Author: Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

Categories
Business mobile connectivity

do’s and don’ts of exhibitionism – retail expo #RBTE

Which header photo do you prefer? This oneblack sheep all in a rowor this one?mints mints glorious mints

I’ve just left the Retail Business Technology Expo at Earl’s boring boring boring boring boringcourt. I was there with Murco IT Director Umar Bajwa to talk about the 3G fail over they use in their petrol stations. Had a few interesting enquiries as a result so worth doing. We also had some media interviews so if you are a regular reader of the retail verticals look out for it.

After our talk I wandered around the exhibition to check out developments in the retail world. The first thing that struck me was there were a number of exhibitors offering “cloud services”. I realise that Timico offers “cloudgive us a kiss darlin' services” but at the show we were pitching 3g mobile fail overs for huge operational efficiencies. I have decided henceforth to ban the use of the term cloud on this blog and will be recategorising some posts when I get a chance.

It’s amazing how many boring exhibition stands there were. These in turn lead to desperately boring people standing round being desperately bored. Take  a look at the first small photo. The bored looking bloke stood around not talking to anyoneon the ocky - Tref the terror of the triple twenty just asked me “how I was doing today” as I walked past. I think I probably muttered something in reply, kept my head down and scuttled straight past.

Although there were a few unimaginative stands, in keeping with the retail nature of the show there were also a lot of interesting stand-out attractions. The attractive girl looking excited at the prospect of me kissing her is actually a back lit 2 dimensional mannequin. She caught my attention and drew me in. Also the Kinnect darts game made me stop at the stand – though I can’t for the life of me remember who the companyinteractive table used to find cocktail recipes was or what they were selling  (sorry).

The table in the next photo was pretty interesting. It had an interactive touch screen which you used to select ingredients for a cocktail. Once the choices were made it offered you a range of drinks that could be made  using those ingredients and printed off a chit for you to take to the bar to buy the cocktail. Pretty cool I thought but at £38k an idea requiring a pretty cool business case to justify the expense.

As regards my initial question re the headers, I prefer the one with the beer in it. This is more down to the liveliness of the stand but also it is really clutching at straws to think that a row of mints is going to attract people. The stand itself was very nice, I’m sure, but didn’t reach out, grab my sleeve and pull me in. Coincidentally the same company’s leaflets had been distributed freely around the sinks in the Gents toilet. What can they have been thinking of?!

As you will have realised what started out with the best intentions of being a post on retail technology has ended up as an analysis of what makes a company stand out from the crowd. In today’s marketplace you can’t afford to me “just another left handed widget vendor”. Your left handed widget needs to shout out “come and buy me – your search for the ideal widget is over”. The show seems to have been a success from the Timico perspective. We made some noise about our Mobile Access Management solutions, got some potentially great new enquiries and used the opportunity to meet some customers old and new.

I’ll leave you with some more photos from the exhibition. Some have artistic value and some just illustrate how to wind down at the end of a hectic day at a trade show. Anyone care to guess the name of the cocktail being poured by the barman (not at Earl’s Court). Also where were we?

guess the name of the cocktail?Moet anyone?

I liked these bags :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Categories
Engineer mobile connectivity

Murco 3G Mobile Access Management case study – huge operational impact

Mobile data has been a bit of a theme recently on the blog. It must be trendy1. This is quite gratifying because when Timico was set up 8 years ago this Easter the mobile play was part of the vision of an overall convergence story that also included IP data networks and VoIP. At the time the sales pitch was the convenience of being able to source all your communications requirements from one supplier and on one bill. The approach back then was pretty revolutionary and stood us in good stead.

What we couldn’t foresee at the time was how the use of mobile data would grow and the effects of the more powerful mobile handset on our patterns of behaviour. That early decision to include mobile in the portfolio is now starting to payback and today we are announcing a case study with customer Murco Petroleum.

Last Autumn we got our first Ethernet connection into the O2 3G data network. The plan was to offer customers a cost effective multi-tentant version of the secure APN (Access Point Name – don’t ask) used by large corporations as private mobile Wide Area Networks. The resulting Mobile Access Management service is what is being used by Murco today as a mobile backup to their Timico broadband based MPLS WAN – the key infrastructure over which they carry secure payment transactions.

This MAM service has some significant benefits

Continue reading “Murco 3G Mobile Access Management case study – huge operational impact”
Categories
Business voip

it’s coming up to awards season – ITSPA

ITSPA Awards 4pm 21st March, Members Dining Room, House of CommonsThat time of year is here again. Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association Awards time.

We have been fortunate over the years to win some good recognition with the ITSPA Awards – last year it was the Large Enterprise Category. Timico are finalists in that category again this year. It’s the only one we entered.

Most ITSPs in the UK are squarely in the SMB space. This is usually due to the fact that larger businesses are reluctant to look at what are effectively startups – the industry has only been a going concern in the UK for half a dozen years or so. We have been fortunate in that we have a wide portfolio of services that has facilitated good growth across a number of technology platforms.

For example a customer that initially just uses Timico for managed MPLS networks will then migrate to using our SIP and then mobile services. The Timico Technology Group is now big enough to be considered a key communications partner for FTSE100 businesses.

Anyway the awards are being held in the Members Dining Room of the House of Commons on Wednesday 21st March at 4pm. A great venue. Wish us luck 🙂

Categories
competitions End User

more mobility musings on the way to the match and this weeks mega mug prize competition

The view from our seats at the Millenium Stadium on Saturday for the Wales v Italy match. We saw all the tries right there in front of us.You may have gathered from the post on Friday that I was off to Cardiff to watch the rugby over the weekend. There were four of us in the car – two adults and two “young adults” and I was in the luxurious position of not having to drive.

