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The Digital Britain feed from twitter is yielding some very interesting information. For example people are tweeting about their submissions for the funding that is available from the Technology Strategy Board.
It is worth watching the feed for a minute or two to get a feel for what is going on in the Digital Britain initiative. If you hover your cursor over the feed it will stop scrolling and thus lets you control the speed.
Ten years ago Oracle was ahead of its time when it tried to kill off Microsoft with the Network Computer. At that time it was a combination of the cost and reliability of the underlying network together with the lack of applications to run on it that likely killed it off.
Today these barriers have all but disappeared. Connectivity is orders of magnitude cheaper and the number of uses for the network has exploded.
WordPress, for example, is the platform that I use to write this blog. WordPress has 6,760 plugins available for download and they have indeed been downloaded 52,448,569 times to date.
A plug-in or widget is a small application that is used to run on a platform to enable certain functionality. In the case of trefor.net these applications provide the functionality in the right hand column – twitter feed, add/subscribe etc. I also use applications invisible to the reader such as wordpress seo, search engine optimisation.
I think nothing of using WordPress which is a totally cloud based application, unlike Dreamweaver for example, which at one time I used to use to design websites and which resided on my PC.
So as a final note on the Salesforce.com CIO council meeting last week I thought I’d look more into their cloud offering. The Salesforce.com Force.com platform has have 200+ native apps and 550+ partner apps. Not as many as WordPress but there again many of the WordPress plug-ins will never see the light of a real website and they are free.
The Force.com applications that are used, however, are of major interest to business, at least collectively. They must be because Salesfor.com has 63,200 paying customers with 81M+ lines of code with 16M+ customizations – modification that integrate the Force.com platform with other services used by these customers.
New WordPress plug-ins appear daily whilst Salesforce.com restricts itself to three releases a year – coming up to release number 30 this Autumn. In the business world a software release needs to be bug free as possible and fully tested which is certainly not always the case with open source equivalents.
So it is clear to me that the move to the cloud is well underway and anyone looking at their information roadmap strategy should have this at the forefront of their mind. Of course this isn’t going to kill off Microsoft anytime soon…
Having moved the Timico Network Operations Team to Newark this summer I am looking at upgrading our facilities to provide the business with a state of the art Operations Centre. With this in mind if anyone has any inputs on how we might approach this now is the time.
If anyone out there who are proud of their own facilities and wants to invite me to visit for a look see then I will gratefully accept the invitation.
I am also happy to be approached by vendors in this space if they have something that will add value here. This could include monitoring equipment, posh screens, ergonomically optimised workstations, electronic whiteboards or even just nice plants etc, etc.
My contact details are available here.
In considering moving some of their business operations to the cloud the CIOs round the table at last week’s Salesforce.com cloud computing workshop voiced some interesting issues that they had had to get to grips with.
Firstly in running with a cloud based service a business is effectively entrusting key corporate data to a third party and effectively relinquishes control over it.
This means that you have to be sure of the integrity of the cloud. Salesforce.com operates 3 global datacentres in North America, Europe and Asia. These are linked with multiple OC48 fibre connections and replicate with each other on an ongoing basis. Of course this doesn’t preclude a domino effect type disaster.
A prudent business will also store it’s own data elsewhere. Coincidentally Timico’s own cloud storage service backs up to two secure and geographically diverse locations so customers then have their data stored in three spots – our two and their own local storage. It would be over the top for us to shift data to the Far East 🙂
The nature of the concern voiced at the workshop was not so much the safety of the data but its retrievability in the event that a customer wanted to take it’s business elsewhere. So when looking at a cloud service the portability of your Bytes is important. Whilst simply retrieving stored data is straightforward (bandwidth permitting) retrieving the business logic built into may not be so careful planning is likely to be required.
Different cloud services almost certainly offer different applications and features and it will be a while before these harmonise into a single set of features in the way that PBXs and CRM packages have done over the years. At the moment though you are unlikely to be able to move to a like for like service. Choose your partner well at the outset.
