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General Election 2019


Bjornebye
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Who are you voting for?   

142 members have voted

  1. 1. Who are you voting for?



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18 minutes ago, SasaS said:

In theory at least, competition creates better quality of service. Presumably, the new network will give everybody the possibility of a consistent Internet access and those who cannot afford the subscription can still be serviced by the state in some basic package, or you can make the Internet access a right and than give people who cannot afford it Internet allowance.

That’s essentially the Australian health system, but yeah I’d go for that.

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Guest Pistonbroke
Just now, moof said:

The NHS would be working a lot better if we had a proper nationwide fibre optic broadband network 

 

Well that should be a given. Companies and the Gov't should be working better towards achieving that and making sure that remote/areas or areas without a decent supply/coverage should be upgraded/updated. In all essence that should happen for most things. Free for all seems a bit of an attempt to win votes without a great plan to back it up other than saying we'll tax big business. I've already said that should happen anyway, I just think money can be spent in making peoples lives better in other areas, if that happens then Joe Bloggs can afford to pay for more stuff. 

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Lost productivity. 

 

Beaming has been working with research company Opinium, a mathematician from Imperial College and more than 500 businesses using a range of internet providers and connectivity services to better understand and quantify the impact of internet outages on UK businesses.

We found that UK businesses clocked up 149 million hours of internet downtime between them last year and that the cost to the economy was £12.3 billion in lost productivity.

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7 minutes ago, Pistonbroke said:

 

Well that should be a given. Companies and the Gov't should be working better towards achieving that and making sure that remote/areas or areas without a decent supply/coverage should be upgraded/updated. In all essence that should happen for most things. Free for all seems a bit of an attempt to win votes without a great plan to back it up other than saying we'll tax big business. I've already said that should happen anyway, I just think money can be spent in making peoples lives better in other areas, if that happens then Joe Bloggs can afford to pay for more stuff. 

The plan is to tax megalithic tech corporations, build a globally competitive infrastructure, which will add great value to the economy, as well as creating thousands of jobs. It’s a no brainer. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be cheaper and better than the status quo, which is absolutely terrible and fundamentally flawed 

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9 minutes ago, SasaS said:


Well, if you are giving something for free to end users, it's difficult to see how would you recoup the costs, at least directly.

 

 

Usually it does, unless the providers form a cartel and divided the market up between themselves, but there are always risks and the need for government oversight. Competition or choice somehow sounds better than a monopoly.

But it's an illusion of choice, similar to the railways. If I live half a mile from my nearest cabinet and can only get 5 Mbps, then changing ISP isn't suddenly going to improve that- whatever ISP I go to will still be leasing the same lines from BT. Besides that, there are generally only half a dozen or so ISPs for most areas- Sky, Now (i.e. Sky), BT, EE (i.e. BT), PlusNet (i.e. BT), Talk Talk, Vodafone and Virgin if you live in a cabled area. You might get a better router or customer service with one compared to another, but really they're very similar.

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2 minutes ago, Denny Crane said:

Lost productivity. 

 

Beaming has been working with research company Opinium, a mathematician from Imperial College and more than 500 businesses using a range of internet providers and connectivity services to better understand and quantify the impact of internet outages on UK businesses.

We found that UK businesses clocked up 149 million hours of internet downtime between them last year and that the cost to the economy was £12.3 billion in lost productivity.

 

5 minutes ago, Denny Crane said:

 

 

 

 

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing 

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19 minutes ago, moof said:

Full digital connectivity is a necessity in order to be able to participate meaningfully in the economy, especially for future generations. Is there any reason why one infrastructure provider should be any more expensive than the current piss poor service whereby there are multiple private companies selectively building infrastructure and creaming billions off the top for dividends?


Government investing and building an infrastructure is not a bad idea. Government as the only provider of service based on that infrastructure may be. If there is competition for end users, there may be innovation, maybe you will be offered Internet for free if you subscribe to their cloud service etc. A monopoly would not be likely to rake their brains to much how to win you over or keep you.

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3 minutes ago, Mudface said:

But it's an illusion of choice, similar to the railways. If I live half a mile from my nearest cabinet and can only get 5 Mbps, then changing ISP isn't suddenly going to improve that- whatever ISP I go to will still be leasing the same lines from BT. Besides that, there are generally only half a dozen or so ISPs for most areas- Sky, Now (i.e. Sky), BT, EE (i.e. BT), PlusNet (i.e. BT), Talk Talk, Vodafone and Virgin if you live in a cabled area. You might get a better router or customer service with one compared to another, but really they're very similar.

True, but as I said, they may offer you other things with different payment plans.

