Election 2019

**Hoonercat** · 17-11-19, 20:12

Originally Posted by rudolph

#rolleyes

Talking to you is like talking to the village idiot

That's hardly fair.

The village idiot gave up trying to educate you ages ago, whereas I'm still giving it a go.

**couchcommando** · 17-11-19, 20:20

The cleverest thing the tories ever did from the Maggie years was to convince the working classes they were a few rungs up the class ladder from where they actually are and with their new found superiorness they could never vote labour as that’s for lefty loonies and working classes, it’s still that way today

**Pirahna** · 17-11-19, 22:14

Back to broadband. A good explanation of why we need fibre and how Thatcher fucked it up.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/wo...1990-1224784/2

**saga_lout** · 17-11-19, 22:28

Originally Posted by Pirahna

Back to broadband. A good explanation of why we need fibre and how Thatcher fucked it up.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/wo...1990-1224784/2

Because the government buggered it up 30 years ago is not a good reason to let the government have another chance to bugger it up now.

If we really need fibre, we'll pay for fibre. I.e. those of us who think we need it more than whatever else we could buy with that money will spend it on fibre. Why does the government have to do everything?

**Cousin Jack** · 17-11-19, 22:36

Originally Posted by Pirahna

Back to broadband. A good explanation of why we need fibre and how Thatcher fucked it up.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/wo...1990-1224784/2

It was fucked as soon as BT lost it's monopoly and was told it would have to allow competitors access to it's lines. BT knew it could not compete on speed of response with smaller leaner competitors, but at least it could attempt to make them dig up the roads - eg Virgin. It kept the old technology both to reduce cost and to restrict how quickly competitors could move. Why should it incur massive capital spend to benefit competitors?

**irie** · 17-11-19, 22:37

Originally Posted by Pirahna

Back to broadband. A good explanation of why we need fibre and how Thatcher fucked it up.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/wo...1990-1224784/2

Agree. Asymmetric broadband is a red herring, symmetrical broadband is required for home working. What happens in continental Europe is fundamentally irrelevant (it's basically a technological dead-end), the UK is competing with South East Asian nations.

**irie** · 17-11-19, 22:39

Originally Posted by saga_lout

Because the government buggered it up 30 years ago is not a good reason to let the government have another chance to bugger it up now.

If we really need fibre, we'll pay for fibre. I.e. those of us who think we need it more than whatever else we could buy with that money will spend it on fibre. Why does the government have to do everything?

It is a long term national strategic issue. See my previous post.

**KungFooBob** · 17-11-19, 22:46

imho anything over 2mb is fine, that's enough for streaming tv. Then 5mb for HD and 25mb for 4K.

You'd need to have eleventy two kids to take full advantage of 60mb+ tinternets.

**irie** · 17-11-19, 23:13

I remember the same sort of arguments being used when the Intel 80386 with the 80387 co-processor came out - nobody would ever need anything faster for 32 bit processing.

Plus ça change.

**saga_lout** · 18-11-19, 00:16

Originally Posted by rudolph

Remind me when we had state supplied PCs. I must have missed out....

I remember the GOOD OLD DAYS™ when we had lots of nationalised utilities. It were grand. I only had to wait months (4 months if I remember correctly) to get a telephone connected. I suppose it would have been longer if the telephone line hadn't already been installed for the previous owner of the house.

You couldn't get Openreach to take four months to connect a telephone line these days. They'd do it in a couple of weeks. Where's the fun in that?

**irie** · 18-11-19, 07:24

Originally Posted by rudolph

Remind me when we had state supplied PCs. I must have missed out....

Whoosh ...

**Cousin Jack** · 18-11-19, 07:36

Originally Posted by saga_lout

I remember the GOOD OLD DAYS™ when we had lots of nationalised utilities. It were grand. I only had to wait months (4 months if I remember correctly) to get a telephone connected. I suppose it would have been longer if the telephone line hadn't already been installed for the previous owner of the house.

You couldn't get Openreach to take four months to connect a telephone line these days. They'd do it in a couple of weeks. Where's the fun in that?

4 months, you were lucky. Some people had to wait 4 years. Nothing to do with Openreach, the Treasury would not allow the GPO to spend the capital for equipment in the exchange.

**cheb** · 18-11-19, 07:58

On the subject of the GPO/BT, when did we go from the luxury of one corded handset hardwired into a wall box to the decadence of cordless phones who's base station could be plugged into one of several points?

**cheb** · 18-11-19, 08:07

Alan Coren did a brilliant piece years ago in Punch about Winston Smith trying to get his video screen repaired. That's close to what I suspect government run utilities would be like.