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Please stop pissing our money away!

UK Chancellor announces more funding for broadband


Are you kidding me? The economy is in near meltdown and you think giving people a faster connection to Facebook is a priority?

£100m [...] is set to boost broadband coverage in London, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff. A further six cities will be identified later.

A hundred million quid of our money being spent on something that private businesses should be paying for, is not justifiable in any times, let alone times of supposed austerity. If you've got that kind of money to spare, how about giving us taxpayers a break for a change?

Firms including BT and Virgin will be able to bid for the money, which they can use to fill in urban notspots or increase wi-fi coverage, a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport told the BBC.

BT welcomed the news.

I'm sure they did welcome it. Free cash? Kerchiiing! And where will the profits from this venture go? Back into the treasury or into BT's pockets?

That's assuming there will be any profits. When the government sticks it's nose into areas of private business, failure usually follows.

I'm so sick of being governed.

8 Comments:

Macheath said...

It may be billed as a boost for the local economy but I suspect that this - coupled with the aggressive campaigns to get the over-60's online - is part of the planned cutbacks to the public sector.

It is surely only a matter of time before social services require elderly ‘clients’ to contact them exclusively by e-mail, or public services are only available via websites.

Meanwhile, the Mail carries an article claiming that Wi-fi seriously damages sperm and reduces male fertility. Enough of that, I suppose, and the urban housing crisis is solved.

JuliaM said...

And don't forget to facilitate the transfer to that oh-so-desired cashless economy!

Bucko said...

Macheath - It may be billed as a boost to the local economy, but when governments attempt to do that they usually fail.

It could be down to the public service thing or it could also be down to Facebook et al. Watching the telly box seems to keep the sheep asleep. Social networking has the same effect, so maybe they just want more of that.

Julia - True dat.

Plug me in said...

The 'return' for HM Gubmint will be to insist that for their money (aka known as our money) the Gubmint will be allowed to have greater control over 'content' and 'direction.'

Teh tinterwebs have profoundly shaken our rulers; there are apparently voices raised against them, doubting their selfless love and altruistic intentions, and they don't like it anywhere near up them. So, what better than to offer a small carrot (and it isn't a carrot they have grown, either; no back breaking work hoeing the wet soil) and demand a greater say in what is, or isn't, said.

One hundred mill is chump change for exercising power.

Angry Exile said...

We've got it going on down here. $45 ish billion they're throwing at a fibre-to-the-home system for nearly everyone that isn't in some remote outback area in the 95% of the country that consists of remote outback. And they'll get satellite instead. Oh, it'll be nice and fast - 100Mbits - except that I don't think they realise that two computers on 100Mbit connections won't be that fast if the slowest link between the two of them can only manage 5Mbits. And in the meantime 4G wireless, which will also be nice and fast, is being trialled in Melbourne's CBD, which could well render the bloody National Broadband Network obsolete by the time it's complete.

"When the government sticks it's nose into areas of private business, failure usually follows."

What he said.

Bucko said...

Plug me in - Yes that, along with the cashless society that Julia mentioned are some of the holy grails. The only way they will get them is by chipping away at us with little scares or schemes. This could well be one of those schemes.

Angry Exile - It often surprises me how your government and mine seem to be desperately trying to outdo each other. In my younger years I imagined Australia to be quite a liberal place. Not sure where I got that from.

Snowman said...

Internet for all, and all transactions and interaction with the gummint online. Sounds triffically exciting. So C21.

But... what happens when the lights (and the computers and everything else electric) go out thanks to insane envirowanker policies? What then, super-smart gummint fucknuts?

Bucko said...

Snowman - They don't beleive for a minute that their energy policies will cause any problems. On the contrary, we should be living in paradise shortly if we keep up this green nonsense.