It's not hell to live in Hull, especially if you use broadband

If you live in a remote part of the UK and have broadband which moves at the speed of a slug.....look away now. Because I've just read a superb story in the Guardian about how some of the most remote villages near Hull are already wired up for 100MB super-fast broadband!

Yes, we are talking villages where there are more cows than people; villages where, if there was a flood, you wouldn't be able to get through on the tiny roads. Yet, somehow, Kingston Communications have delivered bit fat fibre-optic pipe to farms, remote homes and many other tiny locations which are deemed too financially unviable to be offered similar by rival telcos.

Please do read the whole article on the link above. But, just in case you are in a rush,  I have ripped out one section just to show you what I mean.

"Internet service providers that drove broadband take-up, such as TalkTalk and Sky, have never offered the service in Hull, arguing it was uneconomical to put their equipment in Kcom telephone exchanges. The result was a monopoly, in which only 50% of Hull homes had broadband a year ago, embarrassingly below the 68% national average then. But things are changing. Kcom has just eliminated every blackspot in its network, while in the rest of the UK 14% of broadband connections remain below the 2mbps minimum, with many more simply out of reach of a connection."

And now, here is the reason why it is happening in Hull and not everywhere else.

It is the only UK city not covered by BT's telephone network!

Yes, in the olden days, the once council-owned Kingston Communications used to be the only telecoms provider in  that part of east Yorkshire. This legacy has meant Kcom has been able to plough a faster furrow than BT in getting fast broadband to remote areas.

Truly a case, as the Housemartins put it, of London 0 Hull 4! (or Rural UK 0 Rural Hull 4).

However, the question must be asked, if a small once state-owned telephone company can afford to plant 100mb pipes in remote areas; why can't a much bigger once state-owned company do the same?

Maybe Kcom should take over rural broadband provision in the rest of the UK?