England Makes Gigabit Internet a Legal Requirement For New Homes (theverge.com) 50
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amendments to Building Regulations 2010 were announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) on January 6th that mandate new homes constructed in England to be fitted with infrastructure and connections required to achieve gigabit internet connectivity. Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 per home, and developers must still install gigabit-ready infrastructure (including ducts, chambers, and termination points) and the fastest-available connection if they're unable to secure a gigabit connection within the cost cap. The UK government estimates that 98 percent of installations will fall comfortably under that cap, so it's likely been put in place to avoid spiraling chargings in remote, rural areas that need widescale line upgrades. Properties constructed in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland may be exempt from this new legislation as each country sets its own building regulations independently from England.
The new legislation was introduced on December 26th, 2022, following a 12-month technical consultation that indicated around 12 percent of 171,190 new homes constructed in England didn't have gigabit broadband access upon completion. DCMS claims that gigabit broadband is currently available in over 72 percent of UK households and is targeting full nationwide gigabit-capable broadband coverage across the UK by 2030. In order to meet that goal, another law has also been introduced to make it easier to install faster internet connections into existing flats and apartments. Previously, millions of tenants living in the UK's estimated 480,000 multi-dwelling units (MDUs) needed to obtain permission from the landowner to allow a broadband operator to install connection upgrades. Broadband companies estimate that around 40 percent of these requests are ignored by landlords, leaving tenants unable to upgrade their services even if they're unfit for use. Now, the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021 (TILPA) allows broadband providers in England and Wales to seek access rights via court if landlords and land owners don't respond to installation requests within 35 days. "An additional 2,100 residential buildings a year are estimated to be connected to faster broadband speeds as a result of these new rules, and similar legislation is due to come into force in Scotland later this year," adds the report. "The existing appeals process that allows landlords to refuse access requests will not be affected."
The new legislation was introduced on December 26th, 2022, following a 12-month technical consultation that indicated around 12 percent of 171,190 new homes constructed in England didn't have gigabit broadband access upon completion. DCMS claims that gigabit broadband is currently available in over 72 percent of UK households and is targeting full nationwide gigabit-capable broadband coverage across the UK by 2030. In order to meet that goal, another law has also been introduced to make it easier to install faster internet connections into existing flats and apartments. Previously, millions of tenants living in the UK's estimated 480,000 multi-dwelling units (MDUs) needed to obtain permission from the landowner to allow a broadband operator to install connection upgrades. Broadband companies estimate that around 40 percent of these requests are ignored by landlords, leaving tenants unable to upgrade their services even if they're unfit for use. Now, the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021 (TILPA) allows broadband providers in England and Wales to seek access rights via court if landlords and land owners don't respond to installation requests within 35 days. "An additional 2,100 residential buildings a year are estimated to be connected to faster broadband speeds as a result of these new rules, and similar legislation is due to come into force in Scotland later this year," adds the report. "The existing appeals process that allows landlords to refuse access requests will not be affected."
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This in practice means glass fibre
DOCSIS 4.0 can deliver gigabit over cable. Spectrum is rolling this out widely in the US now, competing with fiber.
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Re:Costs and performance are disconnected (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite accurate. The utility in Chattanooga - the EPB - is a public/private corporation. They issued a corporate bond to pay for the upgrade that was mostly intended to connect their power stations and alert them quickly of outages. In that regard it's been a smashing success.
During deployment, EPB realized that they were laying the groundwork for fibre-to-the-home Internet. They hired an outside contractor to help them start and run the ISP side of things, and included the costs associated with their bond issue. The EPB turns a profit off this service, just like any reasonable competitor would in a healthy market. That they were able to offer 1 Gbps up/down to the home for $70/month (now less) only shows how unhealthy the market was before the EPB introduced their service.
Compare this service to the municipal broadband project in Memphis, TN that failed miserably.
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Only competing with fiber on the downlink. Spectrum upstream is still a measly 35 Mbps.
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I'll take 35Mbps upload any day of the week if I could get 1Gbps download. Actually, at this point I would be willing to take 35Mbps download as well since I am stuck on a ~2Mbps cell connection for home Internet.
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Guess I haven't checked my speed in awhile. It is now clocking in at 6-7Mbps but my above argument still holds.
You should consider calyxinstitute.org ... (Score:2)
Calyx Institute suppoorts FOSS. Stands up Tor nodes. Is tax deductible. Uncapped, unthrottled, unlimited 4G. $50/month. Comes with a hotspot but you can put the (data only) SIM into another device. Dual SIM phone works great.
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Ouch, yeah, that's painful. Are you stuck out in the middle of nowhere?
I really don't care about 1 Gbps - my usage is light enough that 300 Mbps is fast enough. Going higher would marginally speed up a couple of things, but I doubt I'd notice. Improving my upload speed, in contrast, would have a huge impact on remote work, offsite backups, etc. However, I'm in a major city where Spectrum has a monopoly and the next-best option is 50 Mbps ADSL...
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True but the *ONLY* provider of cable internet in the UK (Virgin Media) have made the decision to go to glass. Initially with RFoG before a move to a PON based system. So in practical terms, it means glass fibre everywhere.
