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France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

zdnet.com

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Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#21

Post by jseliger »

EwanToo wrote: post #16
mtgx wrote: post #9

Only 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload? I guess it would be okay for rural areas, but it's awfully obsolete for cities, even today, let alone for 2023 - at least for an European country, especially one like France. And why such low upload speeds?

Mmmm, describing 50 Mbps down as "okay for rural areas" doesn't really mesh with reality. Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with If you know any region in the world which isn't densely populated, but where every home (not just 1 or 2) has 50 Mbps download, I'd love to read about it. I know of a handful of self-starter village communities which are doing this (e.g. B4RN in the UK), and th…

>Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with That sounds like Tucson, where I used to live. Now I'm in New York and getting 50 Mbs down and 5 up for $20 – $30 less than I used to get 12 down and 2 up.

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#22

Post by rayiner »

alan_cx wrote: post #7
sambeau wrote: post #5

Britain would be better-off doing this rather than building ahigh-speed line. High speed internet for the whole country would be a massive stimulus to all sorts of new business ideas and working practices.

Could be argued that if done properly and thoroughly, the rail line might not be necessary at all.

Eh, people doing internet things overestimate how game-changing fast internet is. I don't care how fast the internet is, people are still going to want to meet each other for dinner, see grand-babies in person, etc. Faster internet doesn't obviate the need for travel.

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#23

Post by kayoone »

As we are moving more and more towards cloud/web based services and streaming content, the quality of our internet connections is getting more and more important while the performance of our local hardware is losing importance as time moves on. Sometime it will probably end with big mainframes in datacenters and thin clients in forms of phones/tablets/pcs, much like it was before the PC revolution :)

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#24

Post by kayoone »

elmotri wrote: post #15

Germany and UK were not even able to get in the ranking of the FTTH Council Europe… They do both not have 1% of all and at least 200.000 households connected to fiber… what a shame

In Germany you can easily get >100Mbps through cable in many cities. FTTH would be nice, but overall i dont think average broadband speeds are really lacking behind that much. I got 50/5Mbit cable at home and 120/10Mbit in the office.

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#25

Post by Retric »

rayiner wrote: post #22
alan_cx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be argued that if done properly and thoroughly, the rail line might not be necessary at all.

Eh, people doing internet things overestimate how game-changing fast internet is. I don't care how fast the internet is, people are still going to want to meet each other for dinner, see grand-babies in person, etc. Faster internet doesn't obviate the need for travel.

Cut even 1 trip in 50 and you can avoid building a lot of infrastructure. Netflix vs video rentals is one clear example of less trips, but there are plenty of others.

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#27

Post by patrickk »

sambeau wrote: post #5

Britain would be better-off doing this rather than building ahigh-speed line. High speed internet for the whole country would be a massive stimulus to all sorts of new business ideas and working practices.

Have you heard about B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North)? One of the most amazing community projects I've ever heard of.

They're using volunteers to dig trenches to massively cut the cost of delivering 1Gbps broadband to rural homes via fiber to the home (FTTH). Because farmers agree to let a trench be dug in their fields (getting insane broadband speeds and increased property values in return) and the trenches are dug by volunteers, it's possible to deliver 1Gbps for £30/month.

All this means that it becomes more economical to deliver broadband in rural areas where you don't need to tear up streets and and you don't need huge population density to justify the initial costs of laying fiber.

BBC did a story about them recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21442348

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#28

Post by themstheones »

jseliger wrote: post #21
EwanToo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mmmm, describing 50 Mbps down as "okay for rural areas" doesn't really mesh with reality. Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with If you know any region in the world which isn't densely populated, but where every home (not just 1 or 2) has 50 Mbps download, I'd love to read about it. I know of a handful of self-starter village communities which are doing this (e.g. B4RN in the UK), and th…

>Most rural areas throughout Europe and elsewhere are struggling with That sounds like Tucson, where I used to live. Now I'm in New York and getting 50 Mbs down and 5 up for $20 – $30 less than I used to get 12 down and 2 up.

That sounds really good. It's not like that in Toronto. We have a communications oligopoly in Canada though.

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#29

Post by ricardonunez »

I'm working in bringing high speed broadband to rural areas in the U.S. We are putting all energy in securing funding right now. You can't imagine how hard is for a start-up to secure funding for it. It has been exhausting. I applaud any initiative by the governments to invest in high speed internet.

Re: France to invest €20B in high-speed broadband for the entire country

#30

Post by hnriot »

mtgx wrote: post #9

Only 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload? I guess it would be okay for rural areas, but it's awfully obsolete for cities, even today, let alone for 2023 - at least for an European country, especially one like France. And why such low upload speeds?

Like most things the French government do, it's obsolete before its even begun.
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