Home-counties bandwidth Favela.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009 16:46.
I wasn’t as quick off the mark as Peter Job about the Digital Britain report………….and for good reason as I’m…..gulp….this is such a difficult admission to make……….the stigma really is causing embarrassment for my family and neighbours........I didn’t think it would ever happen to me…….OK I’ll just say it…….I live on the wrong side of the Digital Britain tracks!
With a Bband connection well below par (alas contemplating media piracy is a mere pipe dream), zero mobile phone reception, and frankly even my telly goes a bit funny if a motorbike drives past; I am well and truly in the sticks, and was able to get to the bit of War and Peace where Denisov falls for the lovely Natasha, but is cruelly rejected, before coaxing the Digital Britain report out of my DSL line.
As you may have guessed I’m wholeheartedly behind the Robin Hoodesque tax on the bandwidth rich to help the likes of me, but am too wondering if it’s realistically going to change much. Even using this as a top up tax to broaden plans already being put in place by BT, there seems to be a mighty large shortfall still to be plugged.
Though I’m not quite in a Notspot, I equally don’t think I qualify as an easy-to-reach urban or suburban area so I have that annoying middle of the road experience which equates to no particular bandwidth boost for quite some time. Radio based techs may be my final panacea but at present no bars on my Nokia (even if I take the Sellotape off it just-in-case) is not instilling much confidence
So my thoughts are that the report’s a reasonable start, there seem to be the right buzzwords, but there doesn’t seem to be much thought to innovation within the delivery mechanism particularly with physical medium like fibre-optics. I’m certain there are ways in which this could be made more economical, and consequently improving the reach. In the South East there were fibre rollouts using the overhead power grid as a delivery mechanism, there have been rollouts using the sewer system as a pre-laid provisioning grid for robotic “cable-snakes” (am I the only person who had nightmares about that one), mobile companies are beginning to combine efforts with mutually shared masts, and in some cases networks, to the betterment of both partners.
It is this spirit of cooperation, innovation, and perhaps an eye to altruistic improvement for the benefit of all, that could really deliver the content of the report. Let’s hope it’s the catalyst for a cohesive drive to bring about change, and I can live my digital nirvana of casually watching streamed muted HD media, whilst backing up my ripped music collection, and talking on the IP phone to the boatyard in Monaco where they are overhauling my Superyacht :) I’m not typically a glass-half empty person, however I suspect an outcome short of the mark. I’d love to be proven wrong though.
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