You have to picture the scene. My pal Huw driving with me on the laptop in the front passenger seat and the two kids on iPad and iPhone in the back. The connectivity was ok by and large. I guess that means that when we went in and out of data coverage we put up with it because after all, we were driving along in a car at 70mph.huge queues form to get in to the coffee shops of Cardiff after Wales beat Italy at the Millenium Stadium on Saturday - it's a boom time for the Capital which has on occasion been known to sell out of rich tea biscuits after a match

This must surely be something that one day in the not too distant future we will look back at in amazement – “believe it or not you used to get black spots with no coverage”. Our use of mobile technology is growing at such a rate that it demands nay shouts out for ubiquitous high speed data connectivity.

This may mean that we have to pay more for the service.  As the models change to reflect usage growth we are already seeing upward pressure on data prices in both fixed and mobile worlds. At this stage of the game for me, and I may be a consumer lone voice in the wild wild mobile web here,  it is more about coverage than cost. My kids may not agree of course but on the way down I needed connectivity for emails and other work stuff and on the way back I wanted to watch Wales beat Italy on iPlayer. I was fine for emails but not for the streaming.

There is one thing in particular that the mobile data and computing revolution will render obsolete and which relates to kids when travelling. The first person to guess what this is wins a prize. This is normally a mug but I may be able to find some other goodies and if so will offer the winner an alternative. Timico staff may enter this one.

As a footnote here in Cardiff we stayed with my sister who gets north of 30Megs out of her Timico FTTC.  Aaahh. It was also interesting to see that the last thing we did after our evening mug of cocoa was that before going to bed we all made sure our gadgets were plugged in and charging ready for the next day 🙂

Categories
Apps End User mobile connectivity

My data manager – wonderful app from Mobidia

Discovered My Data Manager this week thanks to Robwifi usage screenshot from "My Data Manager" by Mobidia - used on my Samsung Galaxy S2 Bamforth of Quocirca. It’s a wonderful little app that lets you see how much data each app uses on your smartphone (I must stop calling it that – it’s so 2011).

I have only been using it since Tuesday when I was out of the office for a couple of days. It may be seen that in that time I notched up 46.3MB of mobile data usage and 36.9MB of wifi. You can see for yourself what I was using it for – I am a very connected person or addicted to Twitter – you decide.

Other than being a reflection of social habits and mobile usage the data does suggest that in a month I am likely to use around 480MB which is just under the threshold of 500MB typically used by mobile networks for “fair usage”.

I don’t believe it. I’m sure I use far more than that though it is divided between the iPad and the mobile. I’ll see what the number for the whole month looks like and report back. My Data Manager mobile usage screenshotIt would also be interesting to hear from others what their usage profile is (without giving away any secrets! )

The rest of this post is just a bit of fill in so that the text finishes off roughly in line with the bottom of the picture on the right.

Anyone else wishing to engage in polite conversation, inanities and observations regarding the rugby internationals coming up this weekend should do so through the usual channels.

I’m off to see Wales v Italy in Cardiff. Look out for me on the TV. Taking one of the kids. It was his idea.

There are still tickets available – not surprising at £75 high up in the corner!! I would also like to remind those who still owe me for bets on the England v Wales match it’s about time they paid up 🙂

Categories
Engineer UC voip

Home thoughts from #UCExpo

Apparently during WW2 in the USA diners became hubs for social networking. Somewhere for lone workers finishing a late shift perhaps to go and chat to someone. At UC Expo in Olympia this week this was replicated and brought up to date by giving the diner actors  iPads and laptops to play with. As an artistic creation it was great. However I can’t for the life of me remember whose stand it was so unless it was a charitable act in support of “social networking” they might want to change who they use to design their exhibition stands to make themselves more memorable!

A few things did stand out at the show. You could not escape the Microsoft effect because they must have taken up a quarter of the floor space. Microsoft was effectively standing on a chair in the middle of a room and shouting “you have to take us seriously”. Microsoft was selling Lync and its ecosystem.

Lync, the Microsoft Unified Comms play – Instant Messaging, voice etc, has moved on significantly since we saw them at UC Expo this time last year. Not, I suspect, the basic functionality, but the number of vendors supporting products that are compatible with Lync – receptionist consoles, call centre applications etcPolycom video conferencing unit on display in Microsoft village at UCExpo

I didn’t get the impression that it was being used in any great volume – the voice bit at least but Lync desktop clients are shipped free with a Microsoft Enterprise license – throw enough seeds… Coincidentally as I write someone called Barry from Microsoft has just called to see if we would be interested in rolling out Lync. We will certainly kick the tyres. They clearly are spending a lot of marketing dollars on this right now.

Altigen SmartStation - converts smartphone into deskphone
In the Microsoft village a couple of gadgets caught my attention. One is the Polycom video conference unit – this looks sufficiently space age to be cool. The other was the  Altigen Fusion SmartStation and MaxMobile smartphone app. The smartphone app runs both cellular voice and VoIP and connects to the SmartStation using Bluetooth. The SmartStation then behaves as a normal telephone handset whilst simultaneously charging the mobile device.