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5 minutes ago, Mudface said:

But it's an illusion of choice, similar to the railways. If I live half a mile from my nearest cabinet and can only get 5 Mbps, then changing ISP isn't suddenly going to improve that- whatever ISP I go to will still be leasing the same lines from BT. Besides that, there are generally only half a dozen or so ISPs for most areas- Sky, Now (i.e. Sky), BT, EE (i.e. BT), PlusNet (i.e. BT), Talk Talk, Vodafone and Virgin if you live in a cabled area. You might get a better router or customer service with one compared to another, but really they're very similar.

To add to that, in my particular area, I have to take a landline and phone contract with any of the available ISPs, whether I want one or not.

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Just now, SasaS said:

True, but as I said, they may offer you other things with different payment plans.

But what though? They can't offer you a better speed as they're limited by the infrastructure which is wholly in Openreach's grasp, they're highly unlikely to be able to offer you better connectivity as it depends on the infrastructure. You might be able to save money if you're only a light user, but then what's cheaper than free?

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4 minutes ago, SasaS said:

True, but as I said, they may offer you other things with different payment plans.

They might throw us some crumbs while they continue to pillage the economy and extract wealth through shareholders dividends and tax loopholes.
 

We need a complete structural shift, which includes worker co-ops and nationalisation of key industries, and fucks off private corporation supremacy and domination of the market. 

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Guest Pistonbroke
8 minutes ago, moof said:

The plan is to tax megalithic tech corporations, build a globally competitive infrastructure, which will add great value to the economy, as well as creating thousands of jobs. It’s a no brainer. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be cheaper and better than the status quo, which is absolutely terrible and fundamentally flawed 

 

My point is and as I have already explained, that big businesses will find a way around paying high taxes. I'm not arguing against infrastructure and service being better, that should be a given and companies should be made to step up to the plate by the Gov't. 

A free for all service benefits everyone, including a lot of people who don't need that help. Tackle areas that are of more importance, better wages, a better social network so that people don't have to rely on food banks, education and health..just to name a few. If peoples lives are improved, especially at the bottom of the ladder then they'll have more money to spend, probably on more important things which they actually need. The whole system needs improving, and of course it would create jobs and a better economy, but we all know that this would leave plenty of families still at the bottom of the ladder. But yeah, they can use google faster to find out where all the best food banks are. Tackle the important stuff to win votes and make sure you damn well see it through. 

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They can find 88 billion for hs2, what percentage of the country will use that on a regular basis and for how much benefit.  Nation wide fast speed broadband feels like a modern day necessity that the entire population would benefit from.  Does it need to be free, I don't know but the infrastructure should be put in place.

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6 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

They can find 88 billion for hs2, what percentage of the country will use that on a regular basis and for how much benefit.  Nation wide fast speed broadband feels like a modern day necessity that the entire population would benefit from.  Does it need to be free, I don't know but the infrastructure should be put in place.

How much of the UK population doesn’t have access to that infrastructure? 

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1 minute ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

How much of the UK population doesn’t have access to that infrastructure? 

A significant portion, and according to what I read, a significant portion of businesses

 

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/130736/Connected-Nations-2018-main-report.pdf

 

according to this report, 6% of homes and business have full access to high speed fibre optic

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11 minutes ago, Mudface said:

But what though? They can't offer you a better speed as they're limited by the infrastructure which is wholly in Openreach's grasp, they're highly unlikely to be able to offer you better connectivity as it depends on the infrastructure. You might be able to save money if you're only a light user, but then what's cheaper than free?

Well, nothing is better than free, but then again, nothing is free, someone always pays.

I don't know what each particular situation is, my personal experience is that whenever I could shop around, I could get a better deal. I have the same ISP on two different locations, one is where there is a lot of competition, customer service is very good and speed is turned to the technical maximum, free of additional charge. The other location, the same ISP is more or less the only show in the village, I have to pay extra to get the available speed.

 

7 minutes ago, moof said:

They might throw us some crumbs while they continue to pillage the economy and extract wealth through shareholders dividends and tax loopholes.
 

We need a complete structural shift, which includes worker co-ops and nationalisation of key industries, and fucks off private corporation supremacy and domination of the market. 


Well, yes, if you want a planned state-run economy, this debate is pointless.

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5 minutes ago, cloggypop said:

Wait, Labour are offering free, full FTTH for all? 
 

I thought we had a 97% super fast and 60% ultra fast coverage in the Uk. 
 

EDIT: Seems we do? 
 

https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/

 

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7 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Wait, Corbyn is offering full FTTH for all? 
 

I thought we had a 97% super fast and 60% ultra fast coverage in the Uk. 
 

EDIT: Seems we do? 
 

https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/

 

Yes, it's currently 10% FTTH- which will give giga bit speeds. I'm surprised at the figure for over 100 Mbps, presumably that's pretty much all Virgin- if so, I didn't realise they had that much coverage.

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