Category: Business

Business

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Business online safety Regs

More Draft Comms Data Bill analysis & Gary McKinnon

blogspot broken link landing pageGary McKinnon has been in the news this week. Unless you have just surfaced for internet air you will remember that he is the guy with Aspergers who hacked into the Pentagon computer and who the marshalls Feds in US of A wanted to extradite so that they could extract revenge.

This post is not about Gary McKinnon or the rights and wrongs of his case. It is about the fact that he was able to hack into what must surely be one of the most secure computer systems in the world (wide web).

Next up is the breach of Google’s webmail service in December 2009.

Continue reading “More Draft Comms Data Bill analysis & Gary McKinnon”
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Archived Business

Timico is the most innovative business yay

winners need to celebrateOn Friday night we won the award for “Excellence in Innovation” presented by the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Chambers of Commerce. Yay. A good night was had by all.

neil armstrong grinsThe photos tell it all. Click on the header pic to see more of what me, Kirsty, Kate and Faye are up to. The bloke behind Neil clearly didn’t win, a condition exacerbated by the fact  that he was driving and not quite in the same “joyous” state of mind.

The Most Innovative Business Award goes to TimicoThere have been times when we entered awards expecting to win but came away with nothing. I specifically remember the time when we had just reached 4th position in the Sunday Times/Microsoft Techtrack 100. That means we were the 4th fastest growing privately held tech company in the UK.

That same year we entered the local Newark Business Awards (I think it was for the fastest growing business but time fuddles the memory). We thought it must be a shoe in. In the event it went to a small local gardening business we had never heard of. I guess we must have read the brief wrongly (growing – pun – never mind!).

The lesson there is you have to take these things with good grace. Win some lose some.

Anyway this present award builds on the Best Business in Newark gong we won earlier this year and on the Best ITSP (Enterprise) cert we got at the ITSPAs. A reasonable haul for a 12 month period.

There are some who think these awards are not worth anything. I disagree. They send out a message, both to the outside world and to staff inside the company.

To our staff I say well done. You are a great bunch of people and I am proud to be working with you.

That’s enough emulsion. Ciao…

PS the award was based on our Mobile Access Management product – see here and here for more.

Categories
Business fun stuff

Call that an office? This is an office

from the office of Trevor Jones - Lincoln University

You walk into some high flyer’s office, sink into the lush undergrowth that is the carpet, disappear into the soft leather interiors of the sofa at one end and gaze down on the worker ants swarming around the city, dozens of floors below.

Size of the office, backed up with exclusive accessories = status.  Its a fair bet noone in the city has a ping pong table in their office though.

I walked in to meet Trevor Jones of Lincoln University’s School of Computer Science to be greeted with a table tennis bat and ball. Super cool and akin to the Google offices in Victoria. We batted round a few ideas while I was there. Trevor teaches courses that cover networking and cloud technologies – just our kind of stuff at Timico.

At the start of this year we hosted a bus load of second year students at the Newark data centre and are planning to do the same again after Christmas. It’s all good stuff. We want to be a natural choice of employer for graduates coming out of the department.

I won’t say who won the table tennis. Lincoln University where offices have ping pong tables…

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Business datacentre

To whom it may concern

"legitimate" spam exampleThere is nothing more annoying than being spammed. Anti spam software is pretty good these days and I rarely get spam spam if you know what I mean.

Spam spam is the bad stuff trying to sell me  viagra, handbags, penis enlargements etc etc etc.

Unfortunately these days the spam spam problem has been replaced with “legitimate” spam. This is the stuff sent by genuine companies who have bought my name off some database.

Over the last 24 hours I have had emails from Apposite Technology Parters (que?), datacentres.com News, Retail Week Jobs, OFFTEK, easyjet, BLiNQ networks, Sparks, SAP, Telecoms Tech and others. I go through phases of unsubscribing from mails I get sent but it’s like pushing water uphill. The cat is well and truly out of the bag.

Most of them I can just ignore. There isn’t much point in marking the sender as junk because it usually comes from some non descript mail server address. The ones that are really annoying come with Subject line content such as “Your enquiry” or “Re: ” There should be a website where we can name and shame senders of such emails.

That’s all – had to get it off my chest.

So long.

PS Akismet is brilliant at catching spam comments in wordpress blogs. I’ve just looked and I had 2,600 items caught in the spam folder. The flavour of the day seems to be ugh boots, nike gear, longchamp bags, louis vuitton and other such dross.

Categories
Business Regs security

Now where did I leave that important information? #commsdatabill

You will of course recall my recent post on Big Data in which I related how many laptops are left in the back of taxis. 10,857.14 of them every year to be precise. Well I was wrong. Not only did I underestimate how many cabs there are in London but the average number of laptops left in them every year was wrong.

Today I was picked up by a driver who estimated he had found 8 laptops over the last 5 years (up from the previous 4 in 7) and that there were around 25,000 black cabs in London (up from 16,000).

This bumps up the averages. To  make it easy on myself if I assume only one a year that suggests that 25,000 laptops are left in London black cabs every year.

Now I know someone will pipe up and say that this is not very scientific and

Continue reading “Now where did I leave that important information? #commsdatabill”
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Business events

Announcing the 2012 trefor.net xmas bash – SOLD OUT

Bar at London's Phoenix Artist Club

welcome to the Phoenix Artist club

I’m really really excited about this year’s trefor.net Xmas bash. Last year’s was a raging success at the Booking Office Bar. This year we are moving to the Phoenix Artist Club. Where do I hear you say?

The  Phoenix Artist Club is a super cool members only joint (yes I am a member) slap bang in the middle of SoHo. It’s got bags of character and a piano which is going to be put to good use by international jazz pianist (and my kids’ piano teacher)piano at Phoenix Artist Club Colin Dudman.

We are talking 5.30pm until 2am on Thursday 13th December for this year’s most anticipated party. Dress code is party gear, or whatever you like really – fancy dress even, though you might be the only one…

This year’s bash has been made possible by some very generous sponsors to who I would like to extend my sincerest thanks: Timico, NewNet, Redwood Telecom, PowerNet, Genband, RTP Solutions, O2 Wholesale, Fluidata,  Siphon,  ProvuThe bar area at the Phoenix Artist Club Communications and IPCortex.

