Category: Business

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Business security

Infosec Europe – the stuff you really need to know

waiting travelers at London Kings Cross StationEn route to Earls Court yesterday for the Infosec show the Echoworx shoeshine stall at Infosec EuropeI had a bit of time on my hands whilst waiting for a work colleague’s train to turn up so I took the header photo with my Samsung Galaxy S2. It’s interesting to see how people naturally spaced themselves out so that there was an equal gap between them and the people in different directions  around them.

I’m going to write two posts on the visit to Infosec. This one covers all the essential things you need to know. The second will take a little more serious look at some of the learningsDennis Webster of Pangea with Trefor Davies and add some thoughts.

The essential information is presented here in pictorial format. The first inset photo is the shoeshine stand at the Echoworx booth. I say booth but all it really was was a space with a popup and two shoeshine chairs, one of which I sat at – I like to look after my shoes me (Timberland – none of this Hush Puppy stuff). The downside is that for 5 minutes as a captive audience I had to sit through a sales pitch for Echoworx. It’s fair enough. I got my shoes done and they got their message across. Bloomin’ hard work for the sales guy though – twelve 5 minute elevator pitches every hour. Wow.

The shoeshine guy was really interesting. Turns out he is a Seamus McDonagh, former cruiserweight boxer who was once a contender and was matched with

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Business online safety Regs security

Government surveillance in a free society?

Time was when MI5 (or whatever they are called) wanted to listen in on your conversation they sent someone round to the local telephone exchange with some wires and a couple of bulldog clips.

The breadth of things that could be monitored was actually fairly large. I remember once, many years ago, being shown satellite photographs of the lake at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the days running up the announcement that there was a problem with the reactor. The thermal imagery of the lake showed it warming up substantially over a few days. The information showing that there was a problem was being collected by our “security forces”.

The fact is whilst the data was there nobody saw it as it was buried in so much other information, photos etc, that you had to specifically been looking for it to see that something was wrong. The amount of personal information that they could gather about you was fairly limited and the number of people they could do this to was not huge. It was not a scalable system.

Nowadays the game has changed.

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broadband Business

It’s Nice When Someone Impresses When You Are Not Expecting It – BT Wholesale Broadband Performance

My home ADSL has occasionally been causing me issues with the broadband performance dropping right off. I know it isn’t the Timico network because I can see our network utilisation and when I have problems at home there is plenty of capacity available in our backhauls.

So gnashing my teeth I blamed BT and pulled a favour. As a one off they took a look at the Lincoln exchange to see if it was suffering congestion. Blow me down if they didn’t send me a graph showing that usage never get near capacity.

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Business olympics

London 2012 Olympic Countdown – some key dates from a network operator perspective

London 2012 Clearway 2012 Olympic routesWe are all back and, I assume suitably refreshed from our Easter break – that’s Spring break for readers in the USA. We can now start the official countdown to what is likely to be the most intensive summer of activities that we have seen in the UK, at least as far as I can remember and I’m old.  If you haven’t already noticed from previous posts I am very very excited about the Olympics and from now until the games intend to write as many posts as I can manage on the subject.

To set the scene it is worth talking about key dates for the diary. This summer is not just all about the Olympics. There is a lot more going on.

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Archived Business

staff wanted

the new Timico Network Operations Centre in Newark has gone live

Get on board – we are looking for staff for our Newark based Network Operations Centre. Vacancies include a 24×7 NOC position, 1st and 2nd line engineers and a “Helpdesk to Helpdesk” person to interface with IT Staff of our larger customers.

We are also after a senior network engineer Cisco, Juniper, MPLS, BGP,VPLS, TCP/IP (both IPv4 and IPv6), GRE, IPSec, PPP (including Radius), HSRP and SNMP.

Check out the vacancies here.

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Business online safety piracy Regs

Government plans to track emails and websites visited – my take

The fuss in the media today regarding the government’s plan to make Internet Service Providers capture personal communications data is nothing new. It was brought up under the last Labour government as the “Intercept Modernisation Programme” and received heavy criticism from the Tory party in opposition.

Now with the responsibility of government the conservatives seem to have seen things differently and the word is that the forthcoming Queen’s speech will contain measures to enable the collection of personal information that includes who you have telephoned and emailed or have received emails from and which websites you have visited. The details of what is being sent in the emails isn’t being asked for at this time.

Apart from the obvious privacy issues

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Business voip

And the winner is… yay Timico #ITSPA Awards

Last night at the House of Commons Timico wasTrefor Davies and Timico VoIP Product Manager Gemma Jankiewicz show off the ITSPA Award for Best ITSP (Enterprise) presented with the ITSPA Award for best ITSP serving the Enterprise market.

