
How Thatcher killed the UK's superfast broadband before it even existed - anon1385
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
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cm2187
This is ridiculous.

Mass deployment of broadband happened two decades after Thatcher left power
and it's not even clear that the technologies of the 80s would have been of
much help for modern broadband.

I think three things are blocking the deployment of optic fiber in the UK:

1\. Monopolies. Even with DSL, the UK was years behind France, which broke the
monopoly of France Telecom before the UK, and let competition offer 1Mbit plus
broadband (I think the early FT and BT packages were limited to 500kbit or
1mbit for commercial reasons).

2\. Planning restrictions. As much of a problem for housing than for wiring
homes with optic fibre.

3\. Brits love tiny houses over apartment blocks which makes it very expensive
to deploy even in urban area.

Happy to hear of better reasons from someone closer to the matter.

[edit] corrected shameful spelling mistakes

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gmac
Not convinced monopolies are the problem. Broadband infrastructure strikes me
as a natural monopoly[1], and I think this is the point the BT guy is making
in the article.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly)

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xlm1717
At least in the US, I think monopolies are part of the problem. Every once in
a while, you see a story about how a big telecom lobbied to prevent a small
local broadband ISP promising gigabit internet from taking off.

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rayiner
Source? In most places, the opposite problem exists. Cities can't get private
companies to build gigabit even after actively trying.
[http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-fiber-internet-
ca...](http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-fiber-internet-
campaign-20141013-story.html). That's why municipal fiber is the current
battleground--private companies don't want to build those networks.

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elthran
This sort of stuff really aggravates me. In a similar anecdote, half of my
town is unable to get Virgin media, purely because when it came to laying
cables under a major A road, the council kicked up a fuss, so Virgin just
walked away.

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jessaustin
There are two ways to do that. Cutting the road and then patching the asphalt
is cheaper so that's what companies want to do. It's impossible to do that
without leaving a bump, however, so it's an externality imposed on all drivers
for the useful life of the highway. When it makes commercial sense to do so,
companies can be required to drill horizontally under the road. When they came
through my neighborhood with some fiber optic lines last year, that's what
they did. When (the company claims) that doesn't make commercial sense,
regulators have a choice whether to allow the asphalt cut or not. In most
cases I wouldn't fault regulators who protect the road.

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ENTP
Thatcher killed more important things during her time, like entire
communities.

