Hacker News Reader

> 96% of UK premises could have "Superfast", not just "Internet" but "Superfast" broadband, which is defined as 30Mbps to the door.

Ha ha, that's hilarious. Out here in the real world although the maps show that I'm getting 4G mobile and "superfast"[1] broadband, the reality is no mobile at all and 20 Mbps when it's not raining and the BT culverts aren't waterlogged. When they are waterlogged, not much internet at all.

[1] Where "superfast" means laughably slow compared to most other first world countries.

Isn't that USO voluntary?

> In unusual cases (imagine you live on an otherwise uninhabited island for some reason or up a mountain) you may need to contribute to capital costs for installation.

I agree with you, but this bit doesn't really describe how many people need to pay for broadband infrastructure installation.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2018/may/31/h...

The USO is mandatory but isn't funded yet. So, right now the regulator would struggle to rationalise say, fining the operator for not meeting it when they aren't given any money or any means to raise revenue to provide it. But in principle if you can imagine the British government ever doing anything again except arguing about Brexit they might get around to it. Don't hold your breath.

Those are all goals and numbers thrown around by politicians and ISPs, though. They're not reality.

Just a couple of days ago I heard on BBC Radio Devon that some broadband provider in that area got its license revoked because it didn't meet its commitments.

It's like how the American cell phone companies claim to provide LTE access to 95% of Americans, yet somehow there are still several tens of millions of people on slow 4G, 3G, or with zero cell service at all.

-shrug- Doing work only changes the facts, which I reported. We can't change what you believe, that has to be left to you to do.

One of my friends works in IT, he's like third line support for some big international outfit. He's a Windows guy but still, you'd expect he knows what he's doing. One day he complained about how shitty his broadband is. So I asked why he doesn't have FTTC. "It's not available". OK, so I punch in his landline phone number and the system says of course yeah like almost everybody else in my entire city he can have FTTC.

Yes, it costs more money and that might make it unattractive to some people, but it's right there, I'd guess it took maybe 5-10 days from that conversation until he had FTTC instead of ADSL.

>He's a Windows guy but still, you'd expect he knows what he's doing.

Weird flex but ok.