Month: October 2009

Categories
Business internet

Call for FTTC trialists

If anyone is interested in taking part in a high speed broadband trial using FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet) could they please drop me a line.

You have to live in Whitchurch (Cardiff), Muswell Hill or Glasgow Halfway. The service is good for 5Megs up and 40 Megs down (subject to the usual caveats – line length etc) and we will guarantee 15Megs down. You need to have an available analogue line.

I’m offering a free trial to those wanting to participate. I don’t have a restriction in numbers but will play this by ear – if I get hundereds of people put their hand up I might have to be picky. The trial will only be for a fixed period that I have yet to determine but hey, it’s free… That’s free 40Mbps broadband. Fill yer boots.

For those that don’t know this is the first manifestation of the £1.5B investment being made by BT to the initial fibre roll out in the UK. It isn’t going to get to everyone but I will publish the road map as soon as I get permission from BT to do so.

Categories
End User internet

Internet time shortens life

I heard on the radio this morning that if you are born today you have a 50% chance of reaching the age of 100. (100 is the new 70 etc…). This sounds great but as far as I can see it won’t feel as if you have lived 100 years. It will probably still feel like 70.

This is because of internet time. Has anyone noticed how quickly time goes when you are surfing the web? As we spend more of our time on line time flies by all the more quickly.

I did think that his was just an age thing.  Something that went along with varifocal lenses and middle age spread. Now I’m not so sure. Life online is so fast moving that we no longer have the waiting time that can make the weeks seem to drag. Responses are instantaneous and require  you to move on to the next task far more quickly than used to be the case.

The result is cramming more into your week and the time passing in the blink of an eyelid/computer monitor. As I write this it is Friday afternoon – this morning it was only Monday!!!

There is no escape. Even when I take the kids on holiday to Center Parcs I can get online, in the villa, by the pool, in the restaurant…

There is a business opportunity here. Totally network free holidays. I realise that more destinations are trying to make it easier for you to go online whilst on holiday but this is unhealthy. Sounds like this needs a facebook group to get the campaign going.

Photo is from my summer holiday in Scarborough last year – free wifi on the promenade – there is no escape…

wifi

Note that internet time should not be confused with “Time Warner Internet”, “internet time clock” , “internet time service”  or  “internet timer”, all of which are close keywords to internet time (google adwords experiment – thanks for your understanding :-).

Categories
Business internet net neutrality Regs

Net neutrality governance debate

Interesting online debate next week concerning whether Net Neutrality can be “governed”. Although it is a North American debate I imagine it will cover lots of areas that we in the UK should be interested in. If I can fit in the time I will attend. Details here and below:

“FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has expanded from four to six the principles of freedom associated with Net Neutrality. Now however these principles are now going to be codified into regulatory rules. So the question has to be asked can the concept of “open” be governed. Join us as we look at how these principles will be incorporated into policy. What companies, services and devices will be subject to these rules. And discuss if the jurisdiction of the FCC has to be modified to enable these principles.

Participants include: Todd Daubert of Kelley Drye, Hank Hultquist of AT&T and Rick Whitt of Google.
Join us on Tuesday October 6th, 2009 at 12:30 EST to 1:30 EST as we see if Open can be Governed”

Categories
broadband Business internet

Britain is 25th in Oxford University Global Broadband League Table

Britain is 25th in the global broadband league table according to a Cisco sponsored study performed by Oxford University’s Said Business School. This was one of the headlines that woke me up whilst listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning.

That in itself should be a spur for the UK to get its act together. For the BBC interview, however, Oxford University could have fielded someone  a little more conversant in the issues. The study itself, seen online,  looks to be purely factual but University don Alastair Nicholson seemed to to think that this lowly ranking was not a problem and that our broadband network was perfectly suited to our present needs.

Although this initially incensed me I’ve calmed down now.  Alastair Nicholson, as an academic overseer of some MBA students,  probably has little exposure to the dynamics of a high technology fuelled economy.  He didn’t do the country a favour though by suggesting that the hype surrounding the Digital Britain debate was partly pride and not driven by the absolute need to have faster and more ubiquitous broadband.

He is just wrong. This is extremely short sighted. Build the motorway and the traffic will come. The act of building this information superhighway will create the jobs that will help to dig our way out of recession.