Tickets are free and can be obtained here. members lounge at Phoenix Artist Clubsmile all you like at this crocodile at the Phoenix Artist Clubbar at Phoenix Artist Club

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Business net neutrality voip

Successful @Amdocs press/analyst dinner discussing threat from OTT services at the Gherkin

Trefor Davies at a window on the 38th floor of the Gherkin

I was fortunate enough to be invited by Amdocs to one of their periodic Press/Analyst dinners. These are great evenings where the wine and conversation flows, all on subjects relating to communications and technology.

Last night’s was at the Gherkin, or St Mary Axe as the building is formally known. The views from the top are absolutely terrific and because I’m that kind of guy I’ve posted a video so that you can share the experience.

As for the dinner, we discussed the likely effect of Over The Top services on the incumbent telco base.  This is a fairly large subject. It encompasses net neutrality and ownership of the customer with the truly Damaclean threat of disaster and destruction hanging over the telcos. That’s if they aren’t nimble that is.

I suspect that there will be room for a number of business models and a specific differentiation between services provided for consumers and businesses.

This subject merits a longer post so for the moment I’ll just leave you with the video. Thanks again to Amdocs for a great evening. They are doing a good job.

PS to the security people at the Gherkin – I have just found my pass – sorry. I’ll bring it back the next time I come.

Categories
Business internet Regs

ISPA conference 12th November

If anyone is interested in attending the annual  ISPA conference registration is now open. I’m chairing an interesting debate on the draft Communications Data Bill. This conference is always jam packed with good subject matter and well worth going.

Full agenda is below:

0915  Registration and Coffee

0940  Introduction by Nicholas Lansman – ISPA Secretary General

0945  Keynote Address: tbc         

1005 Q&A Chair: Nicholas Lansman – ISPA Secretary General

1015  Does the Draft Communications Data Bill get the balance right between the needs of law enforcement, the privacy of users and impact on CSPs?

·   What has changed and how will businesses be effected?
·   Is retaining third party data proportionate and technically possible?
·   Is this an extension of existing powers? Are there enough safeguards in place to protect privacy?

Chair: Trefor Davies – Timico CTO and ISPA Council

Panellists: Conor Ward – Partner, Hogan Lovells; Dr Julian Huppert MP – Joint Committee; Nick Pickles – Director, Big Brother Watch; Professor Anthony Glees – Director, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) at the University of Buckingham; more speakers tbc

1115  Coffee and Networking                                 

1130  How can Britain’s broadband strategy best help SMEs and businesses?

·   Is the current focus too much on speeds and not enough on reach of service?
·   What are the next steps for the broadband strategy?
·  How best can we ensure that investment in broadband reaches businesses and consumers in all parts of the UK?

Chair:  Mark Gracey – Cable&Wireless and ISPA Council

Panellists: Earl of Selborne – Lords Committee; Barry Forde – CEO, Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN); more speakers tbc

1230  NETWORKING LUNCH

1400  Speech & Q&A: tbc

1410  Whose responsibility is it to ensure cyber security?

  • How can ISPs, law enforcement and government work better together to ensure a safer internet experience?
  • What can we learn from the experiences of other countries?
  • What is the responsibility of the user to protect themselves?

Chair: James Blessing – Limelight Networks and ISPA Council member

Panellists: Tony Neate – Chief Executive, Get Safe Online; Alexandra Birtles – PR and Public Affairs Manager, TalkTalk; more speakers tbc

1510  Coffee and Networking                     

1525  Review of the Communications Act

·   Update on what is happening with the White Paper
·   Is there a need for a wholesale review of the communications framework?
·   How is Government going to create a framework to make the UK a digital hub?

Chair: & panellists tbc.

1625  Drinks reception with selected members of the media

1800  Close

 

Categories
Archived Business

Looking for 3rd line VoIP engineer – can you help?

I’m looking for a 3rd line support VoIP engineer based in the Newark NOC. If you know anyone who might be interested or are interested yourself can you please drop me a line?

Ta

Tref

Categories
Business charitable social networking

Award winning Burton Road chippy in Lincoln @burtonrdchippy – eat their chips

Burton Road Chippy in Lincoln

charity begins at a chip shopI don’t follow many chip shops on twitter. In fact I think I only follow the one, @burtonrdchippy.

I like the @burtonrdchippy tweets. I like to know that they have offers on although seeing as I am trying to lose a few pounds I don’t typically frequent fish and chip shops.

When I see something good I retweet it and so hopefully in a modest way @burtonrdchippy gets more exposure and more custom. Many of the people I follow and who follow me are local to me so there is a chance they will go and eat there.

@burtonrdchippy has a personality I can engage with. Imagine my delight therefore when driving to drop off a trumpeter at a band practice I heard on BBC Radio Lincolnshire that @burtonrdchippy is now an award winning emporium – one of the best in the East of England in fact.

It wasn’t far to go so I popped round to congratulate them. Tweetmeister (for want of a better word) Lesley wasn’t there though and when I went back later this evening they were busy so I let them be.

So I’m just going to write this short blog post as a small token of my appreciation of the fact that this chippy has embraced the new world, mixed it with the old and is making a success of it.

Eat their chips, sit in their fine restaurant section and enjoy a bottle of wine with your fish. The fish will be freshly prepared and have come from a sustainable source. Check out their website here and follow them on twitter. I sense a tweetup at a chip shop in the offing.

Well done  @burtonrdchippy. Frying tonight:)

Categories
Business charitable

Newark Castle Rotary Club and Rainbows Children’s Hospice

Newark Castle Rotary club dinnerEarlier this month I was invited to a presentation evening1 by Newark Castle Rotary Club. Timico had made a contribution to a sponsored walk held in aid of the Rainbows Children’s Hospice.

It’s totally humbling when you look at the effort put in by some to help others. In this case there are two groups to mention. Firstly the enthusiasm with which the folk at the Rotary Club put their hands up to volunteer. We would all do well to imitate it.

Secondly is  the work done by the people at Rainbows. The mental strength and sheer goodness needed to work in such an environment is massive. It’s only when you have (four) healthy kids of your own that you begin to appreciate how lucky you are.