Another comment from the floor related to the fact that although part of the sales pitch from a cloud vendor was ease of scalability typically this meant that they let you scale up easily but were not so accommodating when you want to scale down. It is understandable that service providers want to maximise their take but I tend to agree that people should be able to reduce their commitment as well as grow it. It should be a stimulus for the quality of a service to be kept up.
Our VoIP service does typically allow customers to do this with one month’s notice so it can be done.
Something for you to think about. Technology comes and goes. What happens after cloud computing? What lies beyond the cloud?
You may or may not have known that I am on the CIO Council of Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com is a highly professional organisation that I believe really has its head screwed on.
This isn’t a sales pitch for them but I was sufficiently enthused by my Cloud Workshop day, held yesterday in the East Room on the 7th Floor of the Tate Modern Gallery on London’s South Bank, to gush in this post.
The meeting was attended by twenty five or so persons including some global cloud experts from our hosts but also by some heavy hitting CIOs from major international corporates.
What astounded me is the pace of the move away from Microsoft and towards Linux, Google Apps and, of course, Salesforce.com. Their cloud platform Force.com now has 750 Applications you can download. I don’t think anything in this cloudy world comes free but there are seriously well documented business cases and high returns on investment for treading this path.
In the interest of keeping my posts short I’m going to gradually trickle the seven pages of notes I made on the day into discrete bites on this blog.There are lots of really interesting tidbits. Like for example the market for cloud computing is worth $162Bn and that analysts claim that Salesforce.com has a 2 year market lead on its competitors.
I’ll finish this one by thanking my hosts for a very rewarding day and a splendid meal afterwards held in the privileged environs of the Poetry and Dream Gallery on Level 3 which included a couple of Picassos (The Three Dancers) and a Jackson Pollock.
In its response to the Government’s consultation on Music Piracy BT has stated that the three strikes approach may cost each broadband user £24 a year (up to £1million a day in total). This represents what BT thinks may be the cost of implementing the legislation and which it might find itself having to pass on to its customers. It would likely be the same (if not more) for all ISPs. It makes the proposed 50p tax on phone lines pale into insignificance. There should be no doubt that it is a tax.
Actually I’m not in principle against raising taxes to spend on the roll out of a national fibre network. It’s just that 50 pence is inadequate. We would all better spend this money on the fibre roll out.
There is clearly a lot of politicking going on in what is the run up to the next general election. The Government is looking for quick PR wins. If it is not careful this is one that is going to come back to bite.
I read the BT position in the Daily Mirror. I obviously have a wide range in tastes when it comes to literature 🙂
It’s worth taking a look at this blog post at media140.org. It contains part of a talk given by @cyberdoyle, a regular commenter on trefor.net at a session on #digitalbritain at the Royal Society organised by BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT . @cyberdoyle quite rightly maintains that the BET solution for broadband over long copper lines is inadequate.
The real point that is being hugely missed by Government and which I have mentioned more than once is that 2Mbps is totally inadequate as a speed for a Universal Service Obligation for broadband. Others quote 40Mbps or more as being where it should be. I believe we should be pitching for 1Gbps. If this is not achievable short term then if we lay the national corporate fibre infrastructure then it will be doable sooner rather than later by upgrading the equipment at either end of the fibre.
The Technology Strategy Board promotes the development and adoption of new technology, ideas and applications in the UK. It has been given a pot of money to seed the development of technology that will underwrite the aims and objectives of the Digital Britain report.
The briefing was in London on Friday, the aim being to bring network providers and rights holders together to finalise the specification for the Technology Strategy Board’s Digital TestBed. About £30m is apparently available to spend and I understand that in excess of 400 application forms have been downloaded from their with a likely 80 projects to be chosen to go forward to the “feasibility study” stage. Some applicants will clearly be disappointed.
Whilst I think that his activity is to be applauded I did hear of one interesting bit of feedback from the day. The representative from Sony, who presumably was there to discuss ways of making music more easily available online in a legal manner, suggested that if it was licensing models that were up for discussion, he would need to get the lawyers on the case.
