On Mon, 18 Nov 2019 05:54:40 +1100, Ray wrote:

I'm all in favour of a government initiative to get fibre to all
premises in the UK. Given the current purely commercial setup is
not
expanding fast enough. A mate who lives in Lewis (S coast of
England,
and hardly miles from 'civilisation') still hasn't got even FTC,
despite very slow BB.


But the idea of making it totally free to use just pie in the sky
and
silly to boot.

Agreed.

Just another example of the political parties trying to buy
votes.

Well this one is a minus point. But then the two main partys seem to
be engaging in a spensing war. That won't be good, I don't like the
"boom and bust" but it's preferable "bust and bust".

So if we strip away the frothing, maybe there's a case for some
sort of
universal provision of broadband at a basic level.

Already moving towards that with the Universal Service Obligation.
From 20 March 2020 (currently...!) people will have the legal right
to request a minimum 10 Mbps down 1 Mbps up 'net connection and BT
(or KCOM in Hull) will be obliged to provide it.

There are a few gotchas though to be eligable:

No access to a service offering greater than 10 Mbps down 1Mbps up
and other parameters like latency which rules out geostationary
satellite systems.

If the only service available costs £45/month.(*)

Property not due to be connected to a publicly funded roll out scheme
within 12 months of the date of request.

No more than £3400 to build, though the customer can choose to pay
any excess.

(*) This is the one that may rule a lot of people out as 4G will
deliver the technical aspects. The USO has a minimum data allowance
of 100 GB, are there any 4G data tarrifs that give 100 GB for
£45/month?

Why does that make sense when it didn t with a basic phone service ?

Telephone has a USO as well, that's why it costs a standard
installation fee rather than something based on the true cost of
providing service. Though again there is a limit to the maximum build
cost for the standard installation fee.

Curiously I can't find anything that mentions an installation fee in
relation to a USO 'net connection only the monthly cost. No
installation fee would fit "free proviosn of broadband"...

Weasel words, somthing that politicians are extremely good at.

--
Cheers
Dave.