Skip to main content

Going grumpy on technology

The wreck of a footpath near home
At the moment, the streets near our house are a mess as noisy drills are heard all day and large swathes of the pavement are closed off with blue plastic fencing. This is because they are laying a new fibre optic cable.

Surely, you may think, this is a good thing. And if we hadn't got fibre optic connections already, it surely would have been and I would have been all in favour. But we already have two fibre providers in our road: Openreach, which is used by a wide range of telecoms companies, and Virgin. So why the need for more disruption? According to the banner for the new provider, City Fibre, their USP is gigabit connectivity (though I could swear Virgin's vans also mention this).

Here's were I go into grumpy old man mode. We already have 100 Mbps guaranteed, typically running at around 130-150 Mbps. That's more than enough for our requirements. Interestingly, our provider recently gave us a free month on 300 Mbps to try out the benefits. They only told us, though, when they were about to take it away. And until then we hadn't noticed any difference, because there's nothing we do online that could make use of that kind of bandwidth.

Why then, should I care that I will have the potential to get 1,000 Mbps (i.e. gigabit connectivity)? I suppose the argument is that before streaming TV, I was quite happy with much lower speeds than we now have. Who knows what the future might bring? Do I hear anyone say 'Metaverse'? But given the current infrastructure can already support 500 Mbps or more, we have a lot of 'who knows' headroom left. 

I spoke to Neil Madle, City Fibre's local area manager. When I put to him my doubts, he commented 'It's a good question, one we get asked a lot. True, not every resident needs 1Gb - or anywhere near it, to be honest - but that doesn't mean full fibre shouldn't be the goal...' Full fibre is just marketing speak for the more technical 'fibre to the premises' (FTTP) - but we already have that from both our providers. Neil went on to say that 'If it’s genuine FTTP and not part-fibre FTTC [fibre to the cabinet], then it’s likely we’ll use the BT Openreach infrastructure in your area, as we’re allowed' - but from what's happening outside my office window, it seems that they aren't.

I ought to stress that we're heavy technology users here at Clegg Towers. I do all my work on a connected computer. I quite often have to upload and download large files. Almost all the TV we watch is streamed, while our only radios in the house are smart speakers. I even read the 'newspaper' on an iPad. But I really can't see the need for this disruption to get something that doesn't seem to deliver any benefits. 

Bah humbug, City Fibre, bah humbug.

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp
117 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor
25 comments
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense
6 comments
Read more