free broadband for all 22:08 - Nov 14 with 12750 views | lowhouseblue | nationalising bt and we all get free broad band. cool. come on labour, add sky to the list so that we get free sky sports as well - what's the point of having the free broadband otherwise. yeah free stuff. | |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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free broadband for all on 11:15 - Nov 15 with 1776 views | Swansea_Blue | About time too. Let's get connected for a modern age. Politicising the civil service would be a disaster though. | |
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free broadband for all on 11:28 - Nov 15 with 1758 views | Pinewoodblue | Surely there are two issues Getting the infrastructure in place, then maintaining it. If anything would prefer doing away with TV licence fee. | |
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free broadband for all on 12:56 - Nov 15 with 1719 views | BackToRussia | Still waiting for your basic maths. | |
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free broadband for all on 13:40 - Nov 15 with 1677 views | BryanPlug | [content removed at owner's request] | |
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free broadband for all on 17:06 - Nov 15 with 1637 views | BackToRussia |
free broadband for all on 12:56 - Nov 15 by BackToRussia | Still waiting for your basic maths. |
Bump. This is taking ages. | |
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free broadband for all on 17:12 - Nov 15 with 1635 views | azuremerlangus | Education for children is free too - not to say that everybody makes the most of it! | |
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free broadband for all on 17:24 - Nov 15 with 1614 views | Clapham_Junction |
free broadband for all on 09:51 - Nov 15 by StokieBlue | BT are already disputing the costings and put them at more like 100bn to do what Labour are promising - the boss of BT's take: "It needs funding, it is very big numbers, so we are talking 30 to 40 billion pounds.. and if you are giving it away over an eight year time frame it is a another 30 or 40 billion pounds. You are not short of 100 billion pounds." He might be totally wrong but given the huge difference we need to see some proper numbers and analysis. Talk Talk were due to sell their fibre infrastructure but that's now been canned until after the election by the buyers. Interestingly the state owned Deutsche Telecom is the biggest shareholder in BT. I wonder what the Germans think about the idea of getting UK debt for their investment. SB |
Labour appear to be using the government's own figures, which suggested it could be done for £20.3bn under a national monopoly model, vs £32bn under an "enhanced competition" model. See summary on p102: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attac | | | |
free broadband for all on 17:31 - Nov 15 with 1607 views | BloomBlue | The crazy thing is Labour have been calling for BT's monopoly to be broken up for years and what are they going to do, replace it with an even bigger monopoly. This will destroy the Tech sector in this Country, a sector which employees vast numbers of people. And from what I can hasn't factored in the cost of paying the BT employees or taking over part of the BT pension fund. | | | | Login to get fewer ads
free broadband for all on 17:57 - Nov 15 with 1583 views | longtimefan |
That's the capital cost of providing the infrastructure. It doesn't factor in acquiring Openreach, paying for their wages, lack of any return due to giving away free access or having to address BT Pension deficit! In particular that cost is based on the key assumption that "FTTP deployment in unprofitable areas is funded from profits earned in the lower cost areas". As Labour is giving it away for free this doesn't apply. | | | |
free broadband for all on 18:00 - Nov 15 with 1580 views | longtimefan |
free broadband for all on 17:06 - Nov 15 by BackToRussia | Bump. This is taking ages. |
While we're at maybe you could reply to this one on Page 3. "Can I ask why you pay £80/month? I get fiber to the curb with around 50Mbit/s for less than £30/month through BT." | | | |
free broadband for all on 18:06 - Nov 15 with 1574 views | LankHenners |
Logged in to make this point as it didn't seem that it had been picked up on. The general debate over Labour's scatter-gun approach to these announcements and the practicalities of this specific one are still valid but I wonder if there'll be a mea culpa from the people very much playing the man rather than the ball on this one... | |
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free broadband for all on 18:27 - Nov 15 with 1551 views | BloomBlue |
free broadband for all on 17:57 - Nov 15 by longtimefan | That's the capital cost of providing the infrastructure. It doesn't factor in acquiring Openreach, paying for their wages, lack of any return due to giving away free access or having to address BT Pension deficit! In particular that cost is based on the key assumption that "FTTP deployment in unprofitable areas is funded from profits earned in the lower cost areas". As Labour is giving it away for free this doesn't apply. |
BT are saying when you include things like openreach staff and the ongoing costs of employing those, plus pension and buying the shares the cost will be nearer 100billion than 20billion | | | |
free broadband for all on 18:37 - Nov 15 with 1540 views | BackToRussia |
free broadband for all on 18:00 - Nov 15 by longtimefan | While we're at maybe you could reply to this one on Page 3. "Can I ask why you pay £80/month? I get fiber to the curb with around 50Mbit/s for less than £30/month through BT." |
That's how much the best service is from Virgin. It's different all over the country, good reason to standardise it really. | |
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free broadband for all on 18:50 - Nov 15 with 1510 views | Swansea_Blue |
free broadband for all on 17:12 - Nov 15 by azuremerlangus | Education for children is free too - not to say that everybody makes the most of it! |
This is the nonsensical thing isn’t it. We already have plenty of ‘free’ stuff (things we don’t pay for at the point of supply). School age education, roads, much of the NHS, public order via the police & judiciary, emergency services, etc. This would just be something else. And it isn’t really free, none of it. We’ll pay one way or the other. Our broadband is pretty poor in the UK - just had a quick look and last year we were ranked 35th quickest. Romania’s is about twice as quick on average! So maybe we do need public funds to sort it out? Could they have a balance - significant public investment to upgrade to service and then charge for usage? Moot point I suppose as that’s not what they’re talking about, but they could easily fall back to that position is the finances don’t work out. | |
