The processor is the brain of a computer - Chris Long, IT journalist
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BT to abandon next gen broadband
FORGET EVERYTHING you’ve been promised by BT. We’re probably never going to get the much-anticipated super-fast broadband we’ve all been waiting for.
Apparently the future of communications in the UK means nothing to BT shareholders if it means that they might get reduced dividends.
A group of self-serving shareholders has contacted Chief Executive Ian Livingston suggesting that BT should hoard its cash instead of putting it to good use updating the UK's snail-paced broadband.
Livingston said, "There are some shareholders who say 'you know something, don't do that, don't do a whole lot of other things. That leaves you with a lot more cash and cash today is worth a lot more than cash in a few years' time'."
Yes, that’s right, you worry about your money – never mind the fact that at this moment in time all people need is some reassurance that fat cat businesses aren’t taking us all for a ride.
At a time when services such as the BBC's Iplayer are putting immense pressure on ISPs to provide bandwidth for hungry interactive online services, BT shareholders think the whole nation should suffer just to make them that tiny bit wealthier.
BT said at the time that these broadband plans would only go ahead if Ofcom agreed to make a proper return when other ISPs use the network – now that Ofcom has given the go ahead, with a few provisos of course, BT thinks no, our money is far more important.
Livingston says that, "I personally believe if it is the right thing to do as a 20-year decision it is the right thing to do, but we need to have the environment in which our shareholders feel there is a good chance of us making a return. If we cannot have that environment this is not the time to be taking on sure-fire losses."
If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. µ
L'Inq
The Guardian
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Across the pond, where there is not a monopoly of one telco but more of a corporate oligarchy, the only places they upgrade broadband infrastructure is in the very richest areas of the biggest cities. Even those speeds the very rich enjoy pale in comparison to Scandinavian or Asian countries. People over here don't realize how fast the rest of the world is surfing. Only those fortunate enough to be a student or faculty member at a college or university have speeds comparable to the rest of the world, and what little dribble of bandwidth the rest of the teaming american masses have to all share is about to be capped and taxed to excess (this is not counting the planned traffic shaping practices like blocking youtube and CNN for users who don't pay a stiff premium for "unlimited, unrestricted and uncensored" internet access.) Luckily for you brits, you still have time to change things for yourselves, but over here with both Dems and Repubs in our congress both beholden to an army of rich telcom lobbyists, nothing is going to change anytime soon
Lets face it where is the incentive for BT to lay fibre to the home.

Under LLU someone else can come along and take it over without the expense of laying the cables. Would the existing LLU companies be able to really comete if they had to lay there own cables to each home they wanted to serve. Somehow I don't think so. It is cheaper as they haven't had to lay cable down which is the expensive part.

BT is a private company and if it doesn't want to invest in laying fibre then no-one can MAKE BT do it.

BT would have laid fibre in the 80's but the govt refused to allow them to as would kill off the just starting cables companies. Understandably BT wanted to be able to compete with the cable companies for the market, but weren't allowed too.

So BT didn't bother and we are stuck with copper.
Well, there's always cable. No wait, they stopped extending that when it came to the leafy suburbs and beyond. It's a question of returns on investment. Why should BT behave differently?
I didn't think it possible for me to hate BT anymore than I previously did. Going at this rate, we're going to turn into b****y AUSTRALIA.
Nice to see that the BT shareholders are listening to current trends and future needs here in the UK. Let alone what the rest of the world is doing as concerns broadband.

From recent evidence, it looks like t'interweb is going to be THE choice of media delivery for the up-coming convergence.

Also nice to see that the BT Fat-Cats obviously tried really, really hard to convince the shareholders of where the future of Broadband sits.

Expect a big moan from BT in a couple of years time because the customer base dried up, and they have no money left to invest in ~100 mb/s infrastructure. Dweebs.

Shonky.
If BT don't want to invest in UK then that's fine, they can leave. There are plenty of other Telco's who would love to have the monopoly they have.

What's not to like, a tiny island with a dense developed population. A rich nation who love technology. An exceptional customerbase. There are few countries in the world as attractive to a monopolistic telco.

As customers and citizens we know this, so BT don't take us or your place here for granted. We can see through your charade of poker "no government investment, no upgrade".

I believe we should stare you down, bring in some new competition laws and break up the network monopoly you have. Open it up properly. Have some real competition, get better service and prices.

Come on Inq, push this one onto the front page regularly. This matters to us all.

What happened to BT going full IP-tech, is this happening? Can you ask BT if they are happy to be left behind and have consumer pressure force another telco to take over running the UK network if BT refuse to upgrade it? I'm sure Murdoch-SKY would love to take it off their hands.
If the stock holders do not trust BT to make good use of its money (or pay them the level of dividends they want) then they should either shut up or sell off their stock and place it in a company whose dividend level they are happy with.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, oh well.
Nah, you Brits don't need high speed broadband. Y'all wouldn't know what to do with it. Probably try hooking it up to the telly then calling when you can't get BBC 4.

Besides, what would happen to all those poor Boy Scouts and Girl Guides with semaphone flags? They'd all be out of a job, now what about that?
Bl**dy BT... I dunno they're being overtaken by all these LLU operators who are cherry picking exchanges and Virgin Media which looks like it'll never expand it's network (I'm in a VM area btw). Maybe someone should explain to BT that if they build the network then people will use it, especially if they can crack Hull so those poor folks actually have an alternative to Kingston or whatever they're called now.

Rob
Just as the UK has become a giant, nasty ghetto, the virtual UK will remain a slow, non-prosperous vGhetto.
Classic BT positioning

1) Make a promise to compromise others from making the infra-structure investment
2) Withdraw the promise on the basis that it too expensive
3) Use the delay to sweat the existing infrastructure investment for an extra few years
4) Demand the govt pony-up for some or all of the costs
5) Keep delaying it especially after they've got the govt funds
6) Run 5 pilots sequencially agruing that the technology is not ready for deployment/changing rapidly even though the rest of the world has used it for years
7) When the govt really threatens to cut an innovator in BT finally starts to deploy in the most profitable areas...

In the mean time UK businesses and consumers fall further behind the world, but who cares? BT is an important UK company ( Check the shareholder register)
This is an outrage, we are already so far behind teh rest of Europe that it's a joke.

The Government need to get involved with this and kick BT up the harris and make them lay fibres etc FAST.