Free, nationalised broadband

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Boustrophedon
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Boustrophedon » Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:19 pm

TopBadger wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:15 am
lpm wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:04 am
It's unusual to see the assertion that "The free market only works where there can be a free market".
Actually Don wrote:
Boustrophedon wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 7:43 am

The free market only works where there can be a fee market.
I.e. when there is a choice about who to pay for the service. I think Don's point is that a choice doesn't meaningfully exist for fibre - it's become a utility.
Thanks, but I meant to write "free", I did mean to imply that it had become a utility.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Boustrophedon » Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:29 pm

And in this neck of the woods the privatised BT Openwhateverthey'recalledthisweek has failed to deliver even fibre optic to the box in the street, we're still on ADSL. We're still on ADSL because it is not economic for BT to install the lines, just as in the same way we do not have gas despite a high pressure main not 400 yards from the village. f.ck you, you're just a bunch of yokels.

This is why the free market sometimes sucks.

We only got 4G in July.

Oh and as LPM actually points out there is no such thing as a free market.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by lpm » Fri Nov 15, 2019 3:10 pm

"My name's Jeremy and I'm going to spend £100 billion on free broadband."

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Boustrophedon » Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:09 pm

I have to admit that free broadband is a barking idea.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by username » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:03 pm

Boustrophedon wrote:
Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:09 pm
I have to admit that free broadband is a barking idea.
18 year old me thinks it's a f.cking brilliant idea though :|
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by sTeamTraen » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:13 pm

I can see an advantage to a national infrastructure board, with government input and representatives from the telecom operators, to get the fibres installed. Kind of like Network Rail. Installing fibres is not only a natural monopoly, it's also an area where any given company can't add much value (maybe that's the definition of a natural monopoly).

Plus, if a combination of government insistence and pooling of resources meant that every home had a fibre connection, that would mean a substantially bigger customer base for the operators to provide routers, p0rnTV bundles, and all kinds of other added value services.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Gfamily » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Given that the gov't has been shoveling directing money at BT to get the 'rural rollout' complete (with less than stunning results), you can see that the basic "get non-urban Broadband working" message has a clear draw.
"State ownership of the means of connection" is a change that sounds as though it could make a difference, and it's a message that could carry in rural areas.
In terms of the 'free' aspect: the 'free' could end up as the equivalent of "no line charges", but, who knows what we'll end up with.
For Virgin, Sky, BT etc, they have extras to offer that people will pay for, and many are likely to continue to pay for, but there's a significant number of people who only need a basic service, but are currently paying for more than they need (and may not be getting in rural areas).

Hopefully the companies looking to provide enhanced services, will be motivated to add new, innovative extra value services in what will be an increasingly competitive market.

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:35 am

I don't have much stuff other than to say

1. The railways are nationalised. It's the trains and the services that aren't
2. It might be mental but Kevin the Plumber likes free stuff, he doesn't read the papers or listen to that much election stuff.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Brightonian » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:55 am

Twitter thread about the complexity of nationalising Openreach (and Openreach's shortcomings).

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:19 am

Going back to the roads comparison, quite a lot of countries have a state-owned network that's basically adequate, plus paid-for (often private) motorways for those who want to go faster or longer or whatever.

It's a clear message that Labour are thinking about rural voters, which could be useful in some of the target marginals.

Also, for people in insecure rentals getting a broadband contract can be a huge pain in the arse, and expensive. You generally have to commit to a year's contract even if you don't have the same guarantee you can stay in your home that long, and you have to pay to be reconnected if the previous tenants f.cked something up or you want to change company or whatever. A free default service would be great for the urban poor too.

So we have a proposal that would probably be good for some marginalised groups - rural folk and poor people. On the other hand, it might delay rollout of expensive fancy innovative whizzy techno gubbins that privileged people are looking forward to. That seems pretty standard for a left-wing policy.