This is the way ahead. Altigen also have plastics coming alonga couple of Nokia Lumia handsets to support various Android devices and, if my memory is right, BlackBerry. All it now needs are keyboard, monitor and mouse ports and we are done – the PC is a thing of the past.

Also had a play with a couple of Lumia phones demonstrated by an overly enthusiastic guy who had been trained up especially for this show. I have to say the UI and I didn’t gel though it does take some time to get use to a new operating system.

Finally Powernet were demoing ViBE which in my mind is theViBE - the ultimate in bonding and QoS tech for ADSL lines used to carry both VoIP and data ultimate in bonding and QoS technology for ADSL circuits destined to carry both voice and data. Check it out here.

Powernet, which is a Timico Technology Group company was the only ISP at the show as far as I could see and had a very productive time of it.

That’s all folks.

Categories
End User travel

Random connectivity musings of a traveller

with all these wires running along the train tracks why isn't there better connectivity on boardThere is frost on the ground but it is a bright morning and I am on the way to London. I’m using the train WiFi which according to the speed tester is giving me 3.1Megs. I don’t know what it’s max speed is but the train is not very full – when it is full it certainly doesn’t feel like 3 Megs & I sometimes oscillate between WiFi and 3G and mostly 2G. Currently 3Megs feels fast enough.

We put up with poor connectivity on a train and accept that when we go in to a tunnel it disappears altogether. We shouldn’t have to.

I’m off to Olympia for UCExpo – it’s a good place to get together with people and I have a few meetings lined up over the two days. In my experience connectivity at Exhibition Halls is poor. I once did a VoIP video conferencing demo over 3G. It was all fine in the dry run but of course once the place filled up with thousands of punters it was a different matter. I could barely get the client registered let alone use it in a demo. The patter had to kick in big time:) I don’t know why we should put up with poor connectivity at these places. There is no reason for it. They know we are coming. Perhaps I’ll be surprised.

Between Kings X station and Olympia connectivity will be pretty variable and of course on the Underground it will be non-existent, mostly, though there is no need for this to be the case.

Most pubs I’ve been to in London recently offer free wifi. 20 minutes and a stop in Newark to pick up some punters later the on-train WiFi speed is down to 1.1Megs.

Is Utopia a country with perfect connectivity1? What is that connectivity speed? It’s not 1 or 2 Megs. It has to be fast enough for us never to notice any delay. Bandwidth on demand. With the massive growth in mobile apps this connectivity has to get a lot better a lot more quickly than it is doing so. It’s all very well being ok when you are sat in your living room and using your home WiFi but that on its own isn’t good enough any more.

I’m up to 8.4Megs at Peterborough station but that may be my SIM kicking in with HSPDA. Outside the station, with more people on board it is down to 0.11Megs. This is more like it. It makes my whinging more valid.

I would say 100Megs per person would be a good number to have but it will be a moving number. It is going to depend on what you are doing at a given point in time. Bandwidth needs when just sending texts are different to when uploading photos for example.

I’m getting nearer to the big smoke. What’s happened to the sun? Thatsenoughfornow.

1 Ok ok add in perfect health service, zero unemployment etc but I’m trying to stay focussed here.

PS Bloke sat behind me is reading out his card details to someone over the phone! Including security number. I could have written it all down. Perhaps someone did. Personal security will be a blog post for another day.

Categories
Engineer gadgets

More RaspberryPi

Just noticed an email from RS Components had come in 23.30 on Saturday night acknowledging my registration to buy a RaspberryPi and that the boards, once they are in stock, will be allocated on a first come first served basis in order of when requests were received.

That puts me well down the list then because all the fuss surrounding the launch was on Wednesday and I registered on Friday sometime. The fact that the acknowledgement email came in over a day later surely suggests a massive backlog? 😉

Strikes me that it will be interesting to plot the progress of the kids’ coding skills once we get one in the house so watch this space.

Categories
End User spam

I wish there was a global unsubscribe button

It’s that time on a Friday afternoon when a young man’s mind strays off the subject of work and onto lighter matters.  Spring has arrived. Benevolent lovely spring that prises open daffodils and encourages birds to raise their bright eyed heads to the sky in full voice. Girls smile and bring gladness to the heart.

In my email inbox a message arrives.

Dear Trefor,

I am following up on my email from last week that you might have missed first time around. I wanted to invite you to come along to our ‘Kofax Customer Connect Event’, with keynote speaker Derek Miers, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research on WEDNESDAY 18TH & THURSDAY 19TH APRIL 2012 at Westminster, London, UK.

Attend this event to learn how your organization can benefit from Capture Enabled BPM initiatives and take part in our interactive and lively speed workshops, where you drive the agenda.

If you don’t want to miss out, but can’t get the budget for travel approved Register for our Capture Enabled BPM Launch event as an online participant and guarantee your place on this first of a kind event.

Kind Regards,

Jenny

Dear Jenny

Where on earth do you guys get your mailing lists from. I almost certainly did not reply to your email from last week for a number of reasons.

  1. It was unsolicited and one of many similar mails I get every day that I by and large treat as spam and ignore.
  2. I have never heard of Kofax
  3. I have no idea what Capture Enabled BPM is (though I do now because in the interest of scientific research I have scrolled far enough down the email trail – and it is of absolutely no interest)

All the best

Tref

PS I wish there was a list of databases that have my email address on it so that I could systematically unsubscribe from them all instead of having to do it individually. I’ve stopped leaving my business card at exhibitions because of all the unwanted mail it seems to generate.