The whole issue of legal online access to music is indeeed all about licensing models. The cost of the licenses basically. I get the feeling that the rights holders aren’t really interested in making this easy or lowering the costs. Once you get lawyers involved things take forever. You can’t talk about licensing without lawyers. ergo it will never happen.
I’m excited to tell the world that Timico achieved 23rd position in this year’s Sunday Times/Microsoft TechTrack 100 League Table of the fastest growing tech companies in the UK.
Last year we were an amazing 4th and the year before that we were 10th. The table is based on 3 years compound growth so to be in the top 100 for three years running is a fantastic feat let alone three years in the top 23!
We still have a fair bitof work to do to get where we want to be which is to be the number one partner for businesses looking for communications services in the UK but I’d say that the message from the Sunday Times must be that we are very much heading in the right direction.
When I started to use twitter a little more earnestly I took a look at some other twitterers and determined that there was a pattern in getting lots of followers. These Tweeters (if that is the right word) were also following lots of people.
So I did the same. I randomly started to follow people and found that half of them then began to follow me. Of course the downside to this is I get a lot of traffic in my “in tray” with comments from people who I really have no interest in. So much so that it is hardly worth looking at the feed.
I now periodically unfollow people who, after looking their profile, I feel I have nothing in common with. I’m trying to narrow it down to a useful set of “follows”. My criteria are I keep a friend if they are in the UK and look “normal”, in my business space or do seem to have something interesting to say. There are a lot of people out there spouting rubbish and a lot of “services” that are no use to me – local news alerts in other parts of the world for example.
Spending a little time “unfollowing” in the early hours this morning I am astounded to come across some accounts that have huge followers. One, @DigitalRoyalty, had more than a million! Drilling into her profile I found that she was an online PR specialist. Clearly good at her job.
This is a new world. I feel a little like Captain James Cook setting out on his first voyage of exploration.
The first Annual ITSPA Awards bash last year was a huge success, not least because Timico won the Best Unified Communications provider award! The event was held in the House of Lords Members Dining Room and had a fantastic turnout. We ended up in a few bars around Westminster and succeeded in not losing the trophy.
This year we are doing the same again and hopefully will have another great turnout. If you are reading this and are in the VoIP business you should think about entering. There are categories for both Service Providers and equipment/solution vendors, details of which can be found here. This year’s entrants are also going to be subject to expert testing by Epitiro.
The winners will be announced in the House of Commons Strangers Dining Room where the ITSPA Awards will take place on 10th December 2009. I look forward to seeing you there. Come and tap me on the shoulder to say hello.
This may be something that has been going on for sometime in the background, but Ofcom today launched its consultation into regulation of video on-demand (VOD) services.
Following the Audio Visual Media Services Directive, the Government is to regulate VOD services which are ‘TV-like’. The consultation is looking at whether the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) should regulate advertising in VOD services and is proposing that VOD services be regulated by the Association for Television on Demand (ATVOD).
The regulation will consist of a range of minimum content standard, new VOD rules delivered through a co-regulatory framework, and Ofcom will be given primary responsibility to ensure the effective operation of the co-regulatory framework.
VOD regulation has to be in place by December 19 and Ofcom is seeking views by October 26.
I did wonder whether this meant that Ofcom would be trying to regulate the likes of YouTube. The consultation document does tell us that whether a service is in scope for regulation is defined by a range of criteria, including: whether the principal purpose of a service is to provide “television-like” programmes, on an on-demand basis, to members of the public; whether such a service falls under UK jurisdiction for the purposes of regulation; and whether the service is under a person’s “editorial responsibility”.
I suspect that YouTube falls outside of the UK for jurisdiction but this might not be the case in my mind if a specific video was stored on servers based in the UK. I don’t know where specific bits of the YouTube cloud are but it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that some of it could one day be in UK datacentres. Looks like another potentially messy situation to me.
