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Jools

The Positive Brexit Thread

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"This is what I mean by your lack of imagination. This problem has been placed in the too difficult to solve category by the Tories. The breakup of BT has been shelved and they have no idea how to address the problems. In fact they don't have the imagination to even see it as a problem. Labour do, they have put up the costings and time limited it. If there is a criticism it is the question whether fibre is the correct technology rather than wireless not whether the funding is there or whether this addresses the identified problem. In both cases the answer is yes."

 

Are you so naive as to think that a drawn out nationalisation is going to speed things up?  We are 10th in the EU connectivity rankings which is nowhere near good enough but in the last 2 years the number of homes with fibre access has doubled. More and more investment is coming into the network, or should I say was, £1.5 billion has already been put on hold since this announcement. I wonder how many of the 800,000 BT shareholders will now be voting Labour?

Why are you so convinced that full fibre is necessary with 5G networks coming that can transmit huge amounts of data at high speeds?

The whole policy is a poorly thought out nonsense from a practical, financial and crucially for Labour an electoral standpoint.

 

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Edited by Van wink

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2 hours ago, Van wink said:

“emonstrating his ignorance”

another Billy classic! 😀

Teeth fell out I reckon😉

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1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Why are you so convinced that full fibre is necessary with 5G networks coming that can transmit huge amounts of data at high speeds?

The whole policy is a poorly thought out nonsense from a practical, financial and crucially for Labour an electoral standpoint.

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We will see whether it is a poor electoral strategy, like many other things that will depend in part on whether the press are going to provide a platform for debate or just cheap shots. 

As for the technology - it’s the digging up of the roads that is expensive, glass fibre is cheap,, 5G cell towers are not, but using them avoids a lot of digging in cities and suburbs. You still need to connect those towers via fibre though. In the countryside if there are telegraph poles just string fiber on those....

And not everyone needs a 1Gbit connection, in our house we have YouTubeTV, Netflix, shop online, and WhatsApp video chat  with friends in Europe and run a business all on a 100Mbps rated service. 

That’s $150 per month and half of that is the  raw internet connection. If the US had rates comparable to Asian countries it would be half that cost and 4 x faster (not that the absolute speed matters too much after 100Mbps IMO) 

Edited by Surfer
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1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Teeth fell out I reckon😉

Needs a free dental check, all begining to fit 😀

Edited by Van wink

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1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Teeth fell out I reckon😉

reasing glasses

bloody things

 

ps some of use use our fingers to type, not our teeth

Edited by Bill

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3 hours ago, BigFish said:

Fair point @Van wink, although it is important to take account of @Jools intent (and that of the the so called "article"). Clearly both wanted to rubbish the policy and the technique they used was to take one element of the financial calculations and attempt to extrapolate this to give the impression that Labour's figures don't add up and furthermore they are financially incompetant.

In the case of the article @Badger has rather debunked a rather weak piece of Tory propaganda from Tory journalist Iain Martin. As for Jools, if you are correct and he indended to refer to the pension liability that means BT has pension ASSETS OF £57 BILLION.

Of course the deficit would be taken into account with regards to the nationalisation and would negatively, quite correctly, impact the compensation for the shareholders. In addition it would be possible to take the pensions off the books as part of the process and make them free standing.

It is instructive to examine the actual problem here. BT have a 90% market share of the fibre market. The companies roll out has failed and at 8% lags behind the countries competitors and even countries like Madagascar. This is while in the free market and under Tory control. BT have also been fined for uncompetitive practices, using its wholesale arm to favour its retail arm to the detriment of competing ISPs. The companies share price has tanked and it has been compensating  its shareholders with dividends of 15% while paying its CEO a seven figure salary.

This is what I mean by your lack of imagination. This problem has been placed in the too difficult to solve category by the Tories. The breakup of BT has been shelved and they have no idea how to address the problems. In fact they don't have the imagination to even see it as a problem. Labour do, they have put up the costings and time limited it. If there is a criticism it is the question whether fibre is the correct technology rather than wireless not whether the funding is there or whether this addresses the identified problem. In both cases the answer is yes.

And that is an accurate synopsis.

