Why, in England at least, do we still suffer with terrible connection speeds? Some people would say that over the years the amount of bandwidth an average user can expect has rocketed and on paper this is true. I am currently on an unlimited 8mbps line with BT, this is BT’s most expensive package however I am willing to admit it is still reasonable at £25 per month.

So you’re thinking to yourself 8 mbps that’s quite fast, yes? Well maybe if I actually received 8mbps I would be quite happy however I actually receive 3.5 mbps even though I am literally a mile from my local exchange. For those of you who don’t know the reason we do not receive decent internet speeds is due to the terrible condition of the local wire system.

Privatisation

The telephone system is controlled by the government and as such controlled by us however some in-bred conservatives came up with the idea of privatisation and it’s been downhill for most of our public services ever since.

The government get a chunk of money for letting i.e. BT run the phone system this saves the government any up keep costs etc and also earning them a nice upfront cash bonus for doing nothing. When anything goes wrong with the privatised services they can just point the finger at the company. Nice job running the country boys…. back to my place for tea and biscuits!

I have yet, in England, to see a good example of a privatised service that doesn’t run said service into the ground. Rail, Water, telephone they are all run at a minimum of maintenance costs eventually leading to bad service and in the case of rail travel sometimes great tragedy. One of the main reasons for the said privatisation was because the companies were meant to make a better job of upgrading our services and making them modern. FAT CHANCE

What we end up with is the same telephone lines, rail lines and water pipes that our parents used… at least when they used them they were new!

Of course the companies running these services are not interested in up grading them, all they are really interested in is how fast they can milk the cash cow they just rented. Why invest in upgrading your service when you can spend that money on advertising?

They keep us on the edge of our seats:

www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/09/bt_fibre_trial/

Then they let us down:

http://technical-itch.co.uk/2006/11/21/bt-rules-out-fibre-optic-roll-out/

You have been saying you’re going to give us good service and fibre optics since 1990!

ARE YOU WAITING FOR SOME BREAKTHROUGH THAT’S GOING TO ALLOW 100MBPS ON 40 YEAR OLD TWISTED PAIR CABLE? STOP DREAMING!

WHERE IS MY EXCHANGE TO HOME FIBRE OPTICS YOU BAS*E*DS?

WHY HAVE YOU NOT EVEN STARTED?