Tim Worstall makes a sensible point that applies (to a greater or lesser extent) to most of these “we’re dropping down the league tables in telecommunications” stories:
The Daily Mail is reacting with horror to the thought that the UK has slipped down the broadband tables. We’re only 35th in the world for average speed now! The correct answer to which is that yes, of course the UK’s broad band speeds are slow, we’re a developed and rich country. Which doesn’t mean that yes we’ll have the latest in shiny infrastructure. Rather, it means that we put in infrastructure some time ago and thus have the infrastructure from some time ago. You know, having infrastructure being one of the things which makes you a rich and developed nation?
Britain has slipped four places in the world broadband speed league, leaving its network lagging well behind the likes of Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Romania.
The UK is the sixth largest economy in the world but has dropped to 35th in the rankings after being overtaken by France and even Madagascar, according to the latest analysis.
As other countries rush to install fibre-optic cable networks which are capable of providing superfast download speeds, much of Britain continues to rely on old copper telephone wires to connect homes to the web.
Well, yes, the point being that we had a copper based network which went to pretty much everywhere. Thus we’ve not rushed to put in the fibreoptic because we’ve actually not needed it. Hey, sure, maybe it would be nice. Maybe it’s something we will install everywhere in the future. But we’ve not done it as yet because there’s not been a pressing case for that investment.
You see, our forebears already invested in the copper for us.
As a general rule of thumb, the earlier you invested in your telecommunications network, the slower it will be compared to current technology. At some point, it becomes economical to replace the installed network, but as long as the existing infrastructure is providing a profit, there isn’t the sense of urgency that most of these “the sky is falling” articles imply.
