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Tuesday 23 March 2010

And so the mutilation of our language continues...

Superfast broadband will not be available to everyone by 2012. Will journalists, bloggers, marketers, and social commentators please get their facts straight before putting fingers to keyboards?

"Superfast broadband" should be permitted to be used as a phrase ONLY when speeds of 100Mbps are involved. Not up to 100Mbps, nor 2Mbps, nor 20Mbps.

What is being promised in this week's speeches and headlines, although the detail of how it will actually be delivered is very unclear, is that every house in the UK should have an up to 2Mbps connection by 2012. Mobile and satellite are being mooted as potential solutions where the copper won't deliver, and no-one has been talking about ensuring that symmetry plays a part.

The facts are that it looks like it will be a Universal Service Commitment rather than a Universal Service Obligation (which carries a legal duty), that the actual bandwidth, quality, contention etc currently are undefined, and the depth of thinking which has been done to ensure that this is a logical first step in the delivery of next generation connectivity (which had better truly be superfast or this country will never catch up with other countries) seems to have been minimal.





1 comment:

Cybersavvy UK said...

I would like to point out this was written before Ofcom put a 24Mbps def on superfast.

However, I stand by the need for symmetry.

I don't care what YOU can give me. The world is not about YOU, whether you are a TV station, Murdoch, Video on Demand, or some fancy timeshift, 3D, animated, all hours casino with chat show plus agony aunt.

My world is about me and I want to upload it to share with MY friends, family, colleagues, readers, fans, followers, collaborators, strangers, cohorts, co-vloggers, etc. Not who you choose, but who I choose to upload it to.

Cyworld mastered this 10 years ago. We need to catch up, cash in, and create.