This is very exciting. Not only was the HoC a fantastic backdrop for the event but the winning of the Award is a great reward for all the hard work the Timico team has put in over a sustained period of time.

The category we entered was Enterprise. In order to serve customers in this market you can’t just sell them a VoIP service. It requires a whole service wrap that can include broadband, Ethernet, hosting and mobile services. This market also requires a certain scale of operation – for example running an effective 24×7 Network Operations Centre needs a certain size of tech support team.

So the Award for best ITSP is also an award for an overall service set. I’m not going to say anything else other than if you want to know more about our VoIP services check them out here.

PS I know the fashion conscious amongst you will be wondering about my t shirt – it’s the Commons And Lords Rugby Club tour to South Africa for the 2009 British Lions.

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Business fun stuff

Neil tweets #Timico2012

Stapleford Park Hotel - should be on everyone's to do listSometimes you just need a bit of downtime. Timico Marketing Director Neil Armstrong tweets #Timico2012Ever wondered what I do for downtime? Eh? No? I’m going to tell you anyway. I like to chill on the terrace of Stapleford Park Hotel. Club sandwich maybe and perhaps a bottle of Hildon lightly sparkling mineral water. I like to sit out face up to that stranger the new spring sun and soak up its warmth.

There is no rush. Occasionally I take in a frame of snooker and then saunter down to the pool for a wallow – nothing too strenuous. The heat in the steam room acts like a deep massage andon my way to a century break relaxing on the lounger afterwards I drop in and out of a gentle sleep.

Back in my room I pick out my outfit for the evening and head to the bar to join some other guests for a pre- dinner glass of champagne. The meal that follows  in the Grinling Gibbons restaurant is superb, the wines fine and the brandy in the bar afterwards, nursed whilst sunk into a deep armchair, the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

What’s it all about? Follow #Timico2012 tomorrow.

 

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Business internet

The Cost of Sending Stuff by Post & Boston Consulting Group Report on UK Internet Economy

web front end for plumbersI sent my mum a mother’s day card. Posted it Thursday and she got it today. Actually I didn’t really send it, my wife did so I don’t know if a second class stamp is to blame for it not getting there for the weekend.

Last night I bought a book from Amazon.co.uk. I had the choice of delivery by 1pm on Tuesday for a fiver or 5 day delivery included in the price of the book. The book itself was only £9 so I went for the free option. It will be here by the end of the week I imagine. If I wanted to fork out a one year subscription for Amazon Prime (£49) I could get all my purchases delivered free of charge next day.

I also ordered a new part for my car on Friday. They have promised it will be here on Wednesday. The part was

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Business media

Experience preferred but not essential – the art of movie making

the Dell film crew gathers round to start shooting at the Timico data centre in NewarkJust had yet another film crew in. You know what it’s like. photo of me looking serious (and eloquent) taken by Dell film crewEarly start,  breakfast provided by the outside catering company. Shoot a few scenes followed  by bacon sandwich. Bit more then 3 course sit down lunch – it’s hungry work this location based filming1.

This one was from Dell. They had flown into Manchester from Paris and took a 2 1/2 hour taxi ride from the airport. Should have flown into

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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 :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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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 🙂

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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.

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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.

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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
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.

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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 🙂

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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
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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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
broadband Business UC voip

Broadband Life: No Business Like Snow Business

You are looking at a disappointed man. Wha!  How can this be?  Surely not you Tref I hear you say? Yes yes disappointed 😉 What’s up?  We have had a very light smattering of snow.

I like snow. Snow, for the most part, makes the place look pretty and means I can wrap up cosily in front of a roaring open fire at home and enjoy the real winter. I don’t do the sledging any more – it’s all very well getting a thrill from speeding down that hill but you then have to traipse all the way back to the top dragging a sledge and almost certainly a kid. I still like throwing snowballs mind you. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of catching someone in the back of the neck.

I also quite like the superiority of owning a 4×4 when it snows. Other cars are sliding all over the place or struggling to get up the slightest incline but the Jeep takes it all with total ease.

This snow is not heavy enough for any of any of that. It might well close the golf course tomorrow but that is largely because you can’t see white balls on a white background. That’s the only thing this snow is likely to disrupt this weekend and in all probability I’ll be watching the 6 Nations rugby so not playing golf anyway.

None of the above is why I’m disappointed.

Continue reading “Broadband Life: No Business Like Snow Business”
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Business ofcom online safety Regs voip

Sat in an ITSPA council meeting discussing strategy.

Many of you will perhaps not have heard of the Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association. It is one of hundreds of industry trade associations serving their stakeholders in the UK. ITSPA was formed about 6 years ago at the “dawn of the hosted VoIP industry in this country”.

