Sure, but I doubt you can find many people, if anyone, making the argument about free internet during this election campaign before Labour's announcement yesterday, and then all of a sudden it's more important that water.

I'd personally rather see that £100bn go on social care, education, housing and a long, long list of more pressing issues for the country.

Well, I'd agree that for most modern democracies we're talking a very small part of the population which lives involuntarily without internet access. So we could just as well rely on the existing commercial infrastructure, use a compromise and subsidize internet access for people in poverty (maybe that is done already, I'm not that into UK politics). So yeah, "free internet access for everyone" is an overkill policy at this point.

I did some research and about 3% of UK children seem to be an agreed upon number when it comes to no internet access at home / private life. Internet access today is a bit like roads in our everyday lives, if someone is to poor to afford it, they'll have a harder time getting out of their problems.

All that said (and not that related, but it is a point I would like to make), I would very much like to see a future where unrestricted access to a free internet is a human right.

It's a reasonable long-term goal, but the costs currently far outweigh the benefits especially considering the NHS, education and housing are all areas where £100bn of extra investment would produce more tangible benefits that are fundamental to increasing health and opportunity.

A kinder politics
A new way of doing politics
I've dedicated my life to grass roots democratisation of Labour

Let's not talk about the four criminal investigations around Johnson and the Tories, but about some nonsensica about Labour instead.

In before but the mainstream media tells me Corbyn is an anti-semite.

There's definitely, and always, an argument to be made for priorities. I dunno where I stand on this one.

Broadband is pretty important for housing though. Big disadvantage to live in an area with poor broadband - to the point where 'does it have broadband' is really important when deciding where to live. It's also important for education and even health services are starting to make use of the internet.

Jesus man is england some sort of shithole desert? "does it have broadband" is a wild thing to even consider.

it's better than in Scotland but in both cases it's over 90% coverage now.

which reflects my point about the wisdom of 100% fibre by 2030 not being the issue.

Are we talking Fibre or Broadband? UK has some of the best broadband coverage in Europe, but one of the worst fibre networks.

FWIW I switched to fibre for one year and couldn't tell the difference so switched back to copper.

Fair point. It is full fibre but that isn't in dispute either. Some copper from the street to indoors will remain until it proves a problem big enough to bother.

The fact we don't need it now is a good sign for the project. I too have copper for the last bit but as we try to push more and more down the line it will become the limiting factor and being lucky I could already pay to upgrade if I need to. I have had full fibre under a sky trial service and it was way faster but, as you say, not really needed at the moment

Copper will stick around for a lot longer. They can already push 1gb/s over existing coaxial cables over pretty long distances and the technology is already commercially available. 10gbs over coaxial tech is pretty mature as well and it’s an issue of having commercial demand for it.

Going forward what we will probably see if ISPs gradually replace copper cables with fiber optics as the copper cables hit end of life. After that, we’re probably already on 8g or something like that and home internet is probably going to be something like receivers on every block and you’re paying for a specific dish/transmitter aimed at your building.

Exactly how fast do people really need, just get it so that everyone can stream pornhub in full HD, we don't really need 4k

Yea nice new copper cabling under optimal conditions.

copper that has been out in the wild doing **** knows what for 50 years not so much.

Your mileage is going to vary a lot.

Its not the fibre, its the switching at the local exchange as well, all has to be upgraded to push the extra bits, bottlenecks will have to be removed all over the network/cloud.

That is if you dont want plenty of people to not notice the difference in a meaningful way because the ISP cant push data fast enough to utilise the capacity of fibre.

Luckily the main arteries of our data network are pretty solid thanks to multiplexing, as said the main bottle necks are local exchange, last mile.

Think of the future. Think things like multiplayer immersive virtual reality. The kids will scoff at the quaint old man with his HD.

The point is being missed that there are parts of Britain that are still struggling to get anywhere near usable speeds, and without central planning they will remain without because of the economic non-viability to private companies.

We don't allow private companies to decide which roads to build and which to leave as dirt tracks, and I'm ****ed if I can see why broadband should be any different.

Tonight's debate will be disconcerting.

I'm with the 23%.



Thankfully missing the whole thing.

I'm with the 39%.

I'm with the 1%

Alex Salmond accused of sexual assaults on 10 women

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...itics-50486713

14 separate charges including attempted rape. Some of the charges are from incidents at the First Ministers official residence at Bute House. Think everyone is surprised at the fact there are 10 different victims. Incredible stuff.

An extremely unlucky man if innocent.

I wonder if Sturgeon will be hit by any schrapnel if this detonates?

Well the talk is that the reason for her recent tours abroad etc has all been an attempt to put herself in the shop window in terms of a job with the UN or some other organisation. The damage could come from what she knew and when she knew it. The SNP were desperate for a general election before all this goes to court.

Now that's what I call a manifesto.

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/upl...festo-2019.pdf

I thought it was an impressive launch as well. Good job.