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Am I reading this right?
Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 per home, and developers must still install gigabit-ready infrastructure (including ducts, chambers, and termination points) and the fastest-available connection if they're unable to secure a gigabit connection within the cost cap.
So every new home gets Gigabit Ethernet for no more than £2,000, unless gigabit isn't available...
The UK government estimates that 98 percent of installations will fall comfortably under that cap, so it's likely been put in place to avoid spiraling chargings in remote, rural areas that need widescale line upgrades.
So builder can add a £2,000 line-item to the remote & rural home, and any cost above that will be folded into the price of the remote & rural home, got it.
If it costs £5,000 to install gigabit Ethernet, and by law the service must be provided, the builder will simply raise the price the house £3,000 to cover the losses from the £2,000 line-item cap.
Re:Costs and performance are disconnected (Score:4, Funny)
See you live in the USA where companies ripping people off is a tradition. Civilized countries have things like consumer protection laws that actually benefit consumers.
Re:Costs and performance are disconnected (Score:4, Informative)
So, in the end, the buyer bears the full cost, but lawmakers will make your remote & rural house more expensive while acting like they got you something for nothing.
That's not entirely true. The cost of adding new wiring after building a house is way, way higher than the cost of adding it during construction. Dropping some dark fiber into the wall while you're pulling coax and phone lines and power wires results in a cost that is not much more than the cost of the materials, because you're doing it all at once, using existing holes, and doing it while the walls are still open. Drilling extra holes and taking down part of the ceiling and snaking it in weird ways through the walls takes way more time, and thus has much higher labor costs.
So in a way, you actually are getting something for nothing. You're getting a deep discount on what would otherwise have been much higher aftermarket labor costs.
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So every new home gets Gigabit Ethernet for no more than £2,000, unless gigabit isn't available...
If gigabit isn't available in the area they still have to install the infrastructure that can support gigabit speeds. So your statement is correct except the only thing that is hindering gigabit speeds at that point is the head-end of the system not the infrastructure that goes to the home. This would be better than the current situation where the ISP would only need to put in the infrastructure that maxes out at their current speed that may be significantly lower than 1Gbps (so going to 1Gbps would mean re
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Forgot to add that I also assume this is only to get the service to the home not the service inside the building.
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If gigabit isn't available in the area they still have to install the infrastructure that can support gigabit speeds.
Infrastructure here is not built out but available. We're talking about conduits blank outlets and building entries for fibre connection. i.e. the rule is in place to prevent a situation where someone installing a gigabit connection would result in half their house being demolished to run cabling. During construction that adds about double digit cost to the building. Retrofit it comes into the thousands for cutting up walls, burring services, replastering, repainting, etc.
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There are a few things to note in this. Firstly any development of two or more homes in the UK can get a full fibre connection from Openreach for the same price that they would have in the past provided a copper connection. In fact in these circumstances in 2022 Openreach will *only* provide a full fibre connection. So for 99.999% of all houses built it makes *zero* difference.
Secondly the government are rightly fed up of using public money to upgrade broadband in homes when the main house builders are maki
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No you are not reading that right. Not even remotely.
If it costs less than 2000GBP you provide gigabit. If not you provide what you can. In either case you put in place available infrastructure within your construction for gigabit. For your information this is about 20GBP for an internal connection point covered with a blank, an empty piece of conduit, and a connection point where any other service enters the building.
Rural houses won't magically get ludicrously expensive.
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My read on this is 'new homes, and therefore, new subdivisions, must have conduit and fiber put in during construction. If there's fiber already in the area, go ahead and splice it in. If not, well, now the glass is in the ground and it'll work whenever.'
I've seen remote Canadian towns get full FTTH infrastructure put in, then have bandwidth backhauled through licensed microwave. Eventually, somebody runs fiber past the town, and it's easy to lease a few strands and tie it in to the existing infrastructu
does the phone system there have fiber to node (Score:2)
does the phone system there have fiber to node is most places With limited full fiber to the home?
Re:does the phone system there have fiber to node (Score:4, Interesting)
In terms of technology makeup, FTTC is fairly rapidly approaching ubiquity in all but the most rural areas, and FTTP availability is increasing fast as well, but mostly in high population density or new build areas. 4G/5G or other wireless tech is often used for filling in hardwire notspots, which isn't perfect, but for most consumers it's more than ample for typical streaming media and Internet use. Ironically, there are some fairly significant inner city areas that don't even have FTTC yet, but rural broadband schemes have given some very isolated farms heavily subsidised broadband speeds ranging from from 100Mb/s up to 1Gb/s - go figure!
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I had FTTC for several years for my broadband and was paying about £20 per month (about $24) to rent the copper connection to my house. I few months ago I switched over to FTTP and while there was a £100 installation fee there is strangely no "fibre rental charge". The cost of my broadband went up slightly, but I'm still saving north of £200 per year for a faster connection (115/20 Mbit - up to 1Gbit if I pay more).