Rainbows helps families get through really difficult times and deserve your support. I’ll repeat the link here in case you want to take a look at what they do and maybe even make a small donation.

1I thought it was going to be a finger buffet and knowing how easy it is to eat too much at these gigs and being on a health kick I had dinner before I went. Turns out the buffet was an enormous meal with a traditional British treacle sponge pudding and custard for afters. Of course it would have been rude to sit there not eating.  The things I have to do in the name of charity/work/call it what you like.

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Business events

IPCortex 10th birthday bash TNMOC Bletchley Park

I’m off to Milton Keynes this morning. Speaking at IPCortex’s 10th anniversary birthday bash. This evening I’m also being the Auctioneer at their charity fundraiser in aid of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.

I have lots of experience with charity auctions, though usually from the perspective of someone sticking their hand in the air to buy something. My wife makes me sit on my hands these days.

The first auction I ever went to was at Thos Mawer & Sons in Lincoln. I had been sent to buy a green settee for the TV room. “Twenty quid should do it” I was told. It came to the bidding and zoom – I lost it to someone else – for twenty quid! I didn’t even get a look in it all happened  so quickly.

Feeling that I shouldn’t go home totally empty handed I bought four wooden chairs for a pound (plus 15 pence buyer’s premium). When I got them home they were clearly rubbish and not suitable for our kitchen so I threw them on the woodpile at the bottom of the garden and they got used for kindling. Turns out this is the cheapest way to buy kindling 🙂

I’ve got loads of other auction stories but you will have to come to Bletchley Park to hear them.

Ciao…

Categories
Apps Business ecommerce

IT problems, printers and online support models

justanswer online IT supportUsually I offload any home IT problems to the kids. Last night though I spotted one of them carrying the (wireless) printer into the living room. Omg wtf I thought (the kids will probably read this).

Turns out the printer is knackered. Print head stays stuck in place. The lad in question was moving it into a brighter room to try and get a better look. He is a good lad. There was of course nothing obvious so we plugged it back in. Still didn’t work & came up with an error code.

I searched online and found that this type of error, if it didn’t fix itself, needed a return to base to fix. Ah well. That’s why I took out the insurance policy – I do this for printers only because they are notoriously unreliable (assuming I can find the bumpf though usually PC World are good at keeping a record).

In one of my searches for the error code I came across “justanswer.com” which seemed to show promise. At first I thought it was a Kodak support site and filled in the online engagement box with the details of the problem. Next think  I know the details of an advisor came up highlighting his technical background and suggesting that the assistance might be worth £21 but giving you the opportunity to suggest another figure.

Very innovative. Being tight I moved off the page. After all I had already determined that the printer would either fix itself or need sending back. It seems like a good model for the total novice though. It is reasonable to pay someone for their expertise.

I rebooted the printer one last time and hey presto, it worked! Deep satisfaction…

Click on the header photo to see more of the page.

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Business voip

WELSH VoIP FIRM IS GLOBAL TRAILBLAZER

The VoIP world is changing out of all recognition. Over The Top services allow VoIP to be used in many applications and environments. These services have traditionally been provided using servers performing specific functions. For example voicemail, music on hold, conferencing are all serviced as “discrete functions” by the carrier’s system.

Carriers want to make sure that they never run out of network capacity. To do so not only means lost revenues but annoys users who get “busy tones” and puts them off using the service in future. The traditional way of ensuring that capacity limits are not reached is by overprovisioning network resources (hardware and licenses) which is expensive.

New technology developed by NS Technologies in Cwmbran, South Wales allows networks to adjust virtual resources on the fly using what is known as a Media Resource Broker (MRB).  The MRB opens up new business opportunities for everyone in the VoIP game. A VoIP provider using MRB might, for example, offer new conferencing services on an exploratory basis knowing that if the services don’t take off they haven’t lost a big chunk of cash that they would traditionally have to had invested in the kit.  The MRB also has other value add features such as conference failover and location based resource routing.

The guys at NS-Technologies are sharp and if you are a telco you would do well to take a look at what they have to offer. You can follow them on Twitter at @NS_Technologies and read their press release here (not for the layman).

I wish them luck.

Categories
Business events

save the date – trefor.net xmas bash 2012

For those of you who come to my Christmas bash I’ve booked the venue for the 2012 trefor.net gig. The date is Thursday 13th December. I’ll be announcing more details at the beginning of October but I can tell you it’s going to be a humdinger.

Categories
Business mobile connectivity

iPad tracked whilst on TNT overnight delivery

tracking photo of iPad loaded onto lorry at the TNT depotWill Curtis is a hard working boy. He is to be found out and about around the country installing, fixing, advising, surveying and performing other general communications industry related engineering tasks.

Last night, somewhere in deepest Britain, he pitched up at  a specialist purveyor of overnight succour, a little home from home for the next three days. Blow me down, settling into a small lime juice in the bar, the lad realised that he had left his iPad at home.

Now Will uses some work applications on his iPad. The iPad also uses a secure Timico SIM to connect to our corporate network. He called Fiona in the office and arranged for it to be delivered overnight to his hotel.

When it was shipped the iPad had GPS enabled and Will was able to track its physical progress using his iPhone and the “Find my iPhone ” app. The photos show the progress this morning from the TNT depot to the hotel. V cool if you ask me.

Imagine the relief on Will’s face when he   turned up in the hotel reception to greet the courier and pick up his parcel.

In fact Will would have been able to time his breakfast (All Bran with fruit and semi-skimmed milk) knowing the exact location of the delivery van. On the screen of his phone he could watch the ipad “drive” into the car park and, I imagine, dab his lips with his (crisp white) napkin rising from the table only as the courier was getting out of the vehicle.

As the parcel was coming up the steps to the hotel front entrance Will nodded his thanks to the waitress and strode purposefully to reception.

Damned efficient. More pics below

Continue reading “iPad tracked whilst on TNT overnight delivery”
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Business social networking

Twitter customer service models – @metoffice is great

Over the last two weekends I have had two experiences with customer support using Twitter which I shall relate to you.

