Britain's Victorian-era copper cables WON'T be able to support demand for faster internet.

Oddly we knew this in the 1980s and the UK could have probably done conversion to fibre as the GPO had it well researched back then. I know there were even studies into blowing fibres into plastic tubes that could be strung like overhead lines.. But privatization of BT and then local loop unbundling have all pulled in the opposite direction, leading to a succession of short term but in the moment cheaper technical fixes at either end of the existing wires.

However before we smile and look too pleased with ourselves, there is a similar problem looming with the LV mains cables in the streets of many towns, as the transition from gas and also to electric transport will also require a lot of replacement.

The other poorly considered problem of the everything over IP world is that to maintain emergency comms even at the level of receiving a phone call in an all-fibre network during a power cut requires a surprisingly large no of back up batteries, and one per customer. With LED lights we now use more electricity to illuminate the living room with a Wifi signal and maintain the internet, than we do to illuminate all of downstairs with visible light. (Fibre terminator, hub and router are about 20-25 watts total.The LED lights for diner lounge and kitchen total about the same, but are not on anything  like 24/7).

Mike.

I find 500Mb/s very useful from Virgin (which is not actually FTTH but coax and DOCIS2). BT has fibred my area, but prices for 500 M are unknown and not advertised. I use this speed quite often for software and video files (which many may not), but I can remember trying to download Cubase years ago (10GB or so) and it never completed correctly in 24 hours! It takes a few minutes now. Simple stuff (this forum) takes no resource, but sophisticated work really does need bandwidth.

The point about landline backup is not really necessary unless there is no mobile coverage available, and I virtually never use my landline anyway. The power consumption of the router etc is about 12W, about the same as one useful LED bulb. The consumption at the ISP and server farms is probably similar per user.

The fact that ADSL more or less works is fairly amazing really, but we have hung on far too long. It has been the fibre transceiver cost that has made the economics change, not the fibre cable which has always been quite cheap. I worked on it some 25 years ago, and I had a 20 km roll of bare fibre for test purposes (single mode), it weighed half a kilo or so, it is the strength members and sheath that costs money.

I find 500Mb/s very useful from Virgin (which is not actually FTTH but coax and DOCIS2). BT has fibred my area, but prices for 500 M are unknown and not advertised. I use this speed quite often for software and video files (which many may not), but I can remember trying to download Cubase years ago (10GB or so) and it never completed correctly in 24 hours! It takes a few minutes now. Simple stuff (this forum) takes no resource, but sophisticated work really does need bandwidth.

The point about landline backup is not really necessary unless there is no mobile coverage available, and I virtually never use my landline anyway. The power consumption of the router etc is about 12W, about the same as one useful LED bulb. The consumption at the ISP and server farms is probably similar per user.

The fact that ADSL more or less works is fairly amazing really, but we have hung on far too long. It has been the fibre transceiver cost that has made the economics change, not the fibre cable which has always been quite cheap. I worked on it some 25 years ago, and I had a 20 km roll of bare fibre for test purposes (single mode), it weighed half a kilo or so, it is the strength members and sheath that costs money.