I un
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Yes, Openreach has been shaken into action somewhat by other players putting fibre in. I think we can be fairly sure they'd never have bothered otherwise. They've put in a load of FTTC around where I live in the last few months too. Some of the telegraph poles _say_ they have fibre on them, although I'm sceptical if it really is.
I live on the same street as the local telephone exchange. I can't get fibre (from anyone). The best I can get is 60meg ADSL - which costs about £25/month (or I could get cabl
will cable with up 50 MEG up count for this? (Score:3)
will cable with up 50 MEG up count for this?
there best plan called Fibre (but seems to have cable docsis speeds)
1130Mbps average download speed
52Mbps average upload speed
Tell us when Belarus has this. (Score:3)
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Fair to whom? "Fair" implies all sides benefit.
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Then, when that privilege expires after a reasonable time, five years:
The fair free use of public information to benefit manknd.
Re: Tell us when Belarus has this. (Score:2)
How is that what's going on in Belarus?
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Business plan:
1. Move to Belarus
2. Open VPN business for incoming connections*
3. Open repository of western movies (and a sci-hub mirror)
4. Profit 50% (use the other 50% to bribe officials so to stay alive and on the outer side of Belarus jail system)
* accepting local customers for outgoing connections not recommended
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5. Go bankrupt because too many countries have blocked your IP address space.
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1. Move to Belarus
2. Get drafted to fight for the Belorussian/Russian Army.
Re: Tell us when Belarus has this. (Score:2)
haha
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4. Profit. Hundreds of rubbles of
INCOMING!
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If they're going to assert that degree of control over new homebuilders, they can likely inflict price controls on existing landlords as well.
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Doesn't matter. Supply constriction is supply constriction. Required costs are required costs.
If everyone else has to pay more for a house, I get to charge more when I sell than I would have been able to otherwise.
This new law is great for owners of existing homes and landlords, and incrementally worse for everyone that wants to buy their first house or rent.
I'm happy about it, of course.
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It's incredibly easy to get around price controls as a landlord. People teach classes in the UK on how to do it.
Also, rent control is great for large corporate landlords as they prevent smaller entrants into the market. Eliminating competition via rent control is the primary reason why the largest donors to passing rent control laws is big businesses that own lots of rental properties.
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I didn't say it was perfect, but that would be the next step taken by a large and powerful bureaucracy.
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Not really. If you are building two or more houses then Openreach (for those not in the UK the main legacy incumbent) will provide a fibre connection for the same price that it would have provided the old copper based telephone line. In fact they won't provide copper based telephone lines to new developments anymore. So it does not constrain the supply of new homes in any reasonable manner.
Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Would like to see what the regulation covers regarding the telecoms side of this - sure, the property developers may be under a legal obligation to provide the physical infrastructure, but theres a hefty reliance here on BT having the capacity (in more ways than one) up stream.
A lot of people in the UK technically "have access" to high speed fibre broadband, in that their local exchange offers it, but cant access it because either the exchange is at capacity or the exchange is at capacity for the LLU provider the customer has chosen.
For most local terminations (the boxes by the side of the road), as much as 50% of the capacity in there is reserved for BT use and BT use only - so your exchange may have capacity, and the box may have capacity, but as you are using a LLU, you might not get a connection - if you switch to BT, magically capacity becomes available.
Outdated already! (Score:1)
Why is this a thing? You can already get affordable broadband via Bill Gates 5G wireless broadband, which is not going away anytime soon. Why run unnecessary copper cables or fiber? Waste of natural resources.
Re: Outdated already! (Score:2)
Well, I signed up for 5G Home Broadband (deals are indeed now cheap in the UK) because the ISP's 5G checker map said it was available at my postcode. What the checker didn't say was that I live at the bottom of a hill that blocks off the 5G signal from the only 5G mast in my small town. Managed to get 10 Mbits/sec down, so had to cancel it during the 14-day cool off period.
I've signed up for a different ISP because they had a cheap FTTP offer instead (£25/month for 500 Mbits/sec down+up), only
Big Brother has plans for that bandwidth. (Score:2)
Renewables first...? (Score:1)
I was just going to post "What a complete joke!" and leave it at that, but...
Can we have solar panels and rainwater capture first? I get that FAST internet is cool and relatively cheap to install but this is not a win. It's a fluffy "we've actually managed to do something" by a crippled lame duck government.
I have found that 40Mbps is typically perfectly adequate for a normal family of four, one of whom (i.e. me) is a HEAVY data user with a lot of data in the cloud and elsewhere. I don't run my own server
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They can offer this because there basically are almost no "new homes", and by the time they arrive they'll be the obligation of a replacement government.
Also, it's really easy to just drop in a fibre line when you build a house or even an entire estate. Everything else you mention requires significant investment and would just be removed from the legislation (if it's not already had that done by the opposition in previous years).
I do 1Tb a month, and I used to do that on 4G for years (I only stopped becaus
The real effect... (Score:2)
...will be to prevent the construction of any new homes in rural areas, or even some areas of existing metros.
Never happen in the US... (Score:1)
If we can offer 1/10 that at 75% the price of 1Gb, then you will think you are getting a deal.