PS I note that my post titles are getting more and more tabloid-like and sensationalist. I rely on my friends to tell me when it is getting out of control 🙂
Just a quick sound byte. Watching Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on both iPlayer and Freeview. Sound comes through about half second faster on iPlayer. Take note all ye on line betting syndicates:-)
Had this link sent to me via the industry grapevine today. Basically Thus is closing its “Pipecall” voip service and appears to be leaving customers to their own devices. This isn’t just a case of people going off and finding an alternative provider. They need to be able to port their numbers. Typically only BT has porting agreements with absolutely everyone so in this case Thus’ beleaguered customer base is probably stuck with whatever solution (and pricing) BT might be able to offer them. And it might not be a VoIP solution.
Thus is particularly a special case as the company likely hosted its own numbers on its own interconnect to the BT network. THUS is not a member of industry trade body ITSPA and does not therefore adhere to the ITSPA Code of Practice in which members endeavour to offer porting to other members.
The Pipecall user base would almost certainly have had more choice had they been dealing with an ITSPA member company. Many ITSPA members use wholesale partners to host their numbers and interconnects to what is after all a declining network (ie the PSTN – it doesn’t make sense to invest in “old fashioned” network infrastructure). Thus (not very good pun intended) migration between Communications Providers on a wholesale platform is a lot easier.
As it stands Pipecall customers probably now need help with their comms. If anyone wants to get in touch for advice feel free to contact me directly. I’ve pasted below the content from the Thus/Demon website on this subject for ease of reading. Oh and by the way Timico is just investing in a major VoIP platform infrastructure upgrade. Watch this space. We are in it for the long run.
Why is my account being cancelled?
THUS has made the decision to close the platform which carries the service you are currently using.
Why are you putting an end to the service?
The platform has reached the end of its serviceable life. It is not possible for THUS to effectively maintain it and deliver acceptable levels of reliability, performance and security and as such, the decision has been taken to close it.
What are you putting in place or what are you offering to do with our numbers?
There will not be a directly comparable Voice Over Broadband service available from THUS. See below on how to port your numbers to an alternative provider.
What is being done with my details that are held in your database / system?
These will be deleted.
How do I port my numbers?
Customers wishing to port their numbers should contact BT. If they select an appropriate product from them, BT will port the numbers over themselves when the service goes live.
What will happen to the personalised IVR on my service?
As the service is closed all IVR functionality will be lost. Customers will need to replicate what they had with their preferred new service provider.
What will happen to my stored faxes etc on the control panel?
This functionality will be lost with the service termination.
Will my hardware work with any provider?
We can’t guarantee that it will. However the Voice over Broadband service was built using industry standards, so should your new service also be SIP based, your hardware should still function.
What if I need to collect previous CDR data or invoices post the closure date?
These will be available for 3 months afterwards.
When will the system close?
The system is due to close at the end of September.
I’ve heard about the cease of service but I haven’t received my letter of notice?
The letters were all sent out to our customers registered addresses at the end of August.
While the numbers are being ported, will that cause any downtime to my service?
No. Should your new provider follow the correct procedure there should be no downtime.
Will support still be available after the closure date?
As the service will no longer be operational support will not be available.
I am still within my 12 month contract, will that cease also?
Yes
I am in credit on my account, will that be paid to me in full?
Yes – Please contact Customer Services by email via [email protected] or via telephone on 0845 009 0080 (Contactable between 9am-5:30pm Mon-Fri) so that we can arrange for any outstanding payments to be made to you.
How long does it take to port a number?
You will need to speak to your new provider to find out the timescales.
The minimum lead time is 5 working days but your new provider may take longer.
Reading the news online before breakfast this (Saturday) morning I came across the PIEMAN project in Ireland. PIEMAN, or The Photonic Integrated Extended Metro and Access Network, is an EC funded project researching new broadband fibre optic technology.
The project potentially promises broadband fibre connectivity over distances of up to 100km in a single hop. This would be a huge advance over today’s 25km (ish) for an ethernet circuit. I’d guess we turn down business on a weekly basis, because the customer’s site is too far from the nearest POP for a connection to be economically viable.
