"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 17/11/2019 18:54, Ray wrote:


"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
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On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 11:44:48 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) 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.

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

When was *any* policy - especially one floated to win an election -
delivered exactly as promised ?

Never, that's when.

So if we strip away the frothing, maybe there's a case for some sort of
universal provision of broadband at a basic level. Enough to access the
services provided online by government ? And if the subscriber wants
and can afford more, they upgrade to full fat HD streaming levels of
broadband ?

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

Possibly because so many government services are going online and not
having access puts people at a significant disadvantage

But even if it was free, the worst of those that use govt
services still wouldnt use the broadband for that because
they wouldnt have the laptop or tablet to use it.

It would make more sense to give them a free cheap smartphone
and even then the dregs wouldnt use that instead of talking either.

? - and costs government departments at lot of time
and money providing phone support instead.

I dont believe that it would be instead with most of
the users of govt services or even just with tax returns
that most would have to do.