If a broadband subsidy were means-tested, would you look it to some existing means-testing scheme (which?) or invest in a new one for the Bureau of Broadband?
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by rockdoctor » Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:47 am

I would like to see the network built by the state, treating it as a utility like water, sewerage, electricity & gas. The service provided would then be privately supplied, but with a basic service free (eg slow or capped data).
The poor get free service, everyone else pays for good/specialist service.
Sounds like Corbyn may have gone off-piste without much advice

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by lpm » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:49 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:19 am
Also, for people in insecure rentals getting a broadband contract can be a huge pain in the arse, and expensive. You generally have to commit to a year's contract even if you don't have the same guarantee you can stay in your home that long, and you have to pay to be reconnected if the previous tenants f.cked something up or you want to change company or whatever.
A couple of the ambitious start-ups in my list have exactly this strategy. Target MDUs (telecoms jargon for flats, Multiple Dwelling Units) and do the deal with the landlord, not the individual. So they'd go to the housing association building 40 flats, get fibre in, charge the housing association who then includes the broadband utility in the rent. This isn't weird - the market in Switzerland is mostly like that, landlords arranging the service. Capitalism is good at spotting these opportunities and trying them out.

A lot of the commentary online ignores basic geography. In the UK, only about 20% of the population live in MDUs. In Spain, Germany and plenty of other places in the EU it's 50%. These countries have higher fibre-to-the-premise statistics simply because it's so easy to get this 50% done. Imagine doing fibre in Paris or Barcelona - 3 to 4 times the population density of London, Manchester and Glasgow.

The urban/rural percentage is the other driver - South Korea is always held up as an example, but it's got far higher urban than the UK. Helped by the fact that population density in Seoul is even higher than Paris. They basically leap-frogged straight to fibre, got 80% done fast, but then had a long tail of many years sorting the final 20%. Nobody has been able to do rural quickly and easily. UK is nothing like South Korea and broadband comparisons are pointless.

And commentators are also forgetting that 16 million homes are already 1 gig capable. Virgin Media's network was built in the 1990s for cable TV, using co-axial cable into the home, and by accident this was perfect for broadband. This hybrid of fibre to the cabinet and coaxial to the home can deliver 1 gig - possibly more in the future when technology squeezes a bit more. So why don't 16 million people have 1 gig? Because Virgin Media doesn't bother to offer it yet - their maximum offer is 500 Mbps. There isn't the demand. They only bothered to offer 500 in April, and 500 is far in excess of what most users require.

Where's the desperate need to get to 8 gig for fibre to every home by 2025, if people don't yet even want 1 gig?
Last edited by lpm on Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by lpm » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:58 am

Correction: discovered that Virgin Media has just launched 1 gig in Southampton, as an experimental "Gig1 city". Started in October, £62 a month. Manchester about to be launched as well.

Uses their fibre-coaxial network, needing a new broadband wifi router with the right sort of DOCSIS 3.1 or whatever. These boxes will be costing Virgin something like £50.

They plan to offer 1 gig to their 15 million homes by the end of 2021.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:01 pm

No idea of the stats, but most people in insecure housing I know are in old houses (usually terraces) with private landlords, not newbuild flats from a housing association (which on the contrary sounds rather secure).

Forcing private landlords to provide Broadband and other utilities could work I suppose, but I expect they'd just pass the costs on to tenants and it wouldn't be enforced anyway. A free government connection of some sort (I agree it needn't be 8 gig) would safeguard connectivity for the poor and vulnerable.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by lpm » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:10 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:01 pm
No idea of the stats, but most people in insecure housing I know are in old houses (usually terraces) with private landlords, not newbuild flats from a housing association (which on the contrary sounds rather secure).

Forcing private landlords to provide Broadband and other utilities could work I suppose, but I expect they'd just pass the costs on to tenants and it wouldn't be enforced anyway. A free government connection of some sort (I agree it needn't be 8 gig) would safeguard connectivity for the poor and vulnerable.
That's more to do with the UK's f.cked-up housing than anything else. But I think something like 15% of the UK live in council properties.