The bank holiday weekend was it’s usually showery with sunny spells and I was lying in my tent in Woodhall Spa watching the Twitter stream, albeit in stops and starts due to the terrible  mobile data connectivity you get in parts of the countryside.

I follow the @metoffice  twitter account and noticed the handover from the night shift. Every time this happens the new “duty tweeter” asks people to tweet in questions about the weather. For me this has always been a one way twitter account but on this occasion I asked whether the rain forecast for the Monday would stay away long enough for me to dry the tens and pack it away.

This is the engagement:

(me 08.09am) @metoffice I’m in woodhall spa.will the tent have time to dry out before it rains again?

(response 08.38am) @tref Yes just about, although soon becoming cloudy… you can expect rain later this afternoon, about 2pm ish ^JVS

Last night. ie Sunday evening, I was trying to book a train ticket and the website kept grinding to a halt whenever I got to the point of paying.

(me 20.41pm) @eastcoastuk your payment gateway is so slow it’s going backwards tonight. I’m trying to buy a load of advance tix

(response 10.44 next day) @tref Apologies, if you are experiencing problems using your rewards, contact Web Support 08457225111

Now I happen to like Eastcoast.co.uk. I frequent London quite regularly (frequently) and the train firm, by and large, provides me with a good service.

It is interesting however to note the difference in twitter response. The @metoffice response left me thinking “wow what a great service” and that of @eastcoastuk didn’t.  Moreover I was trying to spend money with eastcoast.co.uk and the MetOffice provides me with everything free of charge. Also @metoffice is manned by people who tell you their names. Clearly @eastcoastuk is not a 24*7 twitter account. I’m not saying they need to change , they run their own business the way they want to run it. I’m just highlighting the difference.

I have the MetOffice app running on my GalaxyS3. I’d get it if I were you, especially if you like camping.

PS the Met Office is looking for advertisers – their app has a small banner space that always seems to read “Advertise Here”. Worth taking a look if you are selling to people who rely on the weather for work or play.

Categories
Business UC voip

What’s your Lync address?

Lync video call screenshot with Terry Bowers and Trefor DaviesThis good looking boy in the screenshot is Terry Bowers, Head of Professional Services at Timico Technology Group business Redwood Telecommunications. We are obviously engaged in serious conversation as neither of us is smiling.

The client itself is a feature of Microsoft’s Lync, something we decided to play with at Redwood following the UC Expo (UC = Unified Communications) trade show earlier this year. Redwood now have it installed at a number of their customers and it is regularly used in communications between these companies and also with suppliers.

We are using an all in one Lync box from Active Communications, This is a lovely appliance that removes the need to deploy the complexity of servers1 that has been Lync (note innovative & brand new collective noun). ACS have not only integrated Lync but have done it using virtualisation which means you can deploy it within your own virtual infrastructure. Also it scales very nicely.

I use a number of multimedia clients such as the one shown in the screenshot. There’s Timico’s own Genband based Outlook client, Google and Skype. All are used to talk to different communities and whilst there are some differences they typically all work well.

A few observations arise:

Continue reading “What’s your Lync address?”
Categories
Business internet

I love Lincolnshire.org <3 :))

I note there is a new website about where I live. Not about my house exactly. I suspect I’ll never merit a blue plaque. I’m talking about Lincolnshire.org. I’ve always felt that Lincolnshire was not as favoured with visitor information as it could be. I don’t even know why I was looking – I guess I like to find out stuff about my home town.

In fact way back when I first had internet access (dial up) I made a point of looking for Lincoln based websites. As I recall I could only find three at the time including Gino’s Italian Restaurant in the Bail which I remember as being quite good and thinking that it was quite enlightened at the time for a restaurant to have a site. Gino died last year but the restaurant is still going. I don’t remember what the other sites were – I lost the list of favourites in a pc upgrade/move sometime. Must have been a long time ago now (young feller me lad).

Although the web is a global phenomenon it very much applies to communities both small and local and there will always be plenty of opportunities to find niches where you can make a bit of cash. I’ve no idea how much money is made by Lincolnshire.org. It’s all down to advertising1 page impressions or click-throughs and referral fees for hotel bookings etc.

The key is clearly to make the site attractive and informative so that people will want to visit and more’s to the point link to from other websites. Lincolnshire.org could end up as a nice little business.

This brings us then to the completely new set of skills that a business owner has to acquire in this modern web based world. Not only does he or she have to understand the ins and outs of Search Engine Optimisation but putting together a website ain’t exactly plug and play. You can build very simple websites using tools provided by commercial web hosts (eg Lincoln’s very own WebHostingBuzz) or even use hosted platforms such as provided by wordpress.org but you will probably end up with fairly limited functionality.

So if you are a small business starting up you need to outsource your web design which of course you have to pay for. You can also pay for specialist SEO. It’s all cash out of the business before you even open the doors. Nothing new there then – all you are doing is replacing your shop fitting costs with different technical skills. Then it’s all about content – the modern shelf full of goods.

Kids grow up with this stuff. It’s their world; today. If you aren’t down wiv da kids don’t despair but you will have to work harder at it. Perhaps I’ll make sure one of my kids ends up as a web developer.

In the meantime good luck to Lincolnshire.org. Give it your support. Use it, link to it. Tell your friends and relations about it. It’s a great domain name and it deserves to succeed.

1 I’ve never considered carrying advertising on trefor.net but that is because I have a different agenda. I do link through to Timico wherever appropriate.

PS it was years before I actually visited Ginos and I was pleasantly surprised. Don’t leave it that long before visiting Lincolnshire – you can book through Lincolnshire.org 🙂

PPS It’s not my website btw 🙂

Categories
4g Business mobile connectivity ofcom

Everything Everywhere LTE Launch

The Ofcom decision to allow Everything Everywhere to launch an LTE (4G) service on its existing 1,800MHz spectrum has resulted in lots of press coverage this week (here’s me in the the Telegraph) and complaints from the other operators who have to wait for the auctions in the new year.

I can see both sides of the argument and like it or not I agree with the Ofcom decision to let them get on with the launch. We have to get these services out there so we can all start using them. I expect there to be no further delays in the auction process after this.