Note I’ve left the original links from the email in in case any blog reader wants to go –  looks like there’s a free dinner – I bet Kofax is a generous company. There is no info at all on timings other than the date – it’s at your own risk:)

Right back to birds, gladness and, oh, my presentation preparation for our customer event. Have a good weekend 🙂

 

Categories
Apps End User online safety

Pipe dreams and privacy – is your private life a thing of the past? or no Google doodle for privacy muddle

Today is all about privacy. No Google doodle to go with it because Google is at the centre of the debate with its harmonisation of privacy rules across all of its services.

The European commissioner of justice, Viviane Reding says there are “doubts” over what Google has done. I’m not going to go into detail on the ins and outs – read about that in the Guardian. Commissioner Reding though in my experience is someone worth listening to so she is expressing concern there is likely to be something in it.

It is worth thinking about privacy for a moment because in our modern age it is a hugely complex subject.

If I do a search for “Trefor Davies” Google comes up with

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Categories
broadband End User

Leeks, Daffodils, and Lincolnshire Broadband – Happy St. David’s Day

a typical rural Lincolnshire scene - we have no time for the internet and other new fangled stuffI’m missing tricks here. Yesterday I came into the office with the intention of writing something highly entertaining yet informative around the subject of February 29th – leap day as it seems to have been labelled on Twitter. Instead RaspberryPi came along and hijacked the slot. Fair enough, though I did follow the Twitter deliberations of one female friend as she mulled out loud the prospect of proposing marriage to her partner. It didn’t happen. She is content with waiting another 4 years 🙂

Today is March 1st. St David’s Day or Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant as we say in the principality. It is also a beautiful spring day though there are no daffodils out in the garden yet for me to have wantonly torn the heads off to wear into work. Also my wife didn’t like the idea of my nicking a leek – she has been tending to them with loving care all winter and they are destined for the table.

So here we are pinching and punching into March and I have no idea how to weave the fact into a technical blog post.

In other news yesterday

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Categories
Engineer gadgets

Spot the odd one out – Pi, Apple Pie, @Raspberry_Pi

I get high on RaspberryPiMost people will not have heard about it before today when it hit the headlines. It is also hitting the shops – two of them. It is the way of the future in the here and now. It is affordable and will one day, in one form or another, inevitably permeate into every household on the planet. It is educational, sensational, it’s the RaspberryPi.

Most of you will know by now that the RaspberryPi is a low cost very low cost computer that has been developed to encourage kids to learn to write computer code. The level of interest in the device has been so great that the two outlets chosen to stock the device, Farnell and RS Components, have this morning seen their websites crash due to high levels of traffic 1. A botnet generated DDOS attack could not have done any better. In internet terms it’s the same as the huge round the block queues that unexplainably form outside Apple stores just before a new product launch.

I leave the minutiae of RaspberryPi  to

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Categories
Business social networking

A successful LincUpLive at the #Doubletree in Lincoln #LUL360

Electricity Works at LincUpLive at the Doubletree in Lincoln #LUL360Last week Matt Russell, CEO of WebHostingBuzz went down with Ukrainian manflu. The Ukrainian version is vicious strain and is especially effective when the Siberian winds sweep down from the Caucasus to catch the unwary Englishman abroad. Because of this it is very rare to find a native male Ukrainian there in February – they all winter in the Cote D’Azur. The whole country is left in the hands of their womenfolk who are of course immune to the virus.

Anyway Matt had been down to host a session at LincUpLive in Lincoln last Friday in which I was going to be a panellist. #LUL360 is a conference that discusses the use of social media as a business tool. Due to his affliction he got in touch and asked me if I would stand in for him. A big ask as I’m sure all of you who know Matt will agree. I did my best.

The session was held jointly with Jon Grubb, former Editor of the Lincolnshire Echo.Jon Grubb with Trefor Davies at #LUL360 I discussed the Timico approach to social media and Jon critiqued it from the perspective of a classic PR person. We had a lot of fun. It isn’t often I get to tell my anecdotes about the pigeon v broadband race anymore. There was also the Move over IPv4 bring on IPv6 party and the World Record Attempt etc etc.

We had some great audience engagement and an hour passed in no time. The message is that stories about how great left handed widgets are don’t work. If the left handed widget is used in a bank robbery that is a different kettle of fish (mixing it up a bit here I know 🙂 – I’m a bit prone to that )Trefor Davies with Doubletree Sales and Marketing Manager Nicola Shepheard at #LUL360

The best bit is that I despite my best efforts no one let me pay for a drink at the after show party. If you want to understand how social media can be used within your business I can recommend attending a LincUpLive – the next one is in September.

As a footnote I should mention the venue. This was the brand new Doubletree Hotel on Brayford Wharf in Lincoln. I was uber impressed with this new facility – Lincoln needed a top class hotel and now we have one. Check it out. Photo is me being shown round by Doubletree Sales and Marketing Manager Nicola Shepheard. The hotel must have been built on the site of the old Lincoln Electricity Works – some nice touches around the lobby.

That’s all.

Categories
Business competitions

The Steve Hodges megaprize caption competition

intrepid Andrew Fox scores crucial try for Newark 4ths v Paviors 4thsWe operate a fair play system at Timico. Staff who work Andrew Fox powers through Paviors tackleshard during the week are allowed out on Saturday afternoon to engage in a recreational activity of their choice1. A happy employee is after all an effective employee.