With an eye on keeping dividends at a high level so as to retain their bonuses BT have failed, as have the railways and utilities.

However I would doubt that Labour intend to fully nationalise Openreach and this is merely a shot across their bows. Focus on your customers not your shareholders.

But it is quite noticable that the Tories have been caught flat footed on this, as they have let this concern drift (ever downward) and can now only react with outdated guff about it being 'communism'.

Another case of a choice of whether we embrace the futue or cling to the past.

 

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I have no idea whether Labour's internet plan is feasible and/or economically sound, but it really is beyond hilarious to see Tories/Brexiters nationally and on this forum complaining that this is an unfounded and unrealisable promise.

I try not to do whataboutery (being able to destroy Brexit arguments quite easily without resorting to such tactics) but honestly it would be obtuse not to in this instance.

The entire case for Brexit as put forward by the Leave campaigns and now by Johnson as a PM trying to win an election to make Brexit happen has been one gargantuan lie from the outset. And a lie that will scr*w the UK economy for years to come. Against that, one possibly overblown commitment on one sector of UK life hardly adds up to a hill of beans by comparison.

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11 hours ago, Van wink said:

Why are you so convinced that full fibre is necessary with 5G networks coming that can transmit huge amounts of data at high speeds?

The whole policy is a poorly thought out nonsense from a practical, financial and crucially for Labour an electoral standpoint. 

As I understand  it, 5G will not be the solution that you seem to think it will. According to what I heard on the radio, it will not penetrate buildings. If you search it, there is a lot online about it.

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10 hours ago, Bill said:

reasing glasses

bloody things

 

ps some of use use our fingers to type, not our teeth

🤣

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13 hours ago, Van wink said:

"This is what I mean by your lack of imagination. This problem has been placed in the too difficult to solve category by the Tories. The breakup of BT has been shelved and they have no idea how to address the problems. In fact they don't have the imagination to even see it as a problem. Labour do, they have put up the costings and time limited it. If there is a criticism it is the question whether fibre is the correct technology rather than wireless not whether the funding is there or whether this addresses the identified problem. In both cases the answer is yes."

 

Are you so naive as to think that a drawn out nationalisation is going to speed things up?  We are 10th in the EU connectivity rankings which is nowhere near good enough but in the last 2 years the number of homes with fibre access has doubled. More and more investment is coming into the network, or should I say was, £1.5 billion has already been put on hold since this announcement. I wonder how many of the 800,000 BT shareholders will now be voting Labour?

Why are you so convinced that full fibre is necessary with 5G networks coming that can transmit huge amounts of data at high speeds?

The whole policy is a poorly thought out nonsense from a practical, financial and crucially for Labour an electoral standpoint.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results

That is what you are proposing @Van wink, continuing with the same plan that has rolled out only 8% of the network, that ranks the UK under Madasgascar, that is uncompetitive. It has failed and you seem to think that if we stick with it, it will all come out alright in the end. And you call me naive 😉

(Btw if you had read and understood what I wrote you would see that I never argued for full fibre)

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34 minutes ago, BigFish said:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results

That is what you are proposing @Van wink, continuing with the same plan that has rolled out only 8% of the network, that ranks the UK under Madasgascar, that is uncompetitive. It has failed and you seem to think that if we stick with it, it will all come out alright in the end. And you call me naive 😉

(Btw if you had read and understood what I wrote you would see that I never argued for full fibre)

Is there a middle ground?

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Strangely enough the last project I worked on was a mesh connected r.f. (38 GHz) internet system, run by a start up company (Radiant) & financed from venture capital, mostly by the Coal Board pension fund.

It flopped.

It was a real shame, but there were at least two insuperable problems for which there didn't (& I think still doesn't) exist a technological solution. I think they managed to flog off some of the software & other bits of IP, but that was all that came out of it financially.

Radiant was an example of a small company (100ish employees) which failed for the right reasons: it was a risk, but a decent one, using a small proportion of a large organisation's funds, & the rewards could have been enormous. The only real criticism I would have is that the higher management had no technical knowledge (surprise surprise) & the project was allowed to continue well after when the insoluble problems arose. Shall we say there was a certain amount of wool being pulled over investors' eyes.

