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Originally Posted by speedlever
How does that compare to other places?
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If you live in town/city where you get an access to the only cable company in the country, Virgin Media (previously NTL), you are well off. I left them when I moved house more than a year ago, but I think they offer 50M down nowdays.
I used to be with them on 20M down/756kbps up for £30 IIRC.
However, if you live in an area not covered by VM more than often you are out of luck. I live in town and my ADSL speed is 3M/700kbps because I live behind railway line, thus far from exchange. My friends live in a posh village, she has got only 1.9M/350kbps. 1.9 starting from the day before yesterday, when she called them umpteenth time and said she gives up and is going to another ISP (empty threat because the problem is with phone lines, so any ISP would be the same). She had 0.79M down for half a year. She lives only 10 minutes on a car from the centre of the town. It is not USA where 10-15 miles is like 100m walking distance. They lowered noise level that upped her speed from 0.79 to 1.9. Still pretty shitty speed. Another friend who lives in another village has 2.4M down.
The United Kingdom's internet speed is on the same level or lower than third world countries.
The problem is the same as with railway lines and trains. Phone lines are ancient because the UK used to be one of the very first and advanced in the industry 100 years ago? Updating the infrastructure is a tantamount task and requires billions of pounds that the sole owner of all phone lines in the UK - BT, refuses to pay.
They have given a very promising vow. Provide all households with High speed Internet by 2012 or 2014? I don't remember.
Do you know what is their vision of High speed Internet? 2M.
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I've read more than once that the USA is behind the rest of the world
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So, you, Americans are much better than us
Europe is faster than the UK I think. The Empire if crumbling to dust though. The worst railway network, some of the worst road conditions...etc.
I have been to The Netherlands and Austria and they are far superior in those two issues. I guess Germany is better than all of them