The big question in my mind is what the LTE packages are going to look like. I could be wrong but I sense that EE is not going to launch very fast services because speed uses up more of the spectrum. My bet is that the services will be perhaps 10 or 15Mbps using smaller chunks of spectrum and not the whizz bang speeds the technoogy can actually achieve.

10 – 15Mbps is still a lot faster than what we have already and allows the operator to offer faster services downstream without having to change its infrastructure. EE could alternatively offer the faster services at launch but at a premium. When it comes to it we don’t actually need 40Mbps (say) on our phones. What we will notice is the faster response rate at 10 – 15Mbps than we currently get.

Offering a speed that is not orders of magnitude faster than the existing services will also help prevent network congestion although the EE infrastructure has had a huge capacity upgrade in readiness for the launch.

The other interesting thing to look out for will be the pricing or more specifically how much data usage you will get for your money. Also which handsets will be supported?

Not long to wait now. Although Timico is an O2 and Vodafone house I will be getting myself an EE 4G SIM to play with.

That’s all folks…

Categories
Business olympics

Wireless connectivity during the “connected” Olympics

Olympic long jump great Bob Beamon who is taller than Trefor Davies helped with the WiFi testing if he but knew itIn February I wrote about the O2 4G trials in London. The trials involved travelling around the city with a laptop and a 4G dongle looking for fast mobile internet access. Six months later I was back on holiday in London for the Olympics, billed as the “connected games”. As I was due to spend 8 days out of the Olympic fortnight in and around Olympic venues I thought I’d follow up the earlier 4G exercise with some mobile speed testing.

Highlights include the Apple Store, Virgin Wifi on platforms on the London Underground, the Cisco House at the Olympic Park and BTOpenzone at the Waldorf Hotel.

To test the 3G and WiFi networks after 4G seems the wrong way round but is still valid. The rise of the WiFi hotspot combined with the continuous increase in mobile data capacity are elements of the new mobile battleground for network operators. You don’t need to be a mobile operator to play. WiFi is strategic for both fixed and mobile players. It’s a competitive play amongst broadband providers and an offload mechanism for mobile players wanting to reduce the load on their cellular data networks

For the tests I used my Samsung Galaxy S3 and a couple of different apps from speedtest.net and thinkbroadband.com. The two apps produced slightly different results but in the great scheme of things were broadly the same – when the connectivity was good they both said it was good.

Rarely can a set of technical tests have been conducted in such interesting and historical surroundings. I started at home in Historic Lincoln on 31st July and did a quick test whilst still in bed at 5.52am getting around 8Mbps down and 400k up using my home broadband (boy am I looking forward to FTTC).

We stayed that night with friends in Historic Windsor. Their WiFi was up and down and the cellular data connection was near to non-existent at 11k down and 85k up.

In the morning of 1st August we were heading for the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff to watch TeamGB beat Uruguay. I jumped on the 15 minutes of The Cloud’s free WiFi at Historic Slough railway station and got a reasonable  5.9Mbps down and 1.6Mbps up. Upload speed is becoming just as important for me as download as I back up all my photos and videos to Google+ and like to post to YouTube.

Interesting that the WiFi at our friends house in Cardiff was a poor 1.6Mbps down but 3Mbps up. O2 mobile data speeds at the Millenium Stadium in CardiffI couldn’t get on the WifI at the Millenium stadium because I needed a BT Logon and being tight I didn’t want to pay for it. However the O2 mobile data connection was absolutely terrific at 7.7Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. At half time as the 70,000 in the stadium switched their attention to their phones  the speed dropped to 3.7Mbps down and 0.8Mbps up. Still very usable.

I was very very impressed with the mobile data service in the Millenium Stadium. My first true Olympic experience. I experimented with uploading blog posts using WordPress for Android. Without photos this was no problem. It struggled with big attachments though and I found later that this was very much a function of the upload bandwidth available for that application – faster the better obviously.

At the Millenium Stadium I was also seeing how well the battery would last on the Galaxy S3. I went in fully charged at around 5pm and hammered the phone by taking lots of photos (bursts of 20 at 3 frames per second) and videos and with using the 3G data connection. After 3 ½ hours I still had 24% batteryGalaxy S3 battery and wireless data usage left. I took 273MB worth of photos and videos whilst in the stadium. On the 1st of August I used 180MB of mobile data in total, 74MB of which was accessing the phone’s photo Gallery which downloads images from Google+!  Speed testing used 27MB of data on that day.

The next day I took the kids to Lee Valley to watch Team GB win Gold and Silver in the men’s doubles kayaking slalom (yay). This was an outdoor venue as opposed the near indoor nature of the Millenium Stadium but I was happy with 3.4Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up.

The free Virgin Media WiFi in underground stations was a revelation.Virgin Media WiFi speeds on the London Underground station platform at Covent Garden In Covent Garden Underground I got 26Mbps down ad 44Mbps up! Wow. My biggest problem was that you didn’t have enough time to reconnect for the brief time the train spent in stations once you were onboard. Once on the train you realistically had to abandon any expectation of using WiFi for the remainder of your underground journey .

Also in Covent Garden the Apple Store gave 11.7Mbps down and speed test at Apple Store in Covent Garden - a great place if you need easy and free access to good WiFi25Mbps up. You may have noticed a theme here. The uplink often seemed to be faster than the download but I guess that’s to be expected as most other users on the hotspot will have been downloading and sharing that bandwidth. This was the same at Lancaster House on the Friday (25Mbps down 31Mbps up) where I actually had to do some work at a Foreign Office Business Embassy meeting and the following week at the Cisco House WiFi speeds at the Cisco House - click to see the view from the balcony(21Mbps down 48Mbps up – they 50Mbps of internet access and 2x10Gbps backup if they needed it!) where I was entertained to Corporate Hospitality along with Dr Henry Kissinger and legendary US long jumper Bob Beamon.

Henry Kissinger is shorter than Trefor Davies

I had been looking forward to trying out the WiFi in the Olympic Park itself having got myself a 5 day Openzone logon. On Thursday 9th August at the Aquatics Centre for the Womens 10m High Diving finals – my first day of using it – I couldn’t get on to the network. It transpired that the BT WiFi landing page didn’t like the Chrome browser running on my Galaxy S3, the official phone of the Olympics!  Back the next day for the mens handball semi finals between Hungary and Sweden I found that the native browser on the S3 worked ok and I did get  WiFi connectivity.

