BET…you don't know what broadband is:

Agree with Chris,(above) BET is extending life of copper, which is what I said in the original article. I don't go into marketing speeds, as we all know they are just 'up to' figures and nobody ever gets the 'upto' they get whatever the copper can get to them with contention and all other factors taken into account. At the end of long line lengths the service peters out all together. That is why we are faced with the final third, and the best way to fix it is with fibre. It is futureproof. If we invested a bit in a few rural areas the telcos would start tripping themselves up to do the urban ones before somebody else grabbed the golden goose. winwin.

There is some inaccuracies but the fundemental point is correct in that BET is simply extending the life of an extinct technology, if money is to be spent it should be on FTTx or new exchanges. As usual the private sector only looks at cost of rollout and marketing speeds, they dont care if FTTC may push an average adsl 4mbit sync to over 20mbit, or if it makes a previous no sync a 20mbit sync. All they care about is they can advertise 40mbit instead of 24mbit. As usual the cheapest areas to upgrade are usually the ones that already have the best service. So this is an example of commercial rollouts not been suitable.

Chris Please try to understand from an engineering perspective first. BET is not simply joining two pairs together, it uses SHDSL with equipment at the customers end. Do you have evidence that you might get '2M for half an hour' or is this something you have made up? BET is just one solution that will work in particular situations. Maybe like an isolated farm on a long line. 'A cheap broadband solution is sharing with 400 others'. Please explain the network topology for this and how it differs for expensive broadband solutions. If I'm still trying to find out how communities dig their own fibre into places with roads and pavements, other than by using a telco. Like it or not, FTTC is relatively straight forward and gives users a choice of ISPs. I would rather have that in a few years time than FTTP in 10. Who is the 'we' that believe the USC numbers are wrong? How are they measuring them?

ello Somerset, wondered when you would finally turn up here. BET is bonding two copper pairs. It has been done for years, it isn't anything new. It means they can pump the adsl a bit further from the exchange. to do this they need handouts from government? I think not. I think the government has already seen through that little scam. Why should people have to pay for two phone lines to get last gen connectivity? In many areas they will have to run new copper to do it. There are more DACS in the sticks than you can shake a stick at. A copper line can never deliver next gen over distance. Read the laws of physics. Look at the maps with the exchanges on. They can only cover a very small footprint. Its the government statistics I quote, and BT has itself admitted that a third of the country (the final third) has less than the current USC. We think the figures are higher than that, with many in urban areas also suffering with inadequate connections. This is also often due to there not being enough capacity to cope with demand. This is due to the high prices charged by wholesale to the ISPs. With a cheap broadband connection you are sharing with anything up to 400 others. Most people don't realise this. The better ISPs monitor their networks and buy more capacity at peak times. The cheaper ones wait until everyone is moaning and buy some more backhaul. This problem is on top of already having a poor connection down to line length. The whole system is obsolete and I welcome the £2billion openreach are investing in it, but it isn't enough to do the whole country. Fair enough, but there should be no government handouts for BET. It isn't a solution. The ISPs have voted against it, and if the people knew its limitations they wouldn't want it either. To subscribe to BET means there is a slight chance on a good day with a following wind they 'might' get half an hour at 2meg. For that privilege they will pay through the nose and be off the radar. They won't have a chance of anyone investing in bringing them next gen. BET is a scam. If there is any government intervention it has to go into a futureproof solution. And if we have no money for that then the government has to use its powers to pass the laws that make a level playing field so that others can deliver next gen access to the people in the harder to reach areas. There are plenty of communities willing to dig their own fibre in. There are plenty of companies willing to invest. We need the windows tax dropping for a few years, and access to ducts and poles. We need a big society to join up the dots and cut out the red tape. We need councils to help, planners to help, and some joined up thinking. Putting our heads in the sand and thinking BET can help our digital economy is very foolish. The world won't wait for us in the copper slowlane. chris

