Live data from Hacker News

England just made gigabit internet a legal requirement for new homes

theverge.com

131–140 of 340 posts

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

#131
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism doesn't work when the government grants monopolies to local companies.

The monopolies in question are natural monopolies (basically any infrastructure which is physically constrained), so the only way of lessening the damages from them is via government regulations.

Nope, the monopolies in question are granted by the local towns to specific providers so that they will be unprofitable connections to extremely rural recipients. It's a way to subsidize those who don't want to pay for what it would actually cost by secretly taxing everyone in the community by granting monopolies to certain businesses.

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

#132
post #82
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.

This law is about home networking, which has nothing do with with symmetrical/asymmetrical bandwidth allotted by your ISP.

> Additionally, a new law has been introduced that requires new properties in England to be built with gigabit broadband connections, sparing tenants from footing the bill for later upgrades.

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

#133
post #90

Some color about buying home internet in London vs San Francisco (in my experience). I recently moved back from London to San Francisco. In my 3 years in central London (N1) I had to use a 5g hotspot (thank you, Vodafone unlimited) to get anything close to fast internet in my flat. If I went with a wired "broadband" connection I could not get more than 10Mbps down. The street next to mine had gigabit fiber though. Th…

My previous home in London was a purpose built flat. I could chose between two different fibre-to-the-home providers that had each run their own wire to each apartment in the block. They were both quite cheap.

Recently I moved to a terraced house about 300m from my previous flat. The only internet option is expensive and slow fibre-to-the-cabinet-down-the-street.

Yes, coverage in London is uneven!

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

#134

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).

It's building regulations - basically what's called "code" in the US. The building inspector (should) make sure it's followed. No lawyers needed.

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

#135
post #90

Some color about buying home internet in London vs San Francisco (in my experience). I recently moved back from London to San Francisco. In my 3 years in central London (N1) I had to use a 5g hotspot (thank you, Vodafone unlimited) to get anything close to fast internet in my flat. If I went with a wired "broadband" connection I could not get more than 10Mbps down. The street next to mine had gigabit fiber though. Th…

They need to reword the law to keep up with Moore's Law, so that if you built a home in 2023 you'd be required to have 1 gigabit, in 2024 you'd be required to have 1.2 gigabit, in 2025 you'd be required to have 1.44 gigabit, etc.

The moment internet connections don't keep up with Moore's Law, the real estate typhoons would then have no choice but to fund bandwidth-related R&D to get internet connections back on track with the requirement before they could sell more homes.

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

#136
post #90

Some color about buying home internet in London vs San Francisco (in my experience). I recently moved back from London to San Francisco. In my 3 years in central London (N1) I had to use a 5g hotspot (thank you, Vodafone unlimited) to get anything close to fast internet in my flat. If I went with a wired "broadband" connection I could not get more than 10Mbps down. The street next to mine had gigabit fiber though. Th…

How was the 5G hotspot though?

If you are in the right location it's a viable alternative to fibre. Here's mine, elsewhere in the UK (not in Newcastle):

https://www.speedtest.net/result/14185051949

Cheaper than fibre and 30-day rolling contract. Unlimited data.

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

#137
post #119

Just more admin fees and paperwork to build a building, making them more expensive. Make 30cm insulation a requirement so we don't pay £2000 per year for electric heating. I asked my property management company if they would, eghm, _consider_ improving external insulation, they responded they have no such legal requirements, so they won't. We pay 4x more for heating and warm water than in 2018, and have it colder and…

Most new builds are a B on the EPC scale [0]. I guess they could require that all new builds meet A?

0 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-performance-...

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the bulk of FTTP connections in the UK, to which this article refers, which run over Openreach’s common last-mile or Virgin Media’s DOCSIS cables. They’re the only National operators offering gigabit, or near-gigabit speeds. There are plenty of smaller ISPs that run their own fibre and do offer symmetric connections, but the bigger players all off asymmetric connections.

Your comment contradicts itself. You mention a bulk of FTTP connections then mention virgins DOCSIS. I’m assuming you’re talking about their Coaxial cables, if so it’s not FTTP in the first place it will be FTTC. My understanding is their new fibre lays are all “symmetric ready”, same with BT. You’re right they currently don’t operate them in that fashion, but they’ve laid the groundwork. See below. https://www.ispre…

I'm a customer of virgin's fttp connection, which is converted from fibre to coax on premise - so yes, actual fiber going to your house, but running docsis in some fashion or other

The article you linked covers this as well:

> while more than 1 million of their premises are also being served by “full fibre” FTTP using the older Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) approach to ensure compatibility between both sides of their network.

As for them going symmetric in the future: I'll believe it when they do, not holding my breath

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

#139
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure. Now add the millions of other "tiny" regulations.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It's building regulations - basically what's called "code" in the US. The building inspector (should) make sure it's followed. No lawyers needed.

Who pays for the inspector?
Post reply on HN