The speed testers initially didn’t show much speed so I tried uploading a video of the handball to YouTube. It took a 69MB HD video file 18 minutes to upload which in my mind works out as roughly 0.5Mbps upload speed. I did eventually register 2.87Mbps down and 1.6Mbps up at the Handball.

The cellular speeds at the Aquatics centre ranged between 1.7Mbps andAquatics Centre O2 Cellular data speeds 5.4Mbps down with uploads between 32Kbps and 1.6Mbps.

After the Handball I did test the Wifi at various spots in the Olympic Park. It waxed and waned a little but I did see 8.3Mbps down and 3.2Mbps up at one point.handball cellular speeds were generally better than the WiFi
handball wifi speeds - I uploaded 69MB video in 18 minutes

 

 

BT say they had over 50,000 unique users register on their WiFi network in the Olympic Park. This must be lower than they had been expecting considering the total number of visitors to the site in the fortnight.  I guess that unless you were getting it free as a BT broadband people would have been put off paying.

The Olympic Park WiFi did prove to be reliable with 100% uptime for the whole period of the games which is good considering the shaky nature of the technology. In fact the whole Olympic experience from the network operator perspective was great. All the hard work put in to ensure there was enough internet capacity for everyone paid off.

I did have a few more comparisons. The Travelodge in Covent Garden was giving me just over 4Mbps down and 1.6Mbps up but the Waldorf HoteBTOpenzone WiFi at the Waldorf Hotel was terrificl where I stayed for the Hyde Park Blur gig on the Sunday night showed a whopping 20Mbps down and 26Mbps up. You get what you pay for. The Travelodge was a cellular connection as I didn’t want to pay extra for the WiFi and at the Waldorf I used the BT Openzone login that still had a couple of days left on it so that was free. Interesting contrast of hotels I hear you say? I paid less for the Waldorf than I did for the Travelodge the week before – crazy mixed up Olympics hotel pricing.

At the Hyde Park gig itself you could kiss goodbye to data connectivity unless you had access to BT’s own office WiFi, which I did and which gave me a variable result around the 3 – 4Mbps down.

I did try to pick up Wifi wherever I was in London. At various times I could see Virgin, The Cloud, O2 and BT hotspots. They were rarely satisfactory if you were walking around but I guess they are intended for use whilst inside a venue. Cellular was fine the whole time.

In conclusion I did find some great connectivity in London and at Olympic venues. 3G was more reliable but where WiFi was good it was great. I sometimes found that whilst there was WiFi I had to pay for it which I didn’t like so I went without.

The UK is going to be an interesting mobile battleground over the next couple of years. I think 4G is going to prevail outdoors. Owners of indoor venues will I believe have to offer free WiFi or somehow accommodate multiple providers of WiFi that offer free access to their own subscribers.

Looking at my phone data usage for August (up until am 22nd) I used 2.02GB of 3G data and 14.83GB of WiFi. This is largely because I took 7.63GB of photos and videos in the same time frame which were all backed up to Google+ over WiFi. If we assume that my own usage pattern is how the rest of the consumer world will operate at some point then a mix of WiFi and 3G or 4G is always going to be needed unless mobile data costs come down to match those of broadband which seems unlikely in the near term.

Have a play with the map below to see screenshots of individual speedtests at different venues. You might need to refresh your browser screen to see it. Zoom out to see all the test locations or click on the “view larger map” link below to see all the pins.

View Wireless Network Testing During Olympics in a larger map

Thanks to David Nelson for the photos of Bob Beamon and Henry Kissinger.

PS Would have been nice to get all the pins in view straight awayon the embedded map but it wasn’t worth putting any more time in the post to perfect it.

Categories
Business olympics

How VIPs got around during the Olympics – security hard undebelly

We were walking through London to Hyde Park for the Blur gig and saw several of these convoys driving along Picadilly. I guess they were ferrying VIPs from their 5 star hotels on Park Lane to the Closing Ceremony at the Olympic Park. The cops took no prisoners and were pretty aggressive with pedestrians and other cars that didn’t get the message to shift out of the way in a timely manner. The hard underbelly of diplomatic security 🙂

Categories
Business olympics

London 2012 – the epilogue

Usain Bolt - he didn't let us down :)I’m pretty much exhausted after the Olympics. I guess it doesn’t help having spent 8 days out of the fortnight one way or another down in London. It’s not coming here again in my lifetime…

The press is of course full of comment – they are going to continue milking it for all its worth as long as they can.

I doubt that there is anyone out there who doesn’t believe the games were a complete triumph. I am lucky enough to have gone to many events, partly because I have paid the money and partly because I received invitations from sponsors due to my seniority in the business. The Olympics have been great for me.

Whilst they have been billed as “the people’s games” I will volunteer that this is the one element that I had doubts over in the run up to the starting gun.

These games cost so much money to put on that many tickets were out of the price range of many people, assuming they could even get their hands on them. I realise we couldn’t fit everyone that wanted to go into each venue so supply and demand was part of this. Also the pressure to maintain the exclusivity of the big spending corporate sponsors meant that the Locog police went over the top in enforcing their branding rules. Stories abound of butchers not being allowed to display circles made out of sausages, or of local cafes having to change their long standing names because they included the word “Olympic”. This does not smack of people’s games.

The games’ huge success has to a large extent been because we have spent the money to “do it right”. Whilst it is now right for us to sit back and enjoy this success I do feel a certain regret that the Olympics have come to the position of needing to be huge and costly events.

Although the International Olympic Committee runs the games I don’t think anyone should feel that the IOC owns the games. They can only be there as guardians.

The games must be owned by everyone and it didn’t feel that the London games belonged totally to the people. They belonged in significant part to the IOC and Locog and the big companies that had shelled out lots of money for the rights to advertise their affiliation. I suspect that there is nothing we can ever do to change this for future games.