'BET is the current proposal by BT Openreach to widen this copper pipe. However, one of the key problems is that this very pipe is shared. It is shared, not only with your direct neighbours, but with all the other people in your vicinity (i.e. everyone who is on the same BT exchange). So, whenever they want to use it, you get less. Simples!' This is nothing to do with copper. ADSL is actually quite special in that it's a dedicated connection to the exchange, cable and passive optical networks are shared before the exchange. All home connections share backhaul. You supposedly run a network you should know this. 'BT currently aims to get 20 Mbps (known as 20Meg) to the UK’s cities over the next few years, but only 2 meg to 90% of the UK land mass – and that means 40% of the population.' Are you seriously suggesting 60% of the population live in 10% of the landmass and will be excluded from 21CN services? 'I believe that one major problem is that the United Kingdom has, in fact, suffered from chronic under-investment in telecoms, mainly during the era of privatisation of the former nationalised monopolies.' You believe wrong. Investment went up considerably during privatisation, whose money do you think digitised most of the exchanges? Why do you think the fault rates have dropped so much since it was owned by the government? 'Here, Chris makes a characteristically passionate, but equally well-informed and clearly explained, case for a re-think of BET,' Well informed huh? I have to wonder exactly what you were doing during your 'researching extensively on this subject' referred to in http://media140.com/?page_id=155

You have been told before that this is nonsense. Internet access is shared everywhere, what has BET got to do with it?

the danger of using BET, apart from its enormous cost to install and run is that as with any stop gap solution it will just hang around for decades to recoup the investment. Far better to invest in NGA and fibre than run new copper pairs around to people on dacs. And I know there are a lot of long runs in urban areas too, by the 'finalthirdfirst' we include those amongst the ones we want to help. One way to make sure everyone gets a good connection is to do the hardest ones first and stimulate competition. I do realise there is no contention on the copper wires to the exchange, the problem is when it hits the exchange. And copper cannot deliver a decent connection over distance. end of.

I feel so chuffed. The ISPs have also come out against BET. ISPs plunge knife into BET technology #digitalbritain - http://tinyurl.com/y4zqmuq

BE are using BET to double the speed on their lines and offering 'up to 40meg' for about £70-80 a month. Folk could have gig fibre for that! Also many people in notspots are being cold called and offered the crap BET solution to get broadband. At no point are they informed about the cost. They will be expected to install a second phone line, so the cost will be around £60 a month, and still no guarantee of the 2meg. It is a scandal, but many will fall for it and not read the small print. So sad. poor old digitalbritain.

Great article, you are wrong in regards to contention on the copper line but everything else I agree with. Andrew Ferguson BT if they chose to could deploy FTTx in the same timeline as BET, so there is a 3 options not 2, the 3rd option is have a long term solution now, it does not take 15 years to deploy what is now a very mature technology. To Chris the article author, please be aware the problems with poor long copper lines are not unique to rural areas, in fact the majority of long lines in this country are inside suburban areas. It is a myth that all city lines are short and fast. So whilst I agree with you in regards to where the money should be spent, I also think we shouldnt just concentrate on rural areas as there is many other problem spots inside suburban and even urban areas. I am in a major city and have no cable broadband available, the phone line has 50db attenuation, on top of that there is various noise bursts during the day adding stability issues into the mix.

[...] in the village of Hambleden, under test by BT’s Chairman, is none other than the bad BET expertly demolished by Cyberdoyle in September [...]

While there is much to be discussed your over simplification of contention is likely to only confuse people. It is possible for people with a 2Meg connection via ADSL to have 2Meg at peak times, IF the provider buys the capacity from the telephone exchange to the Internet. Your article implies the contention is in the copper pairs which it is not. It is possible you are confusing cable network topology with the DSL topology. On the paying for two lines with BET, only if they have a PSTN service on both, during the trial there is no sign of people having to pay two voice line rentals. The merits of applying any short term solution, versus a longer term one can go on for ages. I'll raise this, better to have something now, or wait 15 years for the ultimate product and have nothing in the meantime?

Chris - Are you suggesting that the link to a typrical local exchenge is 2M. The whole internet is shared and sized appropriately. How would you propose we connect to 'the main trunks'? If the copper from exchange to home is replaced by fibre then there is still the connection from exchange to ISP and beyond to consider. Isn't BET a short term solution until a cost effective alternative is found.

