RsStuart;
The point I was making is that the average Jo Blow, who
mainly only reads web pages and email will get no benefit at all.
The commercial and industrial user will in a few cases get some
benefits, but one example will do for the industrial users.
The electricity suppliers will be able to access every meter and switch
board and also be able to communicate with tcp/ip fitted appliances.

What they get is not speed as they do not need much speed at all but
the access. They would have got it with fttn anyway.

Those downloading music and movies will get a bit better speed
depending on the other end servers.
I hear people talking of these mystery services that will come with
significantly higher speeds, but where are they ? What are they ?
The control of loading in the electricity grid was always promoted
to be one of these applications, but it turns out their data rates
can be done at 9600 baud for meter reading.
No one seems to know, is it just fairy floss ?

If God (or evolution if you prefer, for that matter) considered it important to have us humans communicate at speeds of 100Mbit/sec, He would have created our bodies with suitable antennas and/or fibre-optic connections.

God (or evolution if you prefer) did understand the importance of communication and therefore gave us a nervous system, vocal chords and a tongue. To balance, however, God in his mercy also understood the value of silence and reflection/contemplation and therefore limited the capacity of those faculties. Had our nervous system been running at 100Mbit/sec, we would experience it as a constant horrific pain (perhaps this is what people refer to as "hell").

Throughout history, it was the custom of kings and barons to levy heavy taxes on their innocent and hard-working subjects in order to finance extravagant entertainment, primarily for their own courts and then for the masses, so they too can forget their miserable condition for a moment and not rebel.

Life is a balance - stop and smell the roses, but those rulers would not allow us to have a life, they rather keep us as slaves, and their latest plan is to inject us with 100Mbit/sec opium to get us addicted and glued to LCD screens, 24/7 in virtual prisons, instead of letting us go out and breath the fresh air (which in most countries is still free).

Yuyutsu

1) Nobody's stopping anyone smelling the fresh air.
2) Evolution or god might have given us brains so we had the means to create 100mbps.
3) 'Rulers' are probably disadvantaged by the net and free communication. Think of the great firewall in China.
4) This attitude toward the plebian masses is more contemptuous than that of the 'rulers' you so despise.
5) Politicians just aren't that clever. I know a few. That's why these Byzantine schemes for controlling the masses make me laugh.
6) The proposal is for all homes, not just the oligarchy.

All this nonsence over such a short sighted perspective of technology as it stands today doing todays thing.
Common sense dictates that if and when this comes it will provide more benefits to the average man and business employment etc beyond the Worms Eye view of the net.
The arguments being put are either politically partisan or so limited to be almost troglodytic.

As computing speeds have increased so too the oppotunities many of the business, employment and benefits. This step is clearly one more along the line.

Read some of the comments at the time the snowy scheme was being mooted. Waste of money etc was amongst then too. Which major energy corp wouldn't want a slice of it now?

Some OLOer need to catch up with the potential of the future rather than status quo. THEN make an assessment.

TRTL,

I don't believe it's anybody's right to separate people from their grog,
but I don't believe that making others pay for your grog is fair either.

1) In theory, one can smell the fresh air once off-duty, but after working long hours (to pay for other-people's grog), when finally off-duty, one can only collapse in bed.

2) If it's evolution, then over 99% of mutations are now extinct, but why not try - as long as you pay for your own experiments. If it's God, then He has given us free choice, which we haven't always used for the better.

3) To say "The king is naked" takes only 4 words: 17 characters, 170 bits (with parity and spacing), 4.4 milliseconds on a 38.4 dialup connection (OK, double it for 16-bit Chinese unicode).

4) The Plebian masses were not just drinking and dancing: the next morning they had to rise early (with a hangover) for work to foot the bill.

5) A contradiction with #2?

6) Modern oligarchy no longer lives in the same castle - it's gone cyber... Of course the masses get it too, no choice whether they want it or not: first everyone pays for it, and once you paid for something you tend to believe it's actually worth something, then if you still refuse to have it, you will just find it harder and harder to get or to keep a job to provide for your physical body so it can breath the fresh air.

eAnt,

I am not looking forward to that future which you plan for me. Thank you.
As all this technology closes in on us, I hope not to remain here for long, but rather be relieved of the need to share this kind of world with you.

There are some interesting figures from surveys here about the likely take-up of broadband. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/24444/1095/1/0/. I'm more and more inclining to the view that this announcement is a gambit, and that the government's final position could end up being quite different.