYTE 
counts, rather than bit streams, headers, 
control, and whatever else gets shoved across the TDM channel.

I really haven't look into it that much to be 
honest, as that part of the networks doesn't 
concern me.  I was just amused by the marketing 
and the coverage zones - and coverage is pretty 
good  -*IF*- it's genuinely deliverable   being marketed.

Virgin also has a Fibre to the home option, I 
haven't had time to look at it competitively, not my job :)

> > The readily-available flagship offerings in the UK at present are 20Mbps
> > (yes, little b)... not that far off where 
> ADSL2 places Australia if you live
> > within 30cm of an ADSL2-enabled exchange.
> >
>But even then, and perhaps unusually, I'm loath to lump it all on Adam.

Well there are more offerings too, and some new 
ones coming.  Packages such as TV, Phone, 
Internet, VOIP and VOD all in one low payment per 
month.  Just pick how many channels of useless 
repeats of TV shows you want to watch, and how 
big a pipe you want to download your warez and 
pirate movies as quick as you can to your iPOD or iPhone and pay a small fee :)

Sorry did I say warez and pirate movies - 
goodness I mean legitimate software downloads and 
online movie purchases.  Silly me!


>The SOP for someone who wants to whine about inadequate broadband is as
>follows:
>
>Pick a country
>Pick a number
>Say "Country" gets "Number" broadband services and we only get 256 Kbps
>(which is also a piece of bulldust I'm suck of hearing repeated over and
>again ...).
>
>As Rex Stout once wrote, there are two kinds of statistics, the kind you
>look up, and the kind you make up. Here's one of the second kind: 90% of
>press broadband statistics are of the second kind.

I'll be able to give you some low down on parts of the USA in a few weeks :)

I hate to say it though, but Australia has FAR 
better mobile broadband coverage and mobile voice 
coverage than anywhere else so far. Telstra might 
be expensive but the 3G network DOES in fact work 
for broadband, it does however truly suck for 
voice calls - go figure.  3 is great in capital 
cities mostly.  Anywhere high density population 
is good.  Just avoid roaming as it switches to 
Telstra at VERY VERY high rates.  I gave up on 
Vodafone :)  I'd never use Optus.