Hi Somerset. It is a simplistic statement for people who don't want technical info. BET bonds two copper pairs effectively making the signal go further.ie widening the pipe. The two pairs then mean you pay for two phone lines. (and two levies of £6 a year if it goes through) Then your connection gets to the exchange through this little copper pipe. Once it is in the exchange it is coupled up to a fatter pipe. That pipe is shared by many. If they choose to use the pipe then all the people can't squeeze down it at once. Some ISPs (cheaper end) put 400 people on one card. If 4 people watch Iplayer at once that uses up a 2 meg feed. What happens to all the other 396 customers? Or some ISPs use traffic management, to make sure 4 customers can't take all the feed. This means everyone using goes slower. You will notice this happens at peak times. So in a nutshell, when other people are feeding off the same pipe, you all get less. simples. The bottleneck is in the exchange, or even further up the line where lots of these pipes merge. Getting to the main trunks is very difficult for your little packets. And BET won't make it any better. It will just prolong the agony in rural digitalbritain.

You say: BET is the current proposal by BT Openreach to widen this copper pipe. However, one of the key problems is that this very pipe is shared. It is shared, not only with your direct neighbours, but with all the other people in your vicinity (i.e. everyone who is on the same BT exchange). So, whenever they want to use it, you get less. Simples! This makes no sense!

Viv, I don't have flawed reasoning. Copper cable costs more than fibre. Laying costs are the same. To implement BET would mean laying more copper. Openretch are on the cadge for funding for BET, they will use the money for it, not for fibre. Also BET is not better than nothing. As long as rural people have nothing the majority don't know what they are missing. Give them the BET solution and they will soon know. Contention of 400:1 been reported on many exchanges. What good is 2 meg then? There will be a revolution. I agree the ROI is not for the telco when it comes to building infrastructure to Next gen standards. Therefore the gov has to intervene. It is in the interest of them to get everyone online, and in the interest of the people who they work for. more info on http://5tth.blogspot.com/2009/11/no-no-no-no-no-someone-stop-bt-right.html

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/news/generalbriefings/gen11609.do This site proves what was said earlier on this thread, the poor sods who get lumbered with BET will have to pay for TWO phone lines to deliver it. It is not and never will be a solution. BET is a BIG LIE

Chris - As someone who understands the economics of this decision, I'm afraid you have some flawed logic here. Particularly around comparative costs of laying fibre and copper to rural locations and that FTTx isn't being considered in rural locations. BET wouldn't be the first choice solution to improve BB in rural areas - obviously fibre would be - but where that isn't economic BET is better than nothing. Comment to Damian above. Yes, Virgin is rolling out 50mB. But bear in mind that they bought the cable asset for nothing, as the companies that originally invested in it couldn't get a return and went bust. That's why no one else is doing it - the company that lays fibre is rarely the company that ends up making money from it.

Yes, and how can we help to make this happen?

Heck Mike, that is great! The voice of the people having an effect, many thanks! Will watch for your story. A business case would certainly help the JFDI cause. The last spectrum heist should have built our next gen network,not gone into the bottomless pit of bankers. Let's hope the next one is spent wisely. Let's hope Ofcom and Govt get IT. Power to the People. chris

I thought BET was just a stop gap, or for use in last grasp deperate act to extablish some connectivity. If BT do apply for money for BET, perhaps Ofcom should change the defintion of an MPF (copper pair) so it does support the signal to noise ration needed to support Broadband, otherwise it is not a copper pair. But most of their applications to this fund I assume will be in support of getting FTTC to more areas and these will be a cases worth examining. I do think the majority of our collective angst should be pointed at Government policy, not all at BT. It is government policy which collects spectrum fees and fails to reinvest. It is Ofcom top priority to organise another spectrum auction heist in 08/09 where the previous £24bn heist in 2001 slowed mobile broadband and limited it to 80% of the country. It is lack of foresight which prevents the convergence of our data networks into a single fabric. The Digital Britain levy is part of a forensic investment. There is no long term strategy outlined, and there is no commitment from any of the parties to invest rather than tax and over tax the sector. You enthuasism for fiber means I will start putting a business case for FTTH on the fiberevlution.com. Watch for a user story for an FTTH user.

Thanks Brian, and for taking time to comment on the post, really appreciate IT. If we all keep saying the same thing surely the telcos can be encouraged to help us instead of dealing out misinformation to both the public and the government? Why is there no-one from the telcos coming on here to refute my accusation that BET is a BAD BET? I have heard your audioboos and you often say: "It makes you wonder..." Well lets hope they wonder, and come up with a solution, as you say, the stakes are high, - in more ways than one. chris.