PIEMAN also introduces the idea of low cost 10Gbps connectivity, with many more users able to share the same broadband fibre. This makes the Government target of 90% penetration of 40Meg by 2017 seem very tame.
There has been a lot in the press recently regarding Government plans to regulate the ISP industry. ISPs have been vociferous where they consider that this regulation is unnecessary and adds cost burdens that will have to be borne by consumers.
Quite pleasingly other industries which the Government is likely to think would be the beneficiaries of the legislation have also come out against it.
For example the high profile “three strikes” approach to Music Piracy whereby persistent file-sharers have their broadband cut off is attracting a lot of opposition from the music industry itself. The BBC reports:
Feargal Sharkey’s UK Music allegedly has a war chest of up to £20 million a year to lobby Government on the subject of ISP regulation. This FAC stance seems to be clear disagreement within that industry.
The leak in the Independent this week that the Queen’s Speech currently is planned to propose mandatory blocking of consumer broadband connections for child abuse images has also created a bit of a stir.
The vast majority of consumer broadband connections already have such screening and it seems that the Government is trying to make political capital out of a subject which everyone will of course support in principle.
The issue is how much effort and money will it take to cover the last few consumers not already “protected” particularly as it is smaller ISPs who are most likely to be affected. This is particularly relevant considering that all we are not talking about stopping hard core child abusers who already know how to get around the blocking.
The Register has come out with an interview on this subject with Jim Gamble, Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), and effectively the UK’s leading investigator of online child abuse who has come out against legislation in this area.
There is potentially a lot more regulation in the pipeline. Somewhere in a Government office near you someone is plotting to gain more control ever our every day lives. It is at least nice to see that there are people out there with some common sense who are willing to stick their hands up and say “this is not right”.
It is interesting to see the mix of traffic on the Timico ADSL network and thus what is taking up the broadband bandwidth usage. As a B2B ISP the profile will be dramatically different to that of a consumer provider.
For example the amount of bit torrent traffic is fairly low at around 6%. This compares with up to 40% sometimes seen on residential ADSLs. There are legitimate business uses of P2P but it does suggest that a few customers are hitting it hard. The nature of P2P is that it will hog all available bandwidth which actually makes it a highly efficient protocol for transferring large amounts of data. In fact the 6% of P2P traffic on the Timico could well be largely down to half a dozen ADSL2+ customers hitting it hard which represents a tiny proportion of our customer base.
The usual business type applications such as email and VPN are apparent on the chart but the biggest driver is clearly simple web browsing. No great messages here regarding bandwidth growth.
There are however some hidden gotchas. This chart was a snapshot over one working day sometime recently. It does not, for example cover the Ashes cricket matches where video streaming saw a huge growth as people at work tuned in on Skyplayer. How many business managers knew that their staff were watching the TV all day instead of working? It is costing them twice – in the salaried time spent watching the cricket and in the cost of the bandwidth.
Also it is daytime usage and does not cover night time where a significant amount of file transfer traffic takes place. We do see a small rise in P2P in the evenings – Timico provides thousands of corporate homeworker ADSLs. However the overall bandwidth falls significantly for us after 5 o’clock which is the exact opposite to what is seen in the consumer world. It will be interesting to periodically track the changes in usage and look at where the trend takes us over time.
As we begin to discuss the merits of broadband types — Fibre To The Cabinet and Fibre To The Premises compared with ADSL — there are a few points worth noting.
First of all there is the speed of the connection. ADSL2+ offers “up to 24Mbps”, FTTC “up to 40Mbps” and FTTP, which has no copper in the loop, is initially 100Mbps with an upgrade path to 1Gbps. I’m not predicting when any reader will have access to these services but those are the numbers. Also the 100M should not need the “up to” inverted commas.
Speed apart the biggest win for me is likely to be in the reliability of the service. Copper based broadband connections are very prone to service interruption due to water and electrical storms.
Believe it or not fault rates do actually go up during summer heatwaves and the thunderstorms that these unbearable periods of British summer weather tend to attract:-). Fibre does not care about water or electromagnetic interference.
