Average DSL Speeds Worldwide

[AnOther]

Anybody else agree that the position of UK in the world is shameful, it is after all a small (overpopulated) island and, allegedly, one of the worlds richest nations.

EDIT: Make that 6th largest economy

I do take the French position with more than a grain of scepticism though.

[img]http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Images/commentarynews/broadbandspeedchart.jpg[/img]

 

[Pierre ZFP]

And the German figure is completely optimistic.  You can just about get 2mbit in some places like cities but in rural areas forget it.  The reason?  some years ago the Germans replaced a lot of their copper with shiney new aluminium.  Pity they didn't remember that aluminium degrades rapidly and attenuates the signal dramatically.

The Swedish figure looks odd too as according to a Swede I work with, the minimum speed is 20mbit !

[AnOther]

Is that where Milton Keynes got the idea from then [;-)]

[Tim]

Around 15 years ago I worked for a large UK telecoms company - some contracts were given out to install high capacity digital equipment in the rural areas across 'our patch'. We wondered why this was as there was certainly much more capacity being installed than would be required in the foreseeable future. Then it was all put 'on hold'. Why, because the regulater said that it would be unfair to any possible competition. This was at the time that the cable companies were digging up the roads in urban areas. Well, said cable companies never spread out much beyond the built up areas as they couldn't see a profit in it. The equipment I saw installed? Well, I think it was all removed and put elsewhere. It seemed to me at the time that competition slowed down progress rather than moved things along.

Regards - Tim

[woolybananasbrother]

Again, it was weak regulation whicxh did not insist on cable being spread more widely, rather than just in the 'profitable' areas.