Some of the sales guys play rugby and last weekend Steve Hodges, Andrew Fox and Guy Beales formed the mainstay of the back line for Newark 4ths versus Notts Paviors 4ths.

Apparently they scored half of the points. The first three pics show Andrew Fox bursting through his tacklers then driving forward to score a crucial try that no doubt crushed the Paviors’ morale and set the gameAndrew Fox breakthrough up for the home side.

The other pics are of Steve Hodges. In fact there is a caption competition for the first one at the bottom. The best caption gets a bottle of red I have been keeping in one of my desk drawers for a special occasion. The second photo shows Steve running with the ball. He must have beaten his tacklers because there is no sign of anyone else in the shot. Either that or it was taken after the game.  You can decide 🙂

In a similar vein I note that England were beaten by Wales at Twickenham on Saturday – bad luck chaps.  Should have taken advantage of the 10 minutes that we were a man down really. I’m going to Cardiff on the 9th March to see Wales play Italy –  if anyone is in town that weekend let me know & perhaps we can meet up.

You can have till end of play on Friday to come up with a winning caption. This competition is open to all comers including Timico staff.

Andrew Fox scores

Steve Hodges - caption competition
this is the pic for the caption competition - click for a bigger view

Steve Hodges flies solo1 as long as they are back in the office by 6pm to make up their shift – they then usually get away for last orders at 10pm – fair dos.

Categories
4g Business Cloud mobile connectivity

I am not in Barcelona but the UK needs to shift the debate to mobile

I am not at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona. I have had a number of emails asking for meetings at the exhibition. They obviously aren’t using the attendee list for their mailing.

It’s ok though because almost every tech journalist I know is there and there will be a lot of coverage. It’s even made BBC primetime with Rory Cellan Jones trying (and failing apparently) to broadcast a report using the 4G network at the venue.

At MWC this year there are over 1,400 exhibitors. It is surely impossible to visit all stands. One journo I know has a table at a café and has invited anyone with news to book a slot for coffee/lunch/beer. That way he won’t wear out his shoes traipsing around the 11 or so exhibition halls. The value in these shows is not normally at company stands but in the networking opportunities at bars and restaurants.

Also in my experience each event needs to put together a best 50 powerpoint slides of the show. That way you miss out all the sales gough and cut to the chase (and can spend more time “networking”).

These are expensive events to attend – both as exhibitors and attendees. Realistically it’s a thousand pounds minimum spend per person if you want to pop along taking airfare hotel and meals into account. If you are a large corporate and not spending your own money it is probably twice that.

If you are not a journalist the only sensible way to do it is by reading about it online. For example I have just read in the Guardian online that this year Nokia is launching PureView camera phone with 41 Megapixels.

Interesting how technology dynamics have changed. It used to be that bigger and bigger Microsoft software footprints would chew up any progress made under Moore’s Law by the PC manufacturers. Now the race has changed to mobile handsets and connectivity speeds.

My Samsung Galaxy has an 8Megapixel camera and takes 3Mbytes photos. The 41Megapixel camera should proportionally take over 10 Mbytes of memory per shot. Last summer I wrote that I would be taking photos with a 40Megapixel phone by 2016 and discussed how connectivity speeds needed to keep pace with smartphone technology for access to the cloud.

Nokia seems to have blown the 2016 forecast out of the water although note that there is no mention of the PureView on their website – CEOs need to have something exclusive to talk about at expensive shows I guess.

The fact that the BBC has been talking 4G is a sign that the technology race is about to step up a gear. Whilst broadband speeds have started to climb, for the majority of us in any case, the UK is behind the curve on mobile – we haven’t even sorted out who gets which spectrum yet. Faster mobile data connectivity and in particular more bandwidth to cope with the increased usage that that faster connectivity will bring is going to be critical.

“Mobile” is where the future battles for country competitiveness of a country is going to be fought. Mobile applications, mobile ecommerce, “mobile anything” will depend on good connectivity. For the last two or three years here in the UK we have been talking about the need to have faster fixed line broadband – to have the “best fibre broadband network in Europe by 2015”. The focus of the debate now needs to start shifting to mobile.

Categories
End User fun stuff

A time of innocence – phone boxes and Meccano train sets

Phone number for Lincolnshire Cooperative SocietyWhen I was a kid in the Isle of Man I used to play sports after school – cricket in summer and rugby in winter. Afterwards I’d walk down Bray Hill to the phone box at the bottom and call home for a lift. I didn’t need cash. When the pips went Mam would know it was me and she would set off to Douglas to pick me up.

Mobile phones had not been invented. I really don’t know how we managed but somehow we got by. At university there was one phone to serve the whole hall of residence – 350 or so students. I must have called home every now and again but probably no more often than once a week. I recall I used to write letters. I had terrible handwriting in those days which hasMeccano train set layout since deteriorated – I only ever type these days.

This morning we went to the Museum of Lincolnshire Life on Burton Road in Lincoln. There was an exhibition of old Meccano toys. I used to have a Meccano kit. Today’s layout had a train set from the 1930s. A bit before my time.

A time of innocence.

Categories
Engineer mobile connectivity

3G back up for retail credit card processing and Cadbury Creme Eggs

Creme Egg photos courtesy of Cadbury - yum yumJust had a pot of tea at the St Pancras Renaissance 5star hotel – as you do. It’s my home from home in St Pancras. When it came to paying their credit card machines weren’t working – internet was down. They had to resort to the old fashioned paper imprint machine. I think retailers pay more commission for manual transactions because they are more prone to fraud. Not ideal but at least they were able to take my payment I guess.