Fibre bandwidth delivery is also not dependant on distance in the way that copper based ADSL is. So the overall customer experience is likely to be much improved as we move to FTTP.
BT are assuming that more of their NGA rollouts are going to be FTTC. I think that once FTTP is readily available it will supersede it’s partly copper based sibling. Uses for the bandwidth are going to come along in their droves.
A lively time is being had today at the BT Wholesale ISP Forum. The ISP world is fast moving and with so many changes going on – the move from ADSL Max to 21CN, the introduction of Fibre To The Cabinet, Ethernet in the First Mile – there are always lots of things to talk about.
We had a market presentation given by John Kiernan of the BT Market Research department. This was largely a regurgitation of this year’s Ofcom Market Report but he also spoke about the move away from fixed broadband to mobile broadband. During the debate from the floor someone mentioned that at the Broadband World Forum in Paris yesterday the talk (presumably by the wireless network operators) was that wireless broadband was expected to kill off fixed broadband by 2012.
I can’t see this happening in the UK anytime soon although I’m sure that wireless broadband is going to have a big part to play – I use it myself on the move. Consumers especially are getting more and more tied in to bundles that include their fixed line, TV and broadband. Also fibre brings the potential to provide much faster speeds than are being discussed with wireless broadband (and I know that someone will now tell me you can get Gigabit wireless).
What does concern me is the increase in the pollution of the airwaves which will come with more and more wireless. I realise we are told it is safe but…
How do we sleep at nights? Everywhere I turn I seem to come across security issues relating to my use of the internet.
In catching up on my reading I find that a team of Japanese researchers have figured out how to crack the WPA encryption technology that up until now I had considered to offer my home wireless network a safe and secure browsing environment, at least from the next door neighbour.
As it is the wireless performance of my home router is suspect because I suspect that it is finds it harder to cope with WPA than the previously less secure but more performant WEP.
Next I’m writing a blog post and a security warning flashes up in front of my eyes on the WordPress console telling me about a vulnerability in older versions of the blogging software that has caused some bloggers to lose large numbers of posts. Fortunately I am up to date with my patches.
One of my sons then complains that his website has been identified as a source of malware by Google. I investigate and find that indeed this is the case and remove the problem. His laptop, however, is a difficult kettle of fish to clean. It has conficker and some other nasties that won’t let any of the worm removal tools on to sort it out. So we are having to reflash his laptop and I then go around the house cleaning up all 12 memory sticks that the kids have in their possession (the fruits of a number of visits to trade shows 🙂 ) .
I could go on. It’s all very well for me though because I have dozens of highly skilled engineers sat outside my office door for who all this is bread and butter stuff. Our customers can also access these resources (for a fair price). The real problem is going to be for Joe Public who, as a consumer, is going to drown in the stormy seas of internet security.
Sorry if this one seems a little on the pessimistic side – it isn’t normally my nature.
I’ve just left a networking event organised by my friend Jeff Pulver to promote his forthcoming #140 characters conference (#140conf )in London. Scheduled for November 17th/18th the event will take place at the O2 Arena.
This will be the third such do organised by Jeff after the first in New York earlier this year and the forthcoming one in Los Angeles. What astonished me was that there were more people from London at the New York event than from New York itself and London is considered to be the twitter capital of the world. Hence the London conference. LA was second in terms of origin of attendees. I even met someone from London at the bash who had spoken at the NY event – Kate Arkless Gray or @RadioKate.
The number of attendees at tonight’s event was also impressive. When I signed up for it two days ago there were 70 or so people registered. Jeff was expecting a total of 90 but in actual fact he ended up with 190! There is clearly something happening here. Didn’t realise that Jeff is also an investor in twitter.
Anyway I’ve signed up as part of the cast of characters for the #140 character conference. In my mind it is definately worth taking a look at attending. If you don’t know what it is all about just google it or visit http://140conf.com/
One of the big drivers for bandwidth usage is offsite back up and storage.
