Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it even existed

Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by formerly_proven on Thursday April 21, 2022 @04:32PM (#31114793)

The problem with old fiber is that active networks are even more of a dead-end than copper. Active fiber networks leave you with whatever tech you buried and put up on every corner; upgrading is basically as expensive as laying new line. It seems to me like in the 80s and 90s active networks were favored (see e.g. OPAL) - which would be far more useless today than copper, as copper's capabilities expanded hugely over time as more sophisticated modulation techniques became possible.

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by quink on Thursday April 21, 2022 @04:47PM (#31114974)

> upgrading is basically as expensive as laying new line

That assertion is highly dependent on too many factors and even recent developments to be of much use.

That general assertion needs to be backed up with everything around the soil type, the copper diameter, labour costs, protocols and type of fibre, etc., etc.

And if you’re going down the route of having VDSL ISAMs in the field anyway then you’re certainly going to have the infrastructure there already anyway to support GPON over whatever fibre is in the ground anyway.

And are you sure that by “copper’s capabilities” you’re not actually referring to progressively closer deployment of infrastructure to the customer to overcome copper’s limitations? Because the move from dial any number to the local exchange to a node (FTTN) to now the curb (FTTC) certainly seems to reflect that more adequately.

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by gopher_space on Thursday April 21, 2022 @06:09PM (#31115790)

Are there more people available to work on one vs the other, or would you be trained to handle both?

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by radicaldreamer on Thursday April 21, 2022 @04:38PM (#31114868)

Copper is still trash though compared to passive fiber... and expensive to run. Loads of electricity and amps required to use it and a lot of fine tuning and interference management and maintenance.

A ton of costly, endless work when you can bypass all of that by laying some passive fiber...

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by ZeroGravitas on Friday April 22, 2022 @07:34AM (#31120375)

Do you have any links to Korea or Japan hitting these insurmountable problems? Last I heard they had better internet than the UK fairly consistently for decades.

Though, if they did hit a problem, just sensibly regulating shared national infrastructure of high industrial, cultural and economic importance seems like it would solve anything that came up better rather than shouting "free market" and "regulation bad" while you hand things over to American corporations in an act of brazen corruption.

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by simne on Friday April 22, 2022 @08:35AM (#31120856)

> Do you have any links to Korea or Japan hitting these insurmountable problems?

You remembered me talks, about how enhanced was Hong Kong, so they in 1990s built very high-speed internet for all.

But than I read wikipedia, and seen, Hong Kong have 6800 people per square kilometer (Germany 200, France 300, Ukraine 80, Russia less then 30).

Sure, if you have more than tenfold number of clients, you have much more possibilities to pay for expensive new technology.

But even for not poor western Europe, fiber technologies was too expensive for wide usage until mid 2000s.

Sure, backbones built on fiber from early 1990s, but backbones is not all internet, in reality 90% of resources spent on last mile. And as I said before, until late 2000s, only copper last mile was economically effective without Asian density. Also was possible fiber backbone, and wireless last mile, but air speed also very limited (should read expensive :) ).

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by 411111111111111 on Sunday April 24, 2022 @06:50AM (#31142846)

> But than I read wikipedia, and seen, Hong Kong have 6800 people per square kilometer (Germany 200, France 300, Ukraine 80, Russia less then 30).

Hong kong is essentially a city. You'd have to compare it with Munich (5k/km^2) in Germany or Paris (20k/km^2) in France to get equivalent numbers

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Re:Thatcher killed the UK’s superfast broadband before it ev... by simne on Sunday April 24, 2022 @08:02PM (#31149435)

I talked with colleagues in early 2000s, and they said, Paris central parts with high density was connected to broadband relatively early, but farther distribution was very slow, exact as I said.

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