A nice reality check on UK infrastructure
Link: At home, Japanese access the Web at 1 gigabits per second  21talks.
This one by Nuno is shocking…
Now, a reporter of Network World says that both ISPs Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. could provide a 1 gigabits per second fiber-optic Internet access to residential buildings for just $36 per month. An insanely big(!) bandwidth, that allow everyone to go fully digital.
Sometimes I have to sit back and remember that we really are in the dark ages here in the United Kingdom, compared to the Japanese and the other South East Asian countries investing heavily in connected infrastructure.
I despair, I really do.
Every time I mention anything remotely near ‘bandwidth’ to anyone from British Telecom, they immediately turn defensive. They grab their young children and hurry them into the bunker, board up their windows, stock pile the food and get ready for the onslaught from me — from which they have absolutely zero defence.
“Ah, but we’ve got some big backbone stuff coming,” they tell me.
Right, ok, but when can I get Skype working, properly?
“Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ll be able to do full motion video with the stuff we’ve got coming. To your TV, noless.”
Right, yes, I accept this. It sounds exciting. When?
“Oh, you know, not long. Q3.”
Q3 of what year?
“KIDS. KIDS? GET INSIDE.”
Q3 of what year?
“Er, well, you know, soon. It’s really fast.”
Sorry to put you on the spot, but how fast?
“Oh well you know, gigabit backbones and stuff.”
Yup that doesn’t quite help me does it.
One day, I think I might get a Satellite connection installed and ask the supplier to, just for one day, let me use a 155mpbs connection. Just so I can take a picture and point to my grandkids — ‘yes, look, I had a 155mbps connection — for a day — when I was young. Aye, we’ve only just got that now 70 years later, eh? Amazing!’
I despair. I really do. Here we are, part of the G7 group of countries, and we can’t even deliver a quality connection to me sat in Shitsville, Essix. Meanwhile, somewhere on the opposite side of the planet, a clearly skilled, passionate, enthusiastic team at NTT are busy playing with 1 gig/sec connections.
I’m lucky to get 155k a second throughput with my 2mb ‘business’ ADSL connection. That’s 155k from Google. Or someone who’s got really fast servers.
So, well spotted Nuno. I recommend anyone who, like me, has their nose pressed against the window watching all the lucky kids in Japan playing with full motion video to their desktop, has a read of Nuno’s post.
