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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

#161
I get 100Mbps symmetrical (Fiber) in the UK living in a city. Honestly, I'm not sure I could go back. Most residential homes struggle to average anything near that with ADSL.

Welcome news. Fast Internet is important to the economy in an increasingly information based society.

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

#162
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…

For clarity - whilst most connectivity infrastructure in London is underground, it's almost always within a primary duct, so running new infrastructure is usually a case of pulling in a new cable as opposed to "ripping up the street". In fact, anyone approved can use BTs own ducts and poles via their PIA product[1], which has created a resurgent and incredibly active market of "alternative" network providers ("alt ne…

Hyperoptic we're great. I could pay £5/month for a static IPv4 so I wasn't stuck behind CGNAT, their IPv6 worked great and I could use my own network equipment and they're provide the configs; though I hear they're less forthcoming with that info for people running not-ISP hardware these days.

First monthly contract I've parted ways with reluctantly (I moved home).

I got the first year free from one-month discounts by referring all my neighbours.

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

#163
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But why? How many videos are you going to watch at the same time?

Not sure about the answer to that exact question but I’d like to turn my PC on and be able to update any game I feel like playing in less than 5 minutes. Sometimes there are many 10s of gigabytes of updates.

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

#164
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast now offers vastly higher upload speeds (10mbps -> 100mbps) so long as you rent their modem, which is an additional $25/month, but also comes with unlimited data. Paying for unlimited data separately costs $30/month if you own your own modem, but doesn't yet support higher upload speeds. It's unfortunate that this is the case, but for those who need higher upload speeds, it's at least possible with Comcast now…

From the article you link: "Comcast told Ars that faster upload speeds will come to customer-owned modems "later next year" but did not provide a more specific timeline." So, no. Do not rent their modem/router crap.

It's still cheaper than owning your own (if you already have the unlimited data add-on).

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

#165
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.

Seems like a really bad idea to mandate that download be no higher than upload. Would just result in few/no plans with high down bandwidth.

but how does a fiber connection even get affected by a limited upload? it's just an artificial limit in order to squeeze larger monthly fees from the user. it's not like extra gear/equipment is needed to give full speed in both directions.

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

#166
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet infrastructure regulation varies quite dramatically across the developed world. Canada, Germany, Switzerland, etc., do not “treat the Internet like a utility” for the most part. Also, “treating Internet like a utility” actually means a “corporate monopoly” nearly everywhere. The situation in the UK is very similar to the situation in much of the northeast US. You have a former monopoly provider (there BT, he…

Not really the same though, we have many options that ride on top of the BT OpenReach network so most urban places get many cheap options for internet. If you want fibre to the home then Virgin Media is still your main option which is a little annoying.

But what are your options for fiber to the home? It seems to me like whether you have FTTP available to me depends on whether BT decides to build fiber to your house.

Yeah, telephone loop unbundling adds some additional competition for the actual internet transit portion. But when people say “like a utility” I think they are thinking about something like sewer/water utilities in the US, where a municipal entity builds and runs the infrastructure with taxes.

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

#167

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 thr…

I mean what you are saying is true but how does it relate to mandated gigabit internet?

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

#168
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that the cost of materials has any impact at all on the inflated price of a house in the UK?

Not just materials, but materials too, yes. But time and effort is probably more costly.

Land value and inflation driven by supply shortage are the actual drivers of house prices in the UK. Especially with new builds, the BOM is very small, and houses are built typically to an exceptionally poor standard.

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

#169
post #6

How i understand is is Gigabit is two parts: the first part is your home, router, etc supporting the connection speeds. The other is the infrastructure to deliver the gigabit to your home. I can see a regulation that mandates that you wire any new residences up so they can support gigabit, but how is this going to work if the municipality / ISP does not offer it? Not sure about what Gigabit rollout in the UK looks li…

>>I can see a regulation that mandates that you wire any new residences up so they can support gigabit, but how is this going to work if the municipality / ISP does not offer it? If read the article, it says the cap is 2000 pounds, so the developer must do all the make-ready work in the house to support 1G internet, but they only have to actually connect to the fastest option available - and then only if the total co…

What possible steps would a developer take to "make-ready" for 1 gigabit internet? Does the front door need to open and shut faster? Are the toilets going to have 4k flushing? I'm struggling to figure out how a developer could impede internet access if they actually wanted to.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comcast now offers vastly higher upload speeds (10mbps -> 100mbps) so long as you rent their modem, which is an additional $25/month, but also comes with unlimited data. Paying for unlimited data separately costs $30/month if you own your own modem, but doesn't yet support higher upload speeds. It's unfortunate that this is the case, but for those who need higher upload speeds, it's at least possible with Comcast now…

>Comcast now offers vastly higher upload speeds (10mbps -> 100mbps) I mean, yeah, I guess normally a 10x increase is deemed a good thing and could be considered "vastly higher". Who wouldn't be impressed with a 10x bump in pay? However, 100mbps is still tragically low. Having anything less than full bandwidth up/down on a fiber line is just cheating the user artificially. Being fiber, I could see offering a cheaper m…

It’s not “cheating the user artificially.” Comcast delivers service over shared-medium coaxial cable that was originally designed for one-way service. The available frequencies are split into upload and download portions, and increasing the upload speed decreases the download speed.
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