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free broadband for all on 18:55 - Nov 15 with 1506 views | longtimefan |
free broadband for all on 18:37 - Nov 15 by BackToRussia | That's how much the best service is from Virgin. It's different all over the country, good reason to standardise it really. |
Surely that must include services other than broadband? Assuming you get their gigabit service what do you do that actually makes use of those top-line speeds. I seem to manage to stream multiple tv channels and connect remotely to work without issue with 50M. | | | |
free broadband for all on 18:57 - Nov 15 with 1499 views | longtimefan |
free broadband for all on 18:06 - Nov 15 by LankHenners | Logged in to make this point as it didn't seem that it had been picked up on. The general debate over Labour's scatter-gun approach to these announcements and the practicalities of this specific one are still valid but I wonder if there'll be a mea culpa from the people very much playing the man rather than the ball on this one... |
See above. That figure doesn’t reflect Labour’s approach! | | | |
free broadband for all on 19:02 - Nov 15 with 1490 views | Clapham_Junction |
free broadband for all on 18:50 - Nov 15 by Swansea_Blue | This is the nonsensical thing isn’t it. We already have plenty of ‘free’ stuff (things we don’t pay for at the point of supply). School age education, roads, much of the NHS, public order via the police & judiciary, emergency services, etc. This would just be something else. And it isn’t really free, none of it. We’ll pay one way or the other. Our broadband is pretty poor in the UK - just had a quick look and last year we were ranked 35th quickest. Romania’s is about twice as quick on average! So maybe we do need public funds to sort it out? Could they have a balance - significant public investment to upgrade to service and then charge for usage? Moot point I suppose as that’s not what they’re talking about, but they could easily fall back to that position is the finances don’t work out. |
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free broadband for all on 19:02 - Nov 15 with 1489 views | BackToRussia |
free broadband for all on 18:55 - Nov 15 by longtimefan | Surely that must include services other than broadband? Assuming you get their gigabit service what do you do that actually makes use of those top-line speeds. I seem to manage to stream multiple tv channels and connect remotely to work without issue with 50M. |
It might be a bit less, my flat mate handles the bills, but it's above 50. It doesn't work very well even then. | |
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free broadband for all on 19:13 - Nov 15 with 1472 views | LankHenners |
free broadband for all on 18:57 - Nov 15 by longtimefan | See above. That figure doesn’t reflect Labour’s approach! |
Yes, there are complexities when it comes to the practicalities of some aspects which will need thrashing out, but the point is that a scheme that people are bashing Labour for plucking out of the air to appeal to people who want 'free stuff' was actually something that the current government considered in their own research on the matter. It seems to some it's only a bad idea because someone wearing a red rosette said it. | |
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free broadband for all on 19:21 - Nov 15 with 1455 views | Swansea_Blue |
I forgot about libraries. They’d be sending people round to take away our rubbish if Corbyn got his way! | |
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free broadband for all on 20:11 - Nov 15 with 1412 views | longtimefan |
free broadband for all on 19:13 - Nov 15 by LankHenners | Yes, there are complexities when it comes to the practicalities of some aspects which will need thrashing out, but the point is that a scheme that people are bashing Labour for plucking out of the air to appeal to people who want 'free stuff' was actually something that the current government considered in their own research on the matter. It seems to some it's only a bad idea because someone wearing a red rosette said it. |
In my opinion it wouldn’t matter what colour of government proposed what Labour is proposing, it doesn’t make sense. The reality is that what is being proposed is not what that document has costed. Real costs would be much greater given Labour’s nationalisation approach. However probably the biggest danger is that such an approach would actually delay the immediate rollout of such services. A decision to go down this route would immediately result in the curtailing of any private investment, while it’s expected to take 3 to 5 years to actually get a nationalised setup up and running! | | | |
free broadband for all on 20:17 - Nov 15 with 1402 views | Lord_Lucan | I haven't read the thread so apologies if already mentioned but if we were to stay in the EU there is no way they would accept UK having a state owned broadband service. | |
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free broadband for all on 20:23 - Nov 15 with 1401 views | longtimefan |
free broadband for all on 20:17 - Nov 15 by Lord_Lucan | I haven't read the thread so apologies if already mentioned but if we were to stay in the EU there is no way they would accept UK having a state owned broadband service. |
I think EU rules wouldn’t prohibit a state owned Broadband provider but they would take exception to it being a free service as that prevents effective competition. | | | |
free broadband for all on 20:29 - Nov 15 with 1392 views | No9 | Since 2010 the taxpayer has given BT the best part of £4 Billion. BT at the same time they pocketed that paid a fortune for a German mobile Phone Co And commenced BT sport at the cost of several £ Billions. You tories are happy to keep subsidising these companies - why? Back in the 70's PO telephones was one of the ofremeost telecoms companies in the world It is now lame duck - why should we continue to pay premium prices for a non BB package? | | | |
free broadband for all on 20:30 - Nov 15 with 1391 views | Dubtractor | One slightly odd aspect to this proposal for me, is that the areas most likely to benefit from improved internet are those that would still vote tory if the candidate was a wheelie bin with a blue rosette on it. | |
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