Rural broadband

Access to broadband

At the beginning of the Internet revolution web content and email were largely in the form of text which created small files that could be sent quite comfortably by ‘dialup’ connection. Early digital photographic images were comparatively small files but still took a little time to transmit across the Internet. The past few years have seen an explosion of high definition images, huge update files that need to be downloaded and sophisticated computer applications that are available from the Web. Early photographic files were of the order of 200 kilobytes and a simple email is even smaller at 10 kilobytes. Now even the cheapest cameras are producing images of 5 megabytes and some downloadable programs can be as large as 40 megabytes. These file sizes have had the effect of overwhelming the old ‘dialup’ services which could only transmit information at a rate of 30 kilobytes per second.

The answer to this huge traffic jam of information has been a broadband connection which can transfer information at speeds up to 10 megabytes a second. A further advantage of a broadband connection is that you are able to use your landline at the same time as your computer. A ‘dialup’ connection prevents any incoming or outgoing calls on the same landline resulting in irritating engaged signals for those people wishing to contact you.

Suppliers of broadband connections are forever quoting transfer speeds of anything up to 12 megabytes per second but these figures are so misleading that they border on breaking the Trades Description Acts. The main factor governing the speed of a broadband connection is the physical distance between your home – or business – from the nearest telephone exchange. To give an example, I live about 5 kilometres from the exchange and I struggle to get a connection speed of more than 400 kilobytes per second while a friend who lives within half a mile of the exchange and uses the same Internet connection supplier can obtain speeds of 8 megabytes per second. In spite of this I consider myself lucky to get any form of broadband connection because there are large swathes of rural England that cannot access any form of broadband connection and this is creating a dual class Internet society.

The Government is repeatedly assuring us that “everyone” will have access to a 2 Mb connection by 2012. This is “pie in the sky” thinking. The problem is that the old copper wire telephone system cannot transmit data at broadband rates beyond 6 or 7 kilometres. Even quite large towns are still waiting for the alternative to this “copper wire” technology which is fibre optic cabling. Can you imagine every small country lane being dug up to lay the fibre optic cables? We have enough traffic delays due to roadworks at the present time that the prospect of every road being equipped with the new cables is simply not feasible – and yet Ministers are still insisting that the project is viable!

The Prince of Wales has joined the argument pointing out that the lack of broadband communication is creating an even greater isolation of the rural communities from the “powers than be” sitting in their urban ivory towers.

So what is the answer? Moving house would seem to be an extreme solution to the problem. There are developing technologies such as wireless and satellite communications but these are very expensive and limited in their application. They will improve in time but not at the speed that the Government proposes - which is a sad reflection on our capabilities as a first world country when others, which we classify as Third World nations, can provide communications capabilities that we can only dream about. Our political leaders are worried that they may be excluded from the G8 group of nations when, in terms of communication technology, we would be lucky to gain access to G247!