From a UK strategic point of view, further investment in the copper network is clearly nonsense. Chris' analysis is sound. We do need to move to fibre-optic based infrastructure if we are to re-build our economy and make it viable for the future. It seems to me that BET is just another way of flogging a dead horse - given that in many areas (especially rural areas that have grown) copper pairs are a scarce resource. In my village for example, a BT Openreach guy told me that there was 'a shortage of lines'. Chris also makes a very good point about the lack of knowledge both at senior levels in business and government and the lack of understanding of the issues by mainstream media. The fact that the industry has chosen to compete on the 'least cost bundle' and even with first gen broadband "up to" means on average "less than half" all contribute to the problem. The average household in the UK pays significantly more for its comms/media services than for heating and lighting. Overall, we pay £50bn. So the stakes are high. These kinds of discussion are important - and the quality of debate stimulated by Chris' excellent post testifies to that. Brian

Thanks Jas. I wouldn't mind paying the levy if I knew it was going to be put to good use. If it was used to get fibre nodes into rural areas it could then be utilised by community groups who JFDI and roll out their own access networks. If it is used for BET then it is a total waste of taxpayers hard earned money on obsolete copper. I agree, the incumbent should be investing profit into the infrastructure not whinging to government for handouts. Don't really know what the answer to it all is, but working together we should be able to come up with one surely?

The broadband tax is vastly unfair. £6 to be paid by everyone with a landline, really? BT has been privatised for many many years, so why is it that users of their service are taxed, to provide BT with an extra income to roll-out an outdated technology? The future is bright, but it doesn't live in a BT exchange.

Nice to meet you here Bryn, now following you on twitter too! Don't worry about me thinking I took your first comment to be criticism, I didn't. That is why I said 'observances',I have been on a lot of forums and learnt not to be precious about my opinions, I sincerely welcome debate, it brings stuff out into the open! (and it gives informed power to real people) thanks, chris

Hi Chris, My comment around BT and the use of it as a collective was more directed to the overall consultation process. When things are "marketed" to the general public or reported in the press (as is often the case in this subject matter as it means spend for Joe public) people really need to know what is being talked about in terms of spend. (i.e. will their money be subsidising share holder owned business or something a bit more regulated). FWIW I think your debate is right on the nose and your article above is very well written, my points were not a criticism of your writing more an open appeal for more clarity in all areas around the use of the term BT. Keep up the good work and good luck, presumably you know where to find me now for anything else in the future that I can help with. Regards Bryn

Bryn, thanks very much for your comments, sorry if I tend to use the collective term 'BT', but it is as Dee says only my take on it all and I do generalise to keep things simple. I should say 'incumbent telcos' maybe instead of naming one. sorry. Your point about Telcos and the fibre, it is interesting to note that both are replicating infrastructure in densly populated areas and neither see the rural areas as giving return on investment. This is why this debate is essential, to emphasise that telcos won't run fibre to rurals if they can get away with scrounging public money for the BET copper solution, which you have already pointed out is not as good a BET as fibre. What bugs me is that the fibre runs through the rural areas but we are not given access to it. If we were then we could run community networks ourselves, but all the Points of Presence (POPs) are in the cities. This makes it too expensive for a small community to afford. Maybe the government could help us get this access? then we could JFDI ourselves? Thank you very much for the time you took to comment. Much appreciated and your constructive observations will be acted upon in my future ramblings on the subject. Glyn, great idea, DHS, I like it. DHS direct? Also like the idea of a nationally owned infrastructure, but don't know how that could be achieved. Frankly I don't care who owns it as long as it works and all have access to what is an essential utility these days, great thoughts, keep em coming. Lindsey, many thanks for commenting, you have been my inspiration for many years, and I know we wouldn't have an internet connection at all in this area but for your help way back in 2004 when we started building the community wifi network which many now get benefit from. thank you all... ... and many more out there reading this who have helped along the way, you know who you are. chris.