If you want to safeguard connectivity for the poor and vulnerable, why not simply give them a mobile and a SIM card? £10 a month gets a SIM with 5,000 minutes of calls, unlimited texts and 10GB of data. It would be a tiny fraction of the cost of free broadband. If this connectivity is so important, Labour could provide SIM cards within a day of taking office, rather than spending years on a disastrous broadband policy.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:22 pm

Filling in firms, applying for jobs, working remotely and so on are really not very feasible on a phone, and mobile connections are too slow in most areas for media connections - people get their tv through the internet now, and don't necessarily have a dedicated tv device like in the old days.

Cheap or borrowed laptops can last a long time, but £20ish a month is a lot if you're unemployed. A tiny touchscreen with a slow data connection isn't the kind of connectivity people need.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by username » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:33 pm

If there's a laptop then the phone can be the connection, surely.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:26 pm

username wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:33 pm
If there's a laptop then the phone can be the connection, surely.
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I had to use a mobile data connection on my laptop for a large portion of writing up my masters, and it was f.cking hopeless. More like "trying to use a walnut as a sledgehammer", given the data intensity of modern society.
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by dyqik » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:09 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:26 pm
username wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:33 pm
If there's a laptop then the phone can be the connection, surely.
~
Sledgehammer/walnut...
I had to use a mobile data connection on my laptop for a large portion of writing up my masters, and it was f.cking hopeless. More like "trying to use a walnut as a sledgehammer", given the data intensity of modern society.
Yeah, I get 1 or 2 bars of signal, which means dodgy dropped internet connections for most things, on my phone, in a town of 10,000 people, and half a mile from the former headquarters of Monster Internet and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Of course, fiber to the home is easily and relatively* cheaply available.

*at twice the price it would be in the UK, but that's cheap for the US.

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by bjn » Sat Nov 16, 2019 6:51 pm

Interesting bit of history WRT universal broadband. Apparently it’s Maggie’s fault it didn’t happen decades ago.
Unfortunately, the Thatcher government decided that it wanted the American cable companies providing the same service to increase competition. So the decision was made to close down the local loop roll out and in 1991 that roll out was stopped. The two factories that BT had built to build fibre related components were sold to Fujitsu and HP, the assets were stripped and the expertise was shipped out to South East Asia.

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by username » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:36 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:26 pm
username wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:33 pm
If there's a laptop then the phone can be the connection, surely.
~
Sledgehammer/walnut...
I had to use a mobile data connection on my laptop for a large portion of writing up my masters, and it was f.cking hopeless. More like "trying to use a walnut as a sledgehammer", given the data intensity of modern society.
It's a movable feast.

Govband has a target complete rollout in 2030. By that time (assuming they attain that target, itself something open to scrutiny) I wonder what 5G, or even 6G, coverage will look like. Starlink and Oneweb* will both, theoretically, be fully operational by then as well...frankly it's not entirely clear to me that broadband supply is a natural monopoly at all.

If the goal is make sure rural** and the small percentage of unable to afford users are covered, there are likely methods to achieve those aims without spending 100 billion pounds. If the goal is to get young people to vote Labour then it's probably effective, if exceedingly expensive.

*Did you know Elon Musk allegedly stole the Starlink idea directly from Oneweb? I have that nugget from the horse's mouth.
**Using this as shorthand for those places which aren't getting broadband currently rolled out fast enough
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by tom p » Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:51 am

lpm wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:49 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:19 am
Also, for people in insecure rentals getting a broadband contract can be a huge pain in the arse, and expensive. You generally have to commit to a year's contract even if you don't have the same guarantee you can stay in your home that long, and you have to pay to be reconnected if the previous tenants f.cked something up or you want to change company or whatever.
A couple of the ambitious start-ups in my list have exactly this strategy.
Ambitious start-ups have a great success rate, don't they?

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by Pucksoppet » Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:45 am

As El Pollo Diablo pointed out, the state could own the infrastructure and invite bids from operators to actually run the service, much like the Network Rail model.

I agree with others, that the idea looks barking, but my 18-y-o self would have liked the idea. Are there any other services that the state provides free at the point of use, financed through general taxation? If there are any, are they efficient and/or effective?

