RE: Re: "Mid-Band" - Hope for rural Home Automators!

["Mark Hetherington" <mark.egroups@xxxxxxx>]

Graham Howe wrote:
> Exactly the same for me Ian, I couldn't agree more. To rub salt in
> the wound, I actually walk past my exchange on the way to the local
> pub. It is only about 300m away from my house. But we live in a
> village of less than 2000 and they want over 25% to sign up before
> enabling the exchange. I'd like to see that sort of percentage take
> up required in a city, they'd never get it!

At least you have a trigger level set. There is no trigger level set for my
exchange. :(

It does have a higher registered interest at the moment that a number of
exchanges that do have a trigger level set and currently ranks at 831 of
2770 tracked on adsl-guide.co.uk. If they ever do bother setting a trigger
it will likely be as outrageous as the one on your exchange so of little if
any use in getting ADSL.

> At least with my server doing a scheduled connect every 15 minutes
> during the day, I have a chance to access the home from work, but
> there really is no comparison with 'real broadband'.

I have considered investing sufficiently to allow for a 24/7 dial up, but
since I am already paying more for HH than I would for ADSL I begrudge
being
forced to spend even more money on it. Having had to use an analogue modem
recently, I cannot bring myself to vote completely with my wallet by
returning to a modem and dropping HH.

Thinking back to the ADSL trials and the proposals for
"mid-band", it will
likely take just as long to get "mid-band" so is of no great
comfort. It
will likely be priced just as unfavourably as HH. Personally I think there
is more promise from the announcement to spend £1bn of taxpayer money
to get
broadband to all schools etc.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2481785.stm

Many rural areas do have schools so this will hopefully increase rural
areas
chances to get broadband when their local school gets it. Still far from
ideal but at least it represents a more solid commitment by the government
to act towards their "e-targets".

If there are any elections coming up (not voted in years so I have lost
track of the timings) then all a party needs to do to buy my vote is ensure
that BB rollout is made to the whole country and immediately.

I do wonder how many exchanges could have been enabled just by setting
aside
a small proportion of the advertising budget for BB. Hmm, just caught the
end credits of CBB and guess who the sponsor is... yeah BT Broadband.

Broadband appears to sell best to people when they use it, so set-up a
couple PCs in a supermarket one with one without and let people see it in
action. Drop the installation charge and sell additional services as Sky
did
to expand Digital take-up while removing the entry barrier. BT should
speculate to accumulate not just wait and try and get it all for nothing.

Mark.
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.419 / Virus Database: 235 - Release Date: 13/11/02


http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subscribe:  ukha_d-subscribe@xxxxxxx
Unsubscribe:  ukha_d-unsubscribe@xxxxxxx
List owner:  ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx

List of UKHA Groups here - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UKHA_Grouplists/

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/