That sounds like an excellent idea Glenn. Thank you so much for offering to research what will definitely be a great post... Seriously, know this not your particular bag but it is a very good idea - I'll try and find someone qualified to look into it. Thanks - as ever - for your input - Dee

Could someone tell me how the countries that have most success laying their digital infrastructure have done so? Maybe that would make a good blog post: "Perfectdigitalland shows the way forward to a successful digital future" Their methods could then be compared (contrasted even) to those of the UK.

Personally I have been comprehensively educated and illuminated on this issue since I first started to discuss this post with Chris, on whose behalf, as her editor, I feel I must step forward. I accept wholeheartedly the points made by both Bryn above and by SubtleBlade earlier. However, I am sure you can understand there is simply not enough space/words in a sole blog post to cover every single facet of what is clearly a complex issue - one which evidently evokes passionate responses all around. As Chris said earlier, her original copy was indeed far longer and I did edit it down - purely to reduce the wordage. If by doing so, I obscured some essential nuance, I apologise - but I have every confidence that readers will put me right! Bryn, As a former Reuters and FT hack, I fully appreciate your frustration that the role of BT's various divisions was not elucidated - again - mainly down to space constraints. However, I specifically asked Chris to write a "Dummies' guide to BET" and do feel that we just could not go into the intricacies of the complex public/private division of former public bodies. Perhaps there is another, completely separate post on the telecoms operators, which needs to be written?! Also, as I hope I made patent in the standfirst, the post (as indeed is the case with all Media140 posts) was clearly flagged as Chris's very personal conclusions from her own experiences and her own research. They have however, clearly kicked off a vibrant debate and I am very grateful to all above for taking the time to add their own perspectives. It's still very early days for this forum; thus, I really welcome any constructive criticism or input you may have! Thanks again, to Chris, and to you all. @deejackson

I think there is a few things that need pointing out here and clarifying. Firstly it would help if the refernces to BT and BT Openreach were cited with some description of the remit of that part of BT. British Telecom as a business was obviosuly changed beyond all recognition through its privatisaion some years back. This privatisation brought a subdividing of BT into different divisions of which soms could compete on a level playing field while others were bound by obvious rules down to the fact that most of the infrastructure around was from the legacy of public ownership. (and to be honest I dont think most of the public would understand the difference between various divisions of BT, they would just think of them as BT that used to be owned by the government and now by shareholders) It would be good to explain these differences to help understand what is what in the proposals for laying fibre / Changing copper and who would actually be doing what. Secondly, we have the questions of Virgin Cables already laid in the ground. Virgin as we all know is made up of a gradual mergers and aquisition trail starting with companies like Diamond Telecom, Telewest and NTL to be now Virgin Media. Although they have done this all privatly through investors and sharholders, there is something to be said for the fact that there is now a significant (obviously not everywhere) infrastructure already laying in the ground held and owned by a companies born and fully run in the private sector. There is no doubt that fibre is the best option technically so I understand that really this is a commercial decision process rather than a technology one but think that by learning lessons from the private sector, this is really should be a government led decision making process to be managed by a heavily regulated if not a publically owned business / entity.

Why not nationalise the provision of our digital infrastructure? Isn't a robust digital infrastructure almost as important to this country's economy as a healthy populace? We could call even it the DHS (oops) - Digital Health Service. Or am I missing something here?

As one of those who has campaigned rigorously for years for ubiquitous, affordable next generation access in this country, it is heartening to see such a wide range of views that all seem to converge. Now, what we need to do is get the message across to politicians, telco shareholders, media, consumers and so on. We must stop the 'deliberate' misleading of the consumers and businesses in this country. What we currently have is choice and competition for murky, bordering on undrinkable water. Thank you to Dee for having the vision to let people like @cyberdoyle contribute to such a well-populated and informed blog. We at fibrevolution are always looking for similar contributions to the 5tth blog and forum, so please get in touch with @digitaldales if you would like to have your views, opinions, ideas heard by FTTH thought leaders and activists across the EU and beyond. Or just contribute to the forum where the JFDI people are making things happen!

Hey Russell, many thanks for your continued support, the 'Mind the Gap' report went a long way to changing attitudes and raising awareness, it is brill. I agree, we need a higher bar than a 2meg USC, if BET is implemented then that is all we will ever get, but if BT lay fibre instead of copper then our work is done, and rural communities will get the access they need to innovate, expand and continue to provide the fuel for UKplc to lead the way in the digital revolution. CRC rocks! Keep banging the drum for us. One day 'they' will hear IT.