Commercial realities are that the areas that don't generate a profit will be neglected. The state can ignore commercial realities and subsidise universal service in the interests of the general economic good (and fairness) so you don't have to live in a city to get good broadband. The madness of farmers needing good broadband connections to complete on-line forms to comply with agriculture and food regulations, and at the same time having no or extremely poor Internet access really should not be happening. Farmers need broadband too. If our ancestors could string a copper pair from the exchange to the farm, we can string an optical fibre.

If the infrastructure were owned by the state and service provided by operators chosen by competitive bidding, then there is not a substantial difference between people paying a flat rate service subscription or it being financed by general taxation. It becomes the state intervening in the market to ensure the availability of a minimum service to all. Which can go well, or badly. There are examples of both.

Universal delivery of a vital service, free at the point of use, paid for by general taxation is not so barking. It's a bit socialist, especially if the objective is fair access for all to a minimum, but good enough, standard of service. Perhaps that is mad, after all.

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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by lpm » Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:26 am

tom p wrote:
Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:51 am
lpm wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:49 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:19 am
Also, for people in insecure rentals getting a broadband contract can be a huge pain in the arse, and expensive. You generally have to commit to a year's contract even if you don't have the same guarantee you can stay in your home that long, and you have to pay to be reconnected if the previous tenants f.cked something up or you want to change company or whatever.
A couple of the ambitious start-ups in my list have exactly this strategy.
Ambitious start-ups have a great success rate, don't they?
Yes - if you get 400 of them, as in the UK, you are highly likely to get some great successes.

If you have 1 monolith, on the other hand...
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Re: Free, nationalised broadband

Post by lpm » Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:45 am

Pucksoppet wrote:
Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:45 am
As El Pollo Diablo pointed out, the state could own the infrastructure and invite bids from operators to actually run the service, much like the Network Rail model.

I agree with others, that the idea looks barking, but my 18-y-o self would have liked the idea. Are there any other services that the state provides free at the point of use, financed through general taxation? If there are any, are they efficient and/or effective?

Commercial realities are that the areas that don't generate a profit will be neglected. The state can ignore commercial realities and subsidise universal service in the interests of the general economic good (and fairness) so you don't have to live in a city to get good broadband. The madness of farmers needing good broadband connections to complete on-line forms to comply with agriculture and food regulations, and at the same time having no or extremely poor Internet access really should not be happening. Farmers need broadband too. If our ancestors could string a copper pair from the exchange to the farm, we can string an optical fibre.

If the infrastructure were owned by the state and service provided by operators chosen by competitive bidding, then there is not a substantial difference between people paying a flat rate service subscription or it being financed by general taxation. It becomes the state intervening in the market to ensure the availability of a minimum service to all. Which can go well, or badly. There are examples of both.

Universal delivery of a vital service, free at the point of use, paid for by general taxation is not so barking. It's a bit socialist, especially if the objective is fair access for all to a minimum, but good enough, standard of service. Perhaps that is mad, after all.
It's not allowed to look at a menu and pick everything. There's lots of lovely "universal delivery of a vital service" things we want - but there's not enough resources in the UK for all of them (particularly with the Tory fascists and Labour morons wanting to kick out foreigners).

So pick your choices. With limited resources, what do you want to prioritise?

- universal charging points for electric cars
- training of sufficient nurses and doctors for the NHS
- billions more bobbies on the beat giving clips round the ear
- universal fibre to the premise for the entire country
- construction of adequate housing to enable people to have their own home
- fully equipped modern military, with planes for the aircraft carriers and enough troops to intervene around the world
- proper social care for every elderly person in the setting their desire
- transformation of agriculture into sustainable model with tree planting, organic farming and innovative jam manufacture
- improve school buildings and training of sufficient teachers and teaching assistants to step-up education levels from nursery to university
- retro-fit every house and building to proper insulation standards
- rapid build of wind turbine, solar and several nuclear power plants to meet legal targets
- transformation of railway network, northern powerhouse etc

Whenever you find yourself seeing only benefits and not costs, or picking every nice thing you'd like from the menu, stop: there isn't a mass labour force sitting unemployed and it's not at all easy to switch our very limited resources around.
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