The amount of backup and storage capacity required by a business is to a large extent dependant on the nature of that business. An organisation which regularly processes a large amount of financial transaction or billing data is going to need a lot more than somewhere whose main concern is the safekeeping of CRM data and perhaps the security of information on individual PCs. Moreover as a rule of thumb the larger the amount of data that needs backing up on a daily basis the more critical that data is likely to be for a business.
One of Timico’s customers performs a 50GB daily backup to tape. The tape is removed from the premises every night to an offsite storage location. This is far from ideal. The company until recently operated over a bonded ADSL connection which gave them approximately 2Mbps uplink.
Backing up 50GB over the 2Mb connection was going to take 555 hours. This was not a practical proposition. The company has just put in a 100Mb leased line. The time taken to perform the backup would now be 11 hours which makes an overnight run a real proposition.
Not everyone has a 50GB requirement but as faster broadband technologies come along at cost effective prices more and more people will use an offsite on-net backup facility which will in turn drive bandwidth usage.
The chart is self explanatory. I’ve made some assumptions regarding packet overhead on the pipes
I suspect this post title is gobbledegook to some readers. I’m continually having to learn new acronyms myself.
COTS in this case stands for Commercial, Operational and Technical Standards for Independent Local Open Access Networks. It is the latest initiative by the Broadband Stakeholders Group to promote a standard approach to the delivery of the plethora of ad hoc networks that are going to be springing up in the UK in the wake of Digital Britain.
This is to be applauded and on Thursday 3rd of September the BSG is visiting Hull to hold a town hall meeting (it is literally in Hull Town Hall) with the citizens of the North who have felt very much left out of the debate on how to make rural broadband a reality.
The day is split into a colloquium in the morning with the actual COTS meeting starting at 1.30. The COTS agenda is still fluid but an outline is shown below.
COTS Project overview (BSG, 15-20 minutes)
Stakeholder panel (5 mins each)
Ofcom
KCOM – Guy Jarvis,
Fibrestream – Lindsey Annison
INCA – TBC
Discussion – topics
General discussion on the concept
Are we on the right track? Right objective, right diagnosis of the issues?
The scope of the work
Are the three elements right? Should we focus on particular issues? Anything else we should consider?
Initial thoughts on requirements
What do participants need a solution to be able to do?
Thoughts on the commercial, operational and technical requirements
Views on solutions
Blue sky thoughts, to put ideas forward
Views on the process
Any issues with how we plan to take this forward?
Thoughts on the steering group
Views on membership/composition
Role/remit, how it should operate
The meeting is free to attend. I’d go myself but have a prior appointment in London. I’m sure Lindsay Annison will provide me with some feedback.
In what must be eBay’s biggest ever sale it looks like the online auctioneer has got out of jail free with Skype which it sold yesterday to a consortium of private investors. The deal valued Skype at $2.75 billion. eBay gets $1.9 billion cash, a $125 million note and retains a 35% stake in the company.
It wasn’t long after eBay originally paid around $3 billion for Skype that the strategic value of the investment was being questioned. This eventually appeared to be acknowledged by the company with a $900 million write-off. This latest deal will likely now show as a profit on the eBay’s books and considering the hit that markets have had over the last year must be considered to be a serious result.
Skype turned over $551million in 2008 and says it will hit sales of $1Bn by 2011. Other VoIP service providers will be interested in the valuation. Assuming an even growth between now and 2011 this suggests that it will do around $700 million in 2009 which represents a multiplier of 4.14 times sales.
Skype still very much has issues that will need sorting out. It is currently facing a legal battle with its original founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis over the rights to use the Intellectual Property that underpins the whole service.
The only real option the company has is to strike a deal to continue to have access to the technology. The alternative would be a wholesale change to SIP which would involve a huge global investment and a logistical nightmare when it came to the switchover.
Nevertheless Skype does now look to be a better bet than other high profile VoIP plays such as Vonage who also became embroiled in patent litigation and ended up paying a fortune to wriggle free.