<story><title>UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds</title><url>http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-broadband-speeds-fibre-to-the-home</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>signal11</author><text>&amp;gt; The UK’s fibre to the home infrastructure is so poor it’s out-performed by almost every other country in Europe (Latvia, with 50.6 per cent fibre coverage, ranks first in terms of market penetration).&lt;p&gt;The reason the UK is on a mix of copper and fiber is because the entrenched monopoly, BT, didn&amp;#x27;t think fiber to the home (FTTH) was worth investing in. To protect their investment in their existing copper network, they pushed tech like VDSL&amp;#x2F;FTTC (up to 80Mbps) and now G.Fast (up to 500Mbps), which are &amp;quot;fiber to the cabinet&amp;quot; but the last mile is copper. The problem is, speeds fall off depending on how far your home is from the cabinet. I&amp;#x27;ve seen many non-technical consumers be disappointed and say &amp;quot;the ISP said I can only get 11Mbps but they advertise up to 80Mbps&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;BT have now been told by the telecoms regulator to prioritize deploying fiber to the home. Also, serious money is now pouring into alternative network providers. CityFibre, which is installing its own gigabit-grade fiber network in about 30 UK cities (so home users in all these cities can be offered FTTH), was recently acquired by a consortium with fairly deep pockets. BT, which historically was the entrenched monopoly, is no longer the sole arbiter of the UK&amp;#x27;s broadband future.</text></comment>
<story><title>UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds</title><url>http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-broadband-speeds-fibre-to-the-home</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>oldcynic</author><text>The UK &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; have had world leading broadband were it not for Mrs T. She decided BT&amp;#x27;s late 1980s decision to rollout fibre was anti-competitive and killed it in 1990 when we were pretty much leading the world [0].&lt;p&gt;So the grindingly slow reality of ADSL isn&amp;#x27;t especially surprising sadly.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.techradar.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world-of-tech&amp;#x2F;how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.techradar.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world-of-tech&amp;#x2F;how-the-uk-lost...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>