Good post Chris, BET may be help to meet the Government's Universal Service Commitment (USC) but, as you point out, while it may be sufficient to access services individually, users and businesses often need to access the network for multiple tasks simultaneously. As new services emerge requiring more capacity, speeds in excess of the USC will be needed. As it said in its report 'Mind the Gap: Digital Inclusion - a rural perspective', The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) believes that rural communities need and deserve broadband speeds which will support them now and equip them for the future. Rural communities do not deserve a stop gap solution.

Excellent insight Paul! wish I could have said it as well, you obviously get IT. It is nice to know that so many people are on the side of the JFDI yourself community groups. We can make a difference, even if like you say it pushes the incumbent to deliver what it should. We have been ignored for too long. Thank you for taking the time to comment. kudos.

Having lived and worked in a rural economy both in the public and private sector I have to agree with Chris's comments here. I would find it impossible to run my business without a good broadband connection and I fear becoming a second choice partner for projects as the rest of the world moves on. The live issue here in North Shropshire is the current consultation on the Council's Core Strategy. This is the spatial strategy that will guide development on business and residential properties over the next 20 years. I won't rant on about the shortcomings of local authority consultation mechanisms but it's clear that infrastructure thinking has gone little further than roads and buses with a nod and a wink to rail. All of this against a backdrop of wanting to create good old high tech, high skill jobs that can be run from a locality. There are significant proposals for increasing the population of villages like ours (and that's not always a bad thing) but only thought of how more buses can run through the village and not about the capacity of our telephone exchange to provide even the most basic DSL services or the need to incorporate ducting as part of any infrastructure development. It occurs to me that Core Strategy development must be going on in other Local Authorities - it's worth asking the question. Since 2003 I have worked a lot in delivery of rural broadband and rural ICT capacity. The impact of DACS enabled exchanges is bigger than many appreciate and is often masked by the statements that every exchange is DSL enabled. People often focus on the distance from the exchange element but you can be right next door, with a good copper line and still not be able to get DSL broadband. I briefly followed a Twitter stream from the East Midlands on the broadband debate - keep in mind that places like Nottingham City have obscene amounts of infrastructure - and people could only rant about the injustice of the telephone tax and the iniquities of the tax obsessed government - people just don't get it. I do not believe that BT as a company will risk investment (or the wrath of its shareholders)until there is a must have, can't survive without it, killer application that only fibre will provide. Equity, is not part of the equation, and it should be. with that in mind I am increasingly inclined to pin my flag to the mast of community broadband offerings (that initself will often prompt the incumbent infrastructure provide to increase service capacity if only to devalue a community broadband business case - cynical but a fact of life) Unless we get a fundemental shift in mindset on the part of the public and private sector then I suspect we are always going to experience barriers rather than enablers, unless, of course, we do these things ourselves.

Thanks for the comment Pete, hopefully if we make enough noise government will get IT and all the boys like your son will be employed again, laying the fibre that will make this country great again. It makes more sense to pay them for honest toil than dole. Power to the people by the People. I agree, putting putting public money into obsolete copper is a waste and a scandal, whereas putting it into fibre infrastructure is investment. If the broadband levy of 50p a month does happen then we have to make sure we watch where it is spent.;) and we will.

Agree Helen, BET is an expensive waste of public money, and if BT get away with it then progress will never happen. We must encourage innovation, not copper patch ups. Thanks for your comment, it is nice to hear from hands on community ISPs. I know you have been bonding lines at great expense to get a connection to your customers in the absence of any other available bandwidth. Kudos to you. BT herald BET as new tech, whereas the community has been doing it for years. Without public money haha. What we need now is access to the fibre, then digitalbritain will really rock.

Great article that sums up exactly what is going on with the "Digital Britain" con. It also would not surprise me if someone said that money from the new "Broadband Tax" that will supposedly fund a new "high speed network" will get routed to pay for this outmoded copper rubbish. And it's not like laying fibre is rocket science, we've been doing it long enough. And we have gangs of people who know how to do it laying idle after being made redundant, I know, because my son is one of them.