They need a 3G back up service for their credit car processing system. Would save a lot of hassle and probably pay for itself in reduced fees – have you seen the price of a cuppa there?

Last weekend I was turned away from the Shell Garage on Burton Road in Lincoln. They were only doing cash sales as guess what – their credit card system wasn’t working. They didn’t actually turn me away – I took that decision myself. Sometimes these decisions are easy.

Credit card swipe systems these days either use ISDN or broadband connectivity. Had the Shell garage had a 3G backup it would have saved them a lot of cash. I don’t know the sums but if for the sake of argument the average tankful was £80, 10 lanes and 5 minutes per fill-up then that works out at nearly ten grand an hour plus all the Cadbury Creme Egg sales that generate the real gross margin.

Watch this space.

See ya.

PS I like Cadbury Creme Eggs – just sayin’

Categories
Business voip

Future of Voice Seminar at UC Expo

Unified Communications Expo (UC Expo) is coming up – 6th and 7th March. I usually go down for one day. It’s a good place to meet people and catch up on what is going on in the industry.

This year there is a further attraction in the guise of “The Future of Voice” seminar given by three of the leading brains in the communications industry. Dean Elwood, Martin Geddes and Dean Bubbley have come together to provide us with an hour’s stimulation on where it is all going.

If you can make it I would go. I’ll also be there if you want to chat.

Details of the seminar including CVs of the three guys are here. Register here.

Categories
Cloud Engineer virtualisation

video case study BTiNet did of Timico

Filmed at Timico’s Network Operations Centre in Newark. I get a cameo role 🙂

footnote – posted this on youtube but find it has been taken down – the BTiNet uploaded one is there. They must have complained -or Google searches for duplicates! Dunno.
I’ve embedded the iNet version.

Categories
End User nuisance calls and messages Regs security

The Telephone Preference Service seems no longer to be effective

We used to get junk phone calls, I’m talking years ago now. Double glazing, that sort of thing. My favourite was from people trying to call “Service Washing Machines”. These weren’t trying to sell me anything. The company had misprinted an advertisment with our number instead of theirs so we would get their calls. It did get a bit tedious after a while though.

Once (and you might not like me for this) I was at home during the day showing a builder around to get a quote. The phone rang and I said “watch this”

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Categories
broadband End User internet mobile connectivity

Being Back in the Land of Broadband Connectivity Feels So Good – Center Parcs WiFi

We have just been away for a holiday for a week. 2 days visiting the in laws and a 5 day break at Center Parcs in Cumbria. We had a good time. We go  every year with the kids to Center Parcs and do the same things every year. I won’t trouble you with the details.

This year we took with us some electrical equipment: 5 laptops, 1 iPad, 2 HTC droids, 1 Samsung Galaxy S2, a Nokia N97 and another Nokia so old that I can’t even remember the model number – it belongs to my wife.

The laptops did see some use but not nearly as much as they might because of the paucity of broadband connectivity. The iPad struggled with (failed actually) getting on the free wifi at the pool or Cafe Rouge (my Galaxy S2 worked from both locations). The mobile reception in most places showed typically no bars and occasionally crept up to one or two bars.  Two bars did not necessarily mean available data connectivity.

Fortunately Twitter is sufficiently lightweight to not mind the poor connectivity too much. My wife couldn’t understand why the internet didn’t work on the iPad. It did work but in her mind waiting two minutes for a page to load = not working.

So where am I going with all this? Should I mind that I can’t get connectivity on holiday.  After all it’s a holiday and connectivity often = work, at least working “in the internet business” as I do. Last summer I had a camping break that was completely offline. It was planned that way and we had a great time.

I must say though that the experience of having a holiday that was only partially offline was a frustrating one for all. It would probably have been better to have no connectivity at all than poor connectivity. The experience would have been better for all.

Center Parcs is also missing a trick. Having forked out £800 or so for 4 nights I can’t imagine there would have been many guests not willing to stick another £20 say on their bill to get decent wifi in their villa – especially considering the demographic of their customers – not many “holiday parks” stock Veuve Cliquot in the camp shop I’ll bet.

Just for their benefit I’ll do the sums. £5 a day per villa, say 200 villas taking up the offer on average adds up to a £365,000 revenue stream a year. For that kind of money they could afford to wire up the site, provide a 1Gig connection and have a hugely profitable contributor to the bottom line.

If Center Parcs want to get in touch I’ll tell them how to go about it.

That’s all. I’m still on holiday but back in the land of Wifi and HSPDA – yay.

PS no comments about the amount of electrical kit taken on holiday – this is the 21st Century, the internet age – get with it man

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Categories
charitable End User

Skegness – it aint bracing – it’s a sub zero frozen windswept wasteland with good points

RNLB Lincolnshire PoacherHave you ever been afraid? That helpless feeling whenSpot the tourist - the icy windswept wastes of Skegness sea front - a terrain ruled by the donkey in summer adversity looks you in the eye, evil veins popping out blood red against the whites of its own terrible eyeballs and the feeling of breath swirling up around your nostrils looking for a victim. When the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you feel a cold sweat under the collar. Have you ever felt like that?

Me neither.

However I did have to go to Skegness today. I know, I know,Skegness in February - nuff said Skegness you say!!?? In February, with the glass reading minus two in the full glare of a dazzling Lincolnshire winter sun barely rising above the white tops of a cold and inhospitably grey North Sea, just visible across the vast expanse of beach that allegedly contains sand below its frozen snow covered crust?? Yes Skegness in February.

Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a mans gotta do and in the interest of technology, the readers of this blog, and the RNLI ISkegness is shut in February (for some reason) did it.

Regular readers will remember the World Record attempt for the most comments on a blog post in 24 hours. Well we didn’t get the world record though there is a strong case that we might have a British record. However we did raise £6,034 for the RNLI and today I braved it over the Lincolnshire Wolds, looking austerely beautiful in a fresh coat of snow and ice.

My destination was the Skegness Lifeboat Station to meet coxwain John Irving, RNLI Press Officer Russell Matthews and Me and the RNLI boyssome of the 30 crew that man the RNLB Lincolnshire Poacher.

I must say it felt a privilege to meet these guys. In all it takes 80 volunteers to man the lifeboat station at Skegness, including people serving in the shop, fundraisers etc. When I arrived John sent out a call for volunteers just as would happen in the case of a real emergency and in short order a full crew turned out for the photo opportunity. It takes 7 men to man the big boat you see in the picture and they have a smaller inshore craft that takes 3 men that is used to rescue unwaryTrefor Davies with the crew of RNLB Lincolnshire Poacher in Skegness - cox John Irving to my right swimmers floating out to sea on lilos etc.

I am glad we are able to help them even if our £6k is a relatively small part of the £150 million a year the RNLI needs to keep going.

A lot of people retire to the Skegness area. As I get older I’d like to ask a small favour of you. Keep whispering in my ear “Spain, France, Southern Italy” – anywhere that is warmer than Skeggy in February 🙂

That’s if for me now. I’m off for half term and won’t be online except perhaps for the occasional tweet. Have a good break if you are off too and if not keep that nose to the grindstone and one day you too might earn a trip to Skeggy1 – it’s bracing, apparently.

1Perhaps I need to organise a trefor.net day out there in the summer 🙂

the icy wastes of Lincolnshire en route to Skeggy

PS – the good points? The RNLI

Categories
Business UC voip

Timico Technology Group acquires Redwood Telecommunications < good stuff

Redwood Telecommunications - a great asset to the Timico Technology GroupI am pleased to announce that as of today we have Redwood Telecommunications as a new member of the Timico Technology Group.  London based Redwood is a highly professional  provider of communications solutions with particular expertise in Mitel and Avaya IP telephony systems.

This is is a highly strategic acquisition for both parties. It beefs up Timico’s capabilities in the VoIP systems space and gives us a base in London. Like it or not London is where a lot of the commercial action is in this world. Redwood also has a great list of customers that includes Jimmy Choo – my daughter will be after a discount !:).

Redwood, which will continue to be run by the same management team under MD Charlie Whelpton, will benefit from gaining access to the Timico network, system and data centre assets and skills.

This is a very exciting world to be working in but you have to be one of the players. There is no point in sitting on your hands and watching the world pass by.

It is interesting though that whilst we see a lot of hype surrounding new technologies & platforms aka the current frenzy over the Facebook IPO at the end of the day1 it is sticking to the basics that makes long term value and sense.

Warren Buffet, for example, invests mostly in areas of businesses that he sees value in rather than those that attract all the media interest. In our business, communications, we need the technology but most important is the investment in relationship with, and the attitude towards the customer. The customer is king. No customers = no business. Lots of happy customers = long term business value. Timico is in the value game.

Redwood’s philosophy fits very well with that of the rest of the group and I look forward to working with the team.

1 when all’s said and done etc 🙂

Categories
Business mobile connectivity

Always have a Plan B – Mobile Access Management

On my way to a series of meetings in London and sat on a train. This train ain’t going anywhere. There has been a fatality on the track at Biggleswade. Not good, especially for the deceased. Delays of at least an hour expected.

Not the end of the world for me as I have plenty of time before my first meeting. I like to get somewhere with plenty of slack in the schedule – in case of delays (QED). Also I am getting on with some work on the train. Preparing a talk for a Retail Technology Conference if you’re interested. I am presenting with my friend and customer Umar Bajwa of Murco Petroleum.

The talk is going to cover a number of things including the Timico Mobile Access Management service. This is the multitenant mobile APN service that allows mobile devices to sit within a corporate MPLS network and has much better access throughput than normal because you don’t need the packet overhead for VPN1. Also great as a backup in case the primary broadband line goes down (Plan B).

It is getting hard to concentrate though. There’s a party of kids in the same carriage and they are getting excitable annoying.

The British Transport police are up ahead. We have some police forces as customers. They use an application of ours called hand-e-pix. When they get to a crime scene they take photos using smartphones which then get filed against the appropriate crime number and can be used as evidence. The photo is automatically GPS and time stamped. Perhaps I should mention it to the British Transport Police as we eventually get moving.

The guard on this train is very good at keeping us informed: “The train wot as struck a person is stopping us from moving” fair play to him.

a few minutes later…

The train is now moving, albeit slowly and we have just passed some men in hi viz jackets carrying flags. Funny how we live in a world filled with technology but when it comes down to it it’s the old fashioned analogue technology that prevails. Always have a Plan B.

That’ll do.

1 notice how I slipped in a quick advertorial there – perhaps you didn’t 🙂

Categories
End User online safety

Louis Vuitton sells handbags but follow that link at your peril

Louis Vuitton sells handbags. He also features very prominently in the comment spam caught by good old Akismet on this blog. I haven’t clicked on any of the links offered – domain names such as “limpidity” seem to  be selling Louis’ stuff online – soft and flexible handbags for soft and gullible people perhaps?