During the build up to these games I was free with my use of “proscribed” words and phrases such as London 2012 and Olympics. In part I hid behind the non-commercial aspect of trefor.net even though I am patently affiliated with Timico, a provider of (high quality) communication services.  In a sense I was doing it because had I been hauled up before the Locog kangaroo court it would have been great publicity but I was also standing up for what I believed was right and that is the Olympics is ours not Locog’s or the IOC.

Anyway enough of the rant. I, like most of you I’m sure, do feel a huge sense of pride in our country’s success in London 2012. Although I am at this stage unlikely to ever be an Olympic champion (it has  made me feel old looking at the ages of many of the competitors) the success of our sportsmen and women has spurred me to wanting to achieve more in my own life.

If anyone fancies a game of conkers this autumn the season is not far off… 🙂

Categories
Business olympics

Gawd blimey guvnor lawks a daisy frog and toad me old sparrer

welcome sign at the Actor's Church in Covent GardenI should apologise immediately for confusing American readers with this blog title the meaning of which will be immediately obvious to UK natives especially those born within sound of Bow bells. I should explain.

plaque indicating that John Milton was born in Bread Street - interestingOn Friday I had breakfast at Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen with business partner Terence Long who is a good lad and a pal. I then strolled towards Bank tube station to catch the underground to Stratford. It was a pleasant morning and I had a bit of time so I stopped at a pavement cafe outside a churcha lahtay for a lahtay.

Blow me down if the church didn’t turn out to be St Mary Le Bow – a Wren designed masterpiece and the original and one and only repository of the  Bow bells. For overseas readers (you know who I’m talking about) Bow bells are famous because true cockneys are born within earshot of them.

This is interesting because you probably don’t know that I was born at the maternity annexe of the Royal Free Hospital on the Liverpool road in Islington.  My parents had been desperately trying to get back to Wales but I came along before they could make it.St Mary Le Bow - a fine Wren church

Google maps tells me that Liverpool Road is a 2.3 mile walk which taken at an easy pace can be done in 46 minutes. I’d say that without the traffic noise, which of course would not have been there when the original definition of a cockney was fixed, that puts me in with a chance of being a pearly king, guvnor. Lumme. Lend us a monkey will ya?

PS Breakfast is top notch at the Bread Street Kitchen. Probably the best poached eggs I have had. If you get a chance you should try it.

PPS this last video is a countdown from the tenth floor of the salubrious Covent Garden Travelodge. I thought it was very much in keeping with the countdowns created by the BBC for the Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Enjoy…

Categories
Business olympics

Global Business Summit at Lancaster House during London 2012 Olympics

The Gobal Business Summit at Lancaster House during the London 2012 Olympic games

me with old uni pal Dr Phillip Davies - MD of component manufacturer RakonI was very privileged to be invited to the Global Business Summit at Lancaster House in London on Friday. This was a showcase of the best of British Technology Businesses and the guest list was a mix of UK and overseas business leaders. It was one of a series of sessions promoting different UK market sectors and ours was the last one. Being right next to Clarence House security was about as tight as it can get. The cops here always carry guns. I had forgotten my passport at home but fortunately my driving license did the job for photo ID.

Vince Cable - click to see more of the VIP guestsWe were treated to a keynote speech by Vince Cable, UK government cabinet minister with responsibility for business and by CEO of Facebook EMEA, Joanna Shields. I won’t comment on the specific of the speeches by either of these two or by any of the other speakers in the morning and afternoon. They were all positive, upbeat messages from people involved in the technology industries of which we should be proud.

It must be said that we do know how to put on great events in this country. Obviously there are the Olympics which on the face of it are a huge success. This was very much a networking chatting with Vince cable and Colin Duffy, CEO of Voipfoneevent. As well as showcasing technology they were showcasing the best in British food and drink. We did our very best to sample it all – good manners and all that.

The food and drink was sponsored by the suppliers, I’m told. I’ll name a few: Bibendum, Nyetimber champagne (I realise we aren’t supposed to call it champagne but you may have noticed I’ve been feeling rebellious of late and it is just as good as the French stuff), Chapel Down and Primrose Hill wines – great I can recommend them.

The food was terrific – little bowls for lunch so that we could circulate and chat. Crab, braised beef, quail spring to mind. The canapes at the cocktail party after the talks were also very tasty – steak and chips, seared tuna, pea puree, amongst others. We had them with gin and tonics made with Tanqueray and Sipsmith gin and a cocktail called “English Country Garden” whose constituents I don’t totally recall (perhaps for obvious reasons) but which included Chase vodka and some kind of elderflower juice. I’ve included a short video of the Bibendum staff mixing the cocktail.

We aren’t supposed to take photos in “Royal residences” but everyone was doing so and the bar staff even took some of the shots for us. Also there were loads of official photographers clicking and recording away. No prizes but can anyone guess what the tapestry is behind the cameraman in the photo inset right. It’s quite famous. The artist’s name will do as an alternative.

Also click on the photo of Vince speaking to see some of the other guests – names? Finally who is in the photo of the panel? – click on it to enlarge and see more. As I said no prizes this time as I’m on holiday but lets see if anyone comes up with right answers.

can you name the tapestry behind the camera?

See ya…

Categories
Business olympics

Great ad by British Airways – London2012 Olympics

great advert by BA during the Olympics in London

This photo speaks for itself – superb bit of marketing by British Airways in the London Underground during the Olympics 🙂

Categories
Business Net olympics

Logistics & Security at the London2012 Olympics

The Olympic rings at Tower BridgeTravel to and from the games: – a joy – the train to Cardiff was standing room only but we had booked seats – no problem. I travelled back in first class early the next morning with the lad so don’t know how the people up the back were. Most of the fans from the previous night will have either gone

reading material in the 1st class lounge at cardiff stationback that night or still be in bed sleeping off the beer. For the record the lad had two hot chocolates, a diet coke, a Fanta, a packet of hand cut crisps and a croissant – taking advantage of the free food and drink up the front.

At Kings Cross I noted no queues at taxi ranks.  Easier by and large than a normal day in town.

no queues at the taxi rank in Kings Cross StationConnections in London to get to Lee Valley for the kayaking – trouble free and swift with plenty of seating. We sat in first class between Tottenham Hale and Cheshunt despite not having the right ticket – you know I’m a reb. Nobody checked the tickets in either direction anway.