Bonded broadband is already available although sat broadband is becoming so much cheaper that it is starting to look more attractive than paying for several telephone lines to bond. BET if it happens is just another stop gap, bad quality lines, not brilliant speeds, extended with some sort of power over ethernet? There are already stop gap alternatives out there! So why not concentrate on the future for broadband.

Thanks for that last comment SubtleBlade, excellent observations, totally agree. The original blog post had to be edited down and finer points lost to keep it simple. I am not a specialist either, but we are showing on this media140 blog that us ordinary grassroots people have a better concept of 'broadband' than a lot of others? I hope so. My definition of bb is a connection that lets me do whatever I like, when I like and gives me as much data transfer that I am prepared to pay for. Just like electric, just like water. Unlimited. In Spain they don't have electric like we do. If you plug too many things in it goes slow. Lotsa countries don't have tap water you can drink. We are so lucky here, just the broadband needs to be ubiquitous and then we've cracked it.

A good analysis of what's wrong with BET (and BT). Two minor points I'd like to raise though. 1. 'This [reliance on copper wire based physical infrastructure] is a result of the broadband technology, called ADSL, which is currently in place'. I'd like to take issue with this one statement, as I believe that the reverse is in fact the case. ADSL was developed as a solution to the problem of a copper wire based infrastructure. If the copper wire telephone infrastructure had been replaced by glass fibre (as has been mooted several times in the past) ADSL would not have been needed. 2. Broadband as a term has been corrupted, as so many words are, by ill use in marketing. Correctly used Broadband refers to use of multiple carrier signals, operating at different frequencies, carried on a single physical line (of any material); it does not necessarily mean a fat pipe. Perhaps we should just be focusing on getting an appropriate levels of data throughput, rather than being distracted by squabbling over what constitutes a 'broadband' connection? I'm not a telecoms/network specialist, so welcome corroboration/correction of the above by those better informed.

Thanks NGA UK, most people don't know the first thing about BET, BT, Broadband or anything else to do with comms. Tweeting and blogging is raising awareness, so people will come to join our JFDI groups. To most people broadband is a utility, they don't want details, they just want it to work. Tweeting also reaches the orgs responsible for helping us, the RDAs, the Councils, the highways depts. We can't all be digging for victory literally, some work is needed virtually. I totally agree with you about the rest of your post! We are passionate, and in the words of M.Ghandi: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you win. Somehow this is a battle we have to win, or digitalbritain stays in the slow lane of copper forever.

It does not matter whether BET is technically feasible or not (in some areas it will work) it is the wrong thing to be investing in. If BT cannot properly deliver broadband to rural communities then step back and help those who can. Help. Yes that's they key and something that is unusual for a company who have spent their whole privatised life hindering the progress of others. Help. Face it BT you cannot do the country. Focus your efforts on urban areas and business services that will make your balance sheet healthy again and grant rights of access to passive infrastructure in rural (and semi-urban) areas so that others who are passionate about Digital Britain and (more to the point) digital inclusion can fill the cavernous holes you have left. For those of you left disenfranchised by BET stop writing your grievances on Twitter and do something about it - the problem is not insurmountable you just need to re-channel some of that energy!

Cool, thanks Tref, it is great to see people from the industry posting here and supporting our quest for Nex Gen Access. kudos.

cyberdoyle is quite right. also what people forget is that copper is slow and expensive to maintain and fibre is fast and cheap to maintain. Moreover I think we are wrong to be thinking in terms of 40Mbps say for a USO. We should be setting ourselves up to ulitmately be able to do a Gig or more. Once the fibre is in then all that will need changing is the equipment at each end.

[...] worth taking a look at this blog post at media140.org. It contains part of a talk given by @cyberdoyle, a regular commenter on trefor.net [...]

Thank you everyone for your comments, I am also very grateful to Dee for editing my post, which was quite a document when she received it this morning. (I don't profess to be a writer). I am so pleased so many people are getting IT, and together we can make a difference. We have already proved it in our small community, and I am still amazed that many 'tech' sites still continue to trot out the same old garbage press releases from the telcos instead of investigating and finding out the truth. At least with blogs like this and twitter the people are finding a voice. Thanks again. Power to the People. JFDI.