I took a straw poll in the office and the first person I asked, Director of Account Management Andrew North said his wife owned two Luis Vuitton handbags. Blimey, I’d better not tell Anne although Tesco carrier bags are more in her line:)

So then I Googled Louis Vuitton and found 199,000,000 results – blimey again, I searched for Trefor Davies and only got 408,000. Must be a lot of Trefor Davieses out there – it is a common name. I wonder how many of us there actually are? Not as many as there are Louis Vuittons perhaps – I imagine the fashionably types around town went through a phase of  naming their kids after him – the ultimate one upmanship. Pushed around no doubt in a LV pram and when small left on a sideboard at A-List parties to sleep in a matching handbag (are they called handbags these days?).

Imagine going to a posh nursery school just around the corner from Harrods and being one of several Louis Vuittons! In my day it was Dave or Andy or Llywelyn if you lived in Wales.

Anyway when I started this post I didn’t know where it would take me and I still don’t.  Perhaps something relating to Safer Internet Day 2012? It didn’t happen. You will have to Google it (30,900,000 results) or follow that link to find out more.

I wonder how many of the Google results for LV are actually spamming pages? I will probably never find out.

That’s all folks – back to writing the Timico ITSPA Awards entry.

Categories
End User phones

the ultimate mobile phone – early bird registration now open

early British Telecom handset - smart phones for smart people :)We have started to see speculation surrounding the timing and specifications of the Samsung Galaxy SIII. If truth be told such speculations start soon after the release of any new generation of handset whoever the manufacturer is. Such is the interest.

Although for the life of me I can’t understand why people get caught up in this hype I can understand why websites might want to fuel the speculative flames – loads of advertising dosh to be raked in. Note I have refrained from the slightest involvement in such lowbrow activity.

The hype has made me think about mobile handset technology in general. Rather than drill in to the nitty gritty of

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Categories
Cloud Engineer engineering

Meet Stuart Clark CCNA CCNA (security) CCNP CCIP (service provider) JNCIA #Timico

Stuart Clark - Timico 3rd line engineer gets first Juniper certification

Meet Stuart Clark CCNA, CCNA (security), CCNP, CCIP (service provider), JNCIA and Timico 3rd line engineer extraordinaire. Stuart is one of the tough guys that gets going when the going gets tough 🙂 He is clearly camera struck in the photo but don’t let that put you off – not everybody is a media hussy 🙂

Stuart is into continuous self improvement – as you can see from the list of engineering qualifications he has started to amass. The entry level Juniper cert is his latest examination success and  just a starter for ten in the Junos world. His Cisco certs will have made it relatively easy – more a question of adjusting to how Juniper does things versus Cisco rather than a whole new world to pick up.

Congrats to Stuart for his latest exam pass and actually for being a general good bloke who shows an interest.

Question for you. Stuart didn’t start life as an engineer. His first career was totally different. A fine bottle of La Grille, Sauvignon Blanc 2010 by Franck Chatelain1 goes to the first person who can guess what that first career was – sorry no Timico staff or family members allowed to enter this one 🙂

1 happened to have one in my desk drawer – as you do.

Categories
Business online safety Regs security

Codes of practice and regulation of tinterweb – Home Affairs Committee report on radicalisation

When I was a kid my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I of course said I wanted to be the CTO of a fast growing ISP with prospects 🙂 Dad was somewhat confused with this and told me not to be a silly boy because the internet hadn’t been invented yet and I should learn to be a doctor or a judge or pursue some similarly respectable form of employment.

Some days it feels as if dad will end up having his own way and I will end up as a judge. In the news this morning is yet another report suggesting that ISPs should put together a code of practice in respect of taking down websites that do something we aren’t supposed to like.

There is a lot of this going on. If it isn’t the movie and music industry rightsholders wanting us to block sites promoting copyright infringement it’s Nominet in cahoots with the police trying to suspend domains allegedly supporting criminal activity.  Today its a Home Affairs Committee reporting on radicalisation suggesting that ISPs need a voluntary code of practice that supports the  taking down of websites containing violent extremist material.

Glancing through the report the committee did cover the issues

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Categories
broadband Business

Broadband Pricing: Virgin Media Price Hikes

I see Virgin Media has increased its broadband pricing. This is almost certainly because people are using more and more data – especially seeing as the company has been giving its customers free bandwidth upgrades.  Although bandwidth costs come down with time these reductions are being outpaced by growth in usage. Even if people are give data bundles (or unlimited use even) ISPs will assume an average overall level of usage in their costings and if this average is on the up the prices have to rise.

It’s the same in the data centre space where demand currently outstrips supply. You would think that Moore’s Law would sort it out but the same rule applies here as for connectivity – after all if people are using more and more data then it is natural that the required server and  storage space grows in line with this.

Categories
Apps broadband Cloud End User

A Home Packed with Technology

I have decided, and I haven’t told my wife this, that my house needs to be a case study for the connected home. The technological home of the future.  The question is what does this connected home look like?

I have Cat 5 cabling downstairs a switch, wifi and shortly I will have FTTC. This is all very well but other than working from home occasionally and accessing the internet what am I going to do with it all.

I would welcome suggestions for services or technology that will be of use in the home that I should be testing.

Thanks in advance

That’s all folks.