On the way back we joined the 12,000 spectators emptying out of the venue for the 30 minute walk to the station. At the station we got on a train straight away and were whisked away within 30 seconds – unbelievable. In fact almost every connection we had to make had a minimal wait. The train was full but hey…

friendly cops at Lee Valley

she's a fair cop guv

it's a specialist job, pointing

Security at the games – reassuring without causing lengthy delays. The coppers were very friendly and happy to indulge tourist Tref with photo calls. The women PCs smiled beautifully (steady Tref). The presence of armed police showed the underlying serious approach to security.

The pointers too were very friendly and efficient. The numbers of staff on hand to help was overkill but you didn’t feel that. They were great and all out to enjoy the occasion.

The presence of the military was also comforting. The troops approached their last minute call up with professionalism and I have to say we all felt that much safer with them around. They looked confident in everything they did &  also had a special Olympic cloth badge (fwiw:)

Other logistics – the number of portable toilets stood out – I don’t think I ever say anyone queuing to go to the loo – got to be a result.

We arrived at the Lee Valley venue at lunchtime which consequentially meant huge queues for the food concessions. Because of this we waited until one of the breaks in the sport and were able to buy food with very little wait. £9.5 for fish chips and mushy peas if that’s your fancy. A sausage bap and a diet coke were around seven quid. Good quality nosh but v expensive. One man handed over more than fifty pounds to feed his group.

Connectivity – as in the Millennium Stadium I didn’t get on with the WiFi but didn’t need to because the 3G was good – 3.8Megs down and 1Meg up. WordPress for Android with a few photos didn’t work very well. Admittedly one was a panorama shot which seems to mess it up. This post was originally written at Lee Valley but I’ve had to retype it on the laptop at home.

I’m back at the Olympics next week and will try and take advantage of the WiFi at that time and report back.

Categories
broadband Business

Why We Need High-Speed Broadband Connectivity: London2012, Bell Ringing World Record Lincoln Cathedral

I’m working from home this morning – car is in first thing having something sorted. At 8am I nipped round to Lincoln Cathedral to film the London2012 world record bell ringing attempt. There were 7 bell ringers in Minster Yard as well as the ones inside the cathedral. A small but perfectly formed bunch:)

Anyway I got home and immediately started to upload the 500Meg video file to YouTube – time is of the essence in the news business. What a waste of time. I have one kid downloading Ubuntu for RaspberryPi and two others engaging in online warfare with unknown foe.

Decent levels of broadband connectivity bandwidth are clearly an everyday necessity.

The video is still on the phone so it is probably uploading to Google+ quietly in the background, hogging some bandwidth.

Roll on superfast with stripes connectivity.

Categories
Business ofcom Regs

So much to do so little time…

Not sure whether I mentioned it but I’m off on holiday after this week – going to see the London2012  Olympics.

You would think that the world would drop everything and focus on the biggest sporting event to hit the UK (ok mostly London) since ever. I’m amazed at how much is still going on in the world of internet legislation. So much so that most of it will have to be left to others for comment.

We have consultations over the Draft Communications Data Bill. Then the Interception of Communications Commissioner has published his annual report – interesting reading I’m sure.

Oh and did you know that the Welsh Government (iechyd da)  announced that it has selected BT to implement the Next Generation Broadband Project for Wales. BT was also the successful bidder in North Yorkshire which has become first county to deploy BDUK broadband (if I can call it that). Note the Welsh Government is also launching a Business Crime Unit.

Next up is EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes who has outlined the European Commission’s general conclusions following on from last year’s consultation on wholesale access to telecoms networks – good stuff.

You don’t need me to tell you that Ofcom has published its Communications Market Report for 2012 – I’ll definitely be reading that but not whilst I am on holiday.

You may not have noticed that the IP Crime Group, which was formed in 2004 by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to bring together experts from industry, enforcement agencies and Government to work together on piracy and counterfeiting issues, has published its latest annual report.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills launched a consultation on enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law. In addition to goods, the consultation also looks at services and digital content.

Finally uSwitch has published a report on broadband billing.

All exciting stuff eh? Unfortunately you will have to gen up on all this yourselves as I won’t have time to do it. All good reading for when you’re on the beach.

Ciao.

PS Lists and links have very kindly been provided by ISPA.

Categories
Business internet mobile connectivity net neutrality

Broadband Stakeholders Group Open Internet Code of Practice

The Broadband Stakeholders Group today released an “Open Internet Code of Practice”. This is a voluntary CoP promoting net neutrality.

Specifically:

  • users should be able to access all legal content
  • there should be no discrimination against content providers on the basis of commercial rivalry; and
  • traffic management policies should be clear and transparent

I’m not going to delve into the detail of the BSG announcement which is available here. What I am going to do is name the current signatories who are all in the main consumer service providers:

  • BE, BT, BskyB, KCOM, O2, Plusnet, TalkTalk, Tesco Mobile, Three

The significance of this list is in who is not on it, particularly the mobile operators. You can work out who they are yourselves. Some of them are already known to block the use of Over The Top VoIP services (eg Timico’s own VoIP, Skype et al) on their mobile networks which of course goes against the principles of the CoP being announced today.

Whatever their reasons for not signing these mobile networks will have to change their positioning as 4G gets rolled out. The bandwidth requirement for VoIP  services will be relatively small compared with that required for general use on 4G networks so the “lack of capacity” argument should not work.

4G is a fairly major inflection point for mobile networks. I don’t have any forecasts but during the life of the 4G (LTE) technology we should see the mobile business model transition from being minutes driven to data driven.

I suspect that growth in “data bundle” income may not offset any reduction in voice minutes revenues so the mobile operators are going to have to work out how to find cash from elsewhere. This may come from advertising, financial micro payments, device and personal security and I’m sure many more that I haven’t thought of.

For the moment I’ll leave you to figure out for yourselves why the non-signatories have not stepped up to the plate. I can’t see how they can stay away for too long. It isn’t the actual signature but the principle of how they treat their customers who will end up voting with their feet.