Boris promises fibre for everyone in UK by 2025. Realistic?

Gidster
London, UKMember Posts: 224
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How practical is new UK Prime Minister's Boris Johnson's promise to get fibre to 90% of UK homes and businesses, to deliver super high-speed internet, by 2025? And is it really needed? What benefits would it bring? Isn't the real challenge getting decent connectivity to those living in broadband black-spots who are struggling to get more than 2mbps?
Head of Product at Fing
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Good question. @Jack I see you are in the UK. I wonder your thoughts too ^^
Community Manager at Fing
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If it's any consolation, this was already a planned endeavour anyway as BT have been working on this before Boris mentioned it.
BT are trying to retire their old copper PSTN infrastructure which would require something else in place. If you try and sign up for a new account they're trying to offer up their fibre connections over copper for this reason.1 -
Story on the BBC over the weekend where the main fibre broadband companies lay out the key challenges that need to be resolved in order to deliver on this promise, including: planning reform, lifting of what's called the "fibre tax", commitments on regulations for new builds and addressing skills shortages that could result from Brexit:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49209013
Head of Product at Fing0 -
6 years? Somehow I don't think so. In the towns and cities, sure, but across the UK?
The advantage here is the 90% figure: this I assume is the easy cop out for houses deep in the Yorkshire dales, nestled in the Welsh valleys, or those dotted around the lochs of Scotland - and that just for starters. In fact I could see that this could therefore preclude large amounts of blighty as a result - which would be a shame.People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.0 -
@RHH if the UK is anything like the US when it comes to TelCo's priorities. rural Britain will be at the bottom of the list of rollout locations. TelCo's go for the highest profit margin - and sadly despite it being wireless to the consumer, it's still a major investment.
For example, here in the US, compare a high population density area such as Manhattan in New York, with rural Loving County in Texas. Whilst the median income is broadly similar ($85K in Manhattan to $80K in Loving County) the population density makes rural broadband in Loving County a virtual no-go, with the revenue per mile in Manhattan being $347K and Loving County being just 50 cents...
Money always talks.People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.2 -
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D00B said:It will be interesting to see where all the trained personnel come from to carry out this work. Someone will be on a huge recruitment drive!
The bulk of the work is pretty basic, very little training, a week or so.
Isp/rsps the same, 3 days traing in most cases.
Back office obviously very high level staff, but none like that in the front line.
Our largest rsp has all support os. (India and Philipines, better staff usually trained in the united states!)
Nbnco support is local but firewalled from end users, who must deal only with rsps.
$50B+ approx to rollout in Australia.1
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