In its early days ITSPA was involved in the formation of codes of practice – working with Ofcom to define how an internet telephony provider should behave/operate. Things then went quiet for a while though the organisation has top notch networking events where executives get the opportunities to meet other people in the game to catch up on issues (and gossip).

Over the past 12 months industry affecting issues have started to come out of the woodwork.

Continue reading “Sat in an ITSPA council meeting discussing strategy.”
Categories
Business dns

Global domain name growth hit 9.5% in 2011 #Nominet

The global number of domain names under registration grew by 9.5% in 2011, up from 6.1% in 2010. The total now stands at 218 million domains registered. I have a few of them – perhaps 7 or 8 I’m not sure.  The growth trend might sound interesting but the rate peaked at over 30% in 2006 and for most of the ten years running up to 2011 was higher than the growth in that year. I got all this from the Nominet website.

It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to envisage a situation where one day everyone on the planet has their own domain name. Every person in my family does. Your domain will be the basis of your own unique resource and identifier and used for many things. A bit like a “super” National Insurance number. The fact that John Smith is likely already taken is a bit of a shame if you are he but that is already something you have had to live with for most of your life. In the future we might even find couples searching for available domain names before choosing a name for their baby! 🙂

If we assume a steady rate of growth of 10% a year then it will take 28 years for the total number of domains to reach 8.14 billion. According to the United Nations the world population in 2011 was around 7 billion1. I don’t know what it will be by 2040 but probably higher than my 8.14 Billion (assuming we don’t all blow each other up in the meantime) and it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this chat.

I guess what I am saying is that whether you agree with me or not re everyone having their own domain name there is still a long way to go with project internet. This is reinforced when  you consider the capacity for expansion of the physical infrastructure presented by IPv6. I am also sure that thus far we have only scratched the surface of what can be done with domain names. We also have to recognise that many people and organisations own multiple suffix variants of the same domain so for everyone to have one we need to have far more than the 8.14 Billion registered.

As well as the Nominet website it is also worth checking out zooknic.com for data on domain history and growth.

1 wouldn’t stay still long enough for anyone to count

Categories
Business social networking

job churn & LinkedIn

I have, for what it is worth, 496 connections on LinkedIn. I don’t really use the platform. I used to post links to blog posts on it but it didn’t always seem to work so I figured it was a waste of time trying.

Just now I got an email from LinkedIn telling me that 117 of my connections have changed job in the past 12 months. Over 20%.  Is this high? It suggests that one average we change jobs every 5 years or so. Perhaps people that use LinkedIn are more  likely to change jobs because, from what I can see, one of the primary functions of the platform is to act as a recruiting service.

I don’t know but I thought it was worth a mention.

Categories
Business datacentre

Service status updates at Timico – Thunderbirds are go

service status reports at TimicoSome time ago I mentioned we were working on a new service status update page for the Timico website. Well the status of this service is now “up”. It’s been in testing for some time but I welcome any comments or observations as you come across them.

There is a lot of system development going on at Timico. Ultimately I expect the service status page to be integrated with our newly rolled out Service Now implementation although there are a few hurdles to over come first not the least being the amount of deep jargon that seems to fly around incidents and on ticketing systems. The service status page needs to be easy to read and understand. I am also wary of a status that always shows up a green so in our case the fault stays visible for 7 days after it has been fixed. If you sign up to email alerts you can get access all historical data prior to that.

One thing that caught me a bit by surprise was the number of service types we have to cover. It’s only when you see them all graphically illustrated in front of you that it hits home. Mostly they all come as facts and figures on reports.

You can see the new service status page here. Note that this site is hosted at a totally separate external location – if the entire Timico network crashed you would still be able to see that it has done so!

That’s all folks

Categories
Business ofcom Regs

Bloggers subject to same rules as traditional journalists

“Bloggers subject to same rules as traditional journalists.” Seems a bit obvious doesn’t it? In writing a blog one should respect the laws of the land and not defame, lie, slander, slur, libel, slight, disparage or apply any other similar verb to the html page.

I suspect if you are sure of your ground vilification, disparagement and other general character assassination is ok but the risk is yours to take.

At this point I’m sure some of you are wondering where all this is going.

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Business mobile connectivity net neutrality ofcom voip

@EdVaizey reschedules #NetNeutrality Roundtable and ITSPA publishes detailed evidence on Mobile Network Operator bad practice

A Ministerial Roundtable on Net Neutrality had been scheduled for 24th January (ie yesterday) with  Internet Minister Ed Vaizey and the major fixed and mobile operators due to attend. EV is expecting industry to produce a voluntary code of practice in respect of Net Neutrality. In the run up to the meeting and following individual discussions with some of the intended participants the Minister has apparently been unhappy with progress. The Round Table has been postponed until 28th March to allow time for further industry discussion.

