Don't tell me what I want

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Just reminded of my response to Bill Murphy BT in response to his comment (3mins in) about BT being able to deliver "what Rory wants, what the county wants, and what you want". (Thanks to Philip Virgo's blog post in Computer Weekly)

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com

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I don't want FTTC. I definitely don't want BET or ADSL2+. I don't want a dodgy mobile broadband connection to go with my already poor mobile coverage. And I don't want a repeat of Project Access (£23M) which originally had the chance to bring fat pipes to many Cumbrian villages, and was dumbed down to ADSL enable exchanges with YourComms (as I understood it, not BT), build a wireless network I don't know if *anyone* uses and which interfered with our CLEO schools network, and put in a few miles of fibre to a sink estate in Cockermouth or Workington or somewhere. (That ADSL enablement has left many Cumbrians without working broadband in 2010 because of the technicalities of ADSL over line length and "99% of Cumbria has broadband" is no more true than 99% of UK has broadband - time to be honest about the true situation, please).

I am deadly serious about requiring my gigabucket per second connection. And I know after all these years that that is what my count(r)y needs in order to play catch up on the global broadband stage. That is the bar, and I would really prefer it if BT or anyone else stop trying to lower it so consistently. Let's be ambitious and let's be real about what this country needs.

And stop telling me what I want. No-one has EVER in 15 years asked me what I, as a small rural business and mum want for and from my broadband, nor what I would be willing to pay. I'm not saying every piece of market research should target me, (please don't!) but there are enough people in BT etc who know me who could have asked.

I am highly representative of a UK rural SME and know that it would only need a few companies like me willing to put my money where my mouth is to stop BT's ADSL 2+, FTTC etc plans in their tracks because we will JFDI gigabucket broadband without BT in the first mile. Or else, as I posted about the other day, I'm off, with my business, to Chattanooga.