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England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

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Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#91

Post by toast0 »

dahfizz wrote: post #65
thedaly wrote: post #52

I wish that countries would mandate symmetrical connections as well. This would open up so much more opportunity for self hosting web apps and allow for decentralized sites, such as peertube, to function better.

I disagree. The vast majority of people are never going to need or care about hosting a decentralized hoozywhatsit. Mandating technical decisions that cause waste is suboptimal. You get symmetrical speeds with fiber, but if ISPs could use the existing fiber infrastructure and allocate 75% of the bandwidth as download instead of 50%, that would be a win.

> You get symmetrical speeds with fiber, but if ISPs could use the existing fiber infrastructure and allocate 75% of the bandwidth as download instead of 50%, that would be a win.

That depends on the fiber access mechanism. GPON is usually 2.4 G down / 1.2 G up TDMA over a shared medium. The downstream direction has perfect synchronization because it's a single sender, but upstream synchronization is more difficult across the many terminals, so they use a lower speed to compensate. I don't know what the common fiber connectivity models are in the UK though.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#92

Post by DeusExMachina »

ericmay wrote: post #79
whimsicalism wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mandating infra that will never be used and isn't needed.

Well that might be an assumption that it will never be used. Maybe if people had it they would use it? But also I'm interested in if/whether this builds infrastructure resilience as well. Would be interesting to see a well-thought cost/benefit analysis there. In America at least given that every ISP without exception is a giant piece of crap, mandating them to do things I'm going to generally approve of, especially i…

Anecdote is not data, but I have a fiber connection and I pretty much never use the upload bandwidth I have.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#93

Post by dp-hackernews »

The beginning of the end of privacy. The beginning of the end of freedom of speech. Who will control the conduit to the outside - NOT the individual. This is the beginning of a worldwide MITM attack on all of society! Tyranny comes slowly, like an aid to ones life until you are trapped by it and no longer have the ability to reject it. It gives you just enough riches to allow you to hang yourself, or to force you throw yourself at the feet of the tyrant. Nothing good will come of this if it is allowed to be enforced unchallenged. Just who is looking to the future for the benefit of the masses?

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#94

Post by theandrewbailey »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #44

Just in time for wired internet to be obsolete. Especially for apartment buildings, makes much more sense to provide WiFi throughout private and common area than running cables to each unit. Even for individual homes, neighborhood 5g cells can do the trick for most people's needs. Also locking in current technology when constructing a building that could last a century is really dumb. Better to have access panels in…

Wifi is unreliable and laggy, and forcing everyone in an apartment building to use it for everything is a recipe for disaster. Same for 5g.

As for access panels and pipes, the article reads:

> Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 per home, and developers must still install gigabit-ready infrastructure (including ducts, chambers, and termination points) and the fastest-available connection if they’re unable to secure a gigabit connection within the cost cap.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#95

Post by _joel »

amalgamated_inc wrote: post #87
neximo64 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. You still have to buy the internet package from the ISP which is gigabit speed enabled. This only ensures it is available. The law isn't that free gigabit internet is to be offered to all houses.

But somebody now has to hire a lawyer and check that regulation wasn't violated. Processes have to be changed. If the law makes any difference at all, somebody had to change something, and that cost is being passed on to the consumer (=buyer/renter).

I'd say very minimal compared to the rest of the costs of building a house.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#96

Post by hateful »

dahfizz wrote: post #65
thedaly wrote: post #52

I wish that countries would mandate symmetrical connections as well. This would open up so much more opportunity for self hosting web apps and allow for decentralized sites, such as peertube, to function better.

I disagree. The vast majority of people are never going to need or care about hosting a decentralized hoozywhatsit. Mandating technical decisions that cause waste is suboptimal. You get symmetrical speeds with fiber, but if ISPs could use the existing fiber infrastructure and allocate 75% of the bandwidth as download instead of 50%, that would be a win.

Don't forget about Security Cameras - if you check in on them remotely, that's all upload.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#97

Post by IMSAI8080 »

ac29 wrote: post #2

It should be noted that according to government estimates, 88% of new homes were already built with gigabit access prior to this law (which seems impressive as an American!). The new rule is expected to move that number to 98%.

The incumbent cable provider (Virgin Media) offers gigabit to virtually every property they serve, which is something like 15 million homes. That's maybe about 60% of total UK properties. I can already get VM gigabit I just don't want to pay for it. There's a competing fibre cable broadband company currently installing a separate network in my town and the incumbent national telco (British Telecom) is replacing all the last mile copper in town with fibre.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#98

Post by noodlesUK »

toast0 wrote: post #91
dahfizz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The vast majority of people are never going to need or care about hosting a decentralized hoozywhatsit. Mandating technical decisions that cause waste is suboptimal. You get symmetrical speeds with fiber, but if ISPs could use the existing fiber infrastructure and allocate 75% of the bandwidth as download instead of 50%, that would be a win.

> You get symmetrical speeds with fiber, but if ISPs could use the existing fiber infrastructure and allocate 75% of the bandwidth as download instead of 50%, that would be a win. That depends on the fiber access mechanism. GPON is usually 2.4 G down / 1.2 G up TDMA over a shared medium. The downstream direction has perfect synchronization because it's a single sender, but upstream synchronization is more difficult a…

It’s GPON in most deployments. I think they’re rolling out XGS-PON in some places.

Re: England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

#100

Post by c294f417-3c8a »

Our new build house had this 6 years ago (house wired for gigabit) What it means is there is ducting to the manhole for fibre. That's it. We had to suffer 2.5 megabit asdl for 2 years until openreach finally put fibre into our area. This announcement is meaningless, they should ensure all new build estates are connected to fibre and make the developer pay for the connection. Oh, and the ducting was filled with red stone chips so openreach had to reroute the fibre cabling anyway
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