Would it have been better run by a quango or somesuch? I doubt it. I suspect Radiant would still be going today - & with more employees. It was a nice environment to work in; I managed to sharpen my table football skills considerably in my final few months there!

 

Edited by ron obvious
grammar

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We all know what happened to Ed Miliband with the Bacon sarnie, but was it really any worse than twatty Nigel and his chips? Urgh. I especially like the chip that was repulsed by that utter **** it leapt from his fork evading his mouth in the process. Grim.

Election-farage-brexit-4.jpg

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Whatever happened to the truth? Why did we stop caring about it?

Meanwhile Dominic Raab tweets another lie or he has the power to make it light at 06:30hrs, you can decide.

 

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1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

Is there a middle ground?

Well I don't speak for the Labour Party, but maybe something could be done about the free provision element with the the Gov taking on the wholesale/Openreach division and ISPs continuing as they are. It is not a very left wing policy anyway.

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21 minutes ago, TCCANARY said:

Whatever happened to the truth? Why did we stop caring about it?

Meanwhile Dominic Raab tweets another lie or he has the power to make it light at 06:30hrs, you can decide.

 

As pointed out on twitter, not only is he lying about the time - "Local residents" means "cronies from the local Tory party"

moeUMXns?format=jpg&name=600x314

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A bit chilly up on the North Norfolk coast today.

No 1 fish n chips and a Galton's Ale. Lovely old job😀🍟🍺

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2 hours ago, kick it off said:

Election-farage-brexit-4.jpg

it reminds of the advice for cooking sausages

 

"pr ick with fork "

Edited by Bill
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6 minutes ago, ricardo said:

A bit chilly up on the North Norfolk coast today.

No 1 fish n chips and a Galton's Ale. Lovely old job😀🍟🍺

I did French's yesterday. Much better than No 1 if you ask me.

I can't today though, gotta work. Someone has to pay for your jollies.

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23 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

I did French's yesterday. Much better than No 1 if you ask me.

I can't today though, gotta work. Someone has to pay for your jollies.

French's are vastly over rated

Excellent a decade back but not used by locals anymore

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Why are you so convinced that full fibre is necessary with 5G networks coming that can transmit huge amounts of data at high speeds?

Depends where you live. Landline and full fibre is essential where I live. Wireless is not conducive to granite homes and BT tekkies told me wireless is affected by most things you have running in the house.

And to say that something has doubled doesn't mean anything if the original figure was small. There has been no excuse for this nation to be so far behind with our set up and finance. It is clearly the importance of BT to its shareholders first that is the problem.

When I was having fibre put in, and could n't get a firm date for it, I contacted BT several times and was told they had nothing to do with OpenReach as they were separate companies, even though their vans said it was and shortly after, they were told to split the companies.

Innovation happens and it won't be held up because a company is publicly owned. I agree a court case could hold things up but that shouldn't make it an obstacle.

However I do believe that energy and the trains need to be nationalised before BT.

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4 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

However I do believe that energy and the trains need to be nationalised before BT.

many are...... only they are run by German, French and Dutch government owned companies

the UK continues to be held back by outdated dogma

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2 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

All quiet from the Labour side. Have they given up campaigning?🤣

They're preparing for a second General Election when they don't like the result of the first one 😀

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4 minutes ago, Jools said:

They're preparing for a second General Election when they don't like the result of the first one 😀

Do keep up.

The second General Election was in 1806.

 

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Magic Grandpa Praises Privatised Italian Railway

 

TRAin-lies.png?w=540&ssl=1

It’s rail nationalisation day on Labour’s grid, and to get the train rolling Magic Grandpa put out a shiny video comparing the UK’s rail network to Europe’s; where according to Magic Grandpa the trains are cheaper, better faster and there’s no gravy train for shareholders.

Undermining Magic Grandpa's messaging, however, was his use of footage of the super-fast Italian train, Italothe country’s new privately-owned and operated high-speed rail service…

Italo-train.png?resize=900%2C445&ssl=1

Presumably, Magic Grandpa will also be avoiding mentioning UK fares are the second cheapest in Europe when booked in advance and far more frequentFirst class fact-checking… 🙃

 

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