Net Neutrality is a very emotional subject. By and large in my view it is something that has been creating more noise than the issue has perhaps merited but I can understand people’s concerns. The issue of transparency is in particular an important one

Continue reading “@EdVaizey reschedules #NetNeutrality Roundtable and ITSPA publishes detailed evidence on Mobile Network Operator bad practice”
Categories
Business mobile connectivity

O2 – brown stuff spreads from whirring object

I don’t normally jump on a bandwagon although sometimes working for an ISP I get wind of juicy bits of network issues such as an exchange catching fire and might try and get in before the bandwagon has started to roll.

On this occasion the bandwagon is trundling down the hill at pace carrying news that O2 is including people’s mobile phone numbers in header information provided to websites visited by mobile users.

This was discovered by Lewis Peckover who has created a web page that tells you that kind of info is being left by your browser when you visit a site.

I took a look myself and drew a blank as you can see below

Continue reading “O2 – brown stuff spreads from whirring object”
Categories
Business Cloud datacentre

The communications world of the future #TimicoDC

Datacentre of the future

For the odd one of you that missed last week’s datacentre opening day I now have a few photos to fling your way (rhyming purely coincidental but reveals a deep natural talent 🙂 )

reception open for business at Timico datacentre in Newark

We had a great line up of VIP guests including from Newark Madam Mayoress, Mr Mayor and our local Member of Parliament the Rt Hon Patrick Mercer OBE, pictured here with our Chairman Tim Radford.

Mr Mayor, Madame Mayoress, Rt Hon Patrick MErcer MP and Mr Tim Radford attend the official opening of the Timico Newark Datacentre

Hover your mouse over photos for narrative.

TV cameras roll at opening of Timico datacentre in Newark

We had the TV cameras in and have also recorded the event for our own purposes (available in time for Christmas).

Timico Chairman Tim Radford makes a few opening remarks at opening of Newark datacentre

Tim gave a very inspiring speech supporting local business initiatives and talked about the great communications infrastructure that Newark has making it an ideal place to do business.

Patrick Mercer MP swipes iPad to open virtual curtains officially opening the Timico datacentre

Patrick Mercer swiped some virtual curtains on an iPad that opened curtains on the big screen in the NOC revealing a virtual plaque replicating the real one downstairs in reception.

Trefor Davies is interviewed for the TV at Timico datacentre opening

 

Trefor Davies says a few words about Timico datacentre capability

I was interviewed by Central Television and then gave what I can only imagine must have been a highly intelligent and entertaining talk about the new datacentre to an audience of over 200 invited IT Directors, CEOs and CFOs.

Panel discusses future of IT at Timico datacentre opening

We were fortunate in having a top class panel that discussed the future of the communications world for business – you can wait for the video to come out – it would take too long to discuss on the blog.
audience focused on panel discussion at Timico datacentre opening

 

artistic shot inside data hall at new Timico datacentre

The panelists were Christian Craggs, Director of O2 Strategy, Delfino Canas, Strategy Director of BT Wholesale, internet entrepreneur Rob Wilmot and last but not least Ewan Macleod of “Mobile Industry Review” fame.

another artistic shot inside Timico datacentre

Incidentally we have a great meeting room on the top floor of the new new building that can be used for many purposes – look out for news in the future of events that we will be planning here.

last artistic shot showing front of new Timico datacentre Finally if you are wondering what on earth that fancy dress get up is all about in the header photo then join the club. The things I have to do for this business!!

Keep the faith…:)

Oh and I almost forgot. Thanks to everyone who helped to make the day a great one. This includes staff, the panelists, our VIP guests and of course customers both existing and of the future variety. Having been involved in many successful events over the years I can honestly say this was up there with the best of them.

Categories
Business Cloud competitions datacentre video

Video games killed the art of conversation – spot the game megaprize competition #TimicoDC

Timico datacentre logoWe had a hugely successful data centre opening event at Timico yesterday – 210 customers, prospective customers and business partners came along and, if I say so myself, had a great time (and were impressed 🙂 ). More on this as soon as I’ve assembled the photos etc – I’m on the move at the moment.

In the meantime I have a little prize competition for you. At the back of the lecture theatre (conf room, call it what you will – it had more than 200 odd people in it), just for fun, we had a range of “antique” video games, consoles and computers on show.

There’s a bottle of champagne1 and a mug for the first person to correctly identify all the different systems shown in the video below (Timico staff not eligible here as they will have been able to view the kit yesterday).  Note no apologies for the title of the post. It is partly true and the internet is now doing its best to finish the job.

1 I saved it specially from yesterday’s celebrations 🙂