Category: broadband

Broadband related posts including superfast broadband, Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) or Fibre to the Premises (FTTP), fibre broadband, VoIP over broadband, broadband usage, wireless broadband, in fact anything you can think of that has to do with broadband! Rural broadband especially arouses high emotions.

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broadband Business

Pigeon Versus Broadband Publicity Statistics #trefandrory

The pigeon versus broadband race last week generated a phenomenal level of interest. It must be said this is an illustration of the power of the BBC – although of course the fun nature of the event itself must have helped.

The race, which involved near constant media exposure throughout the day, was covered on BBC Radio 2,3,4,5, BBC1 News at 6.30 and 10pm, BBC Scotland, Humberside, World Service and Lincolnshire (they are the only ones I know of). The first radio interview was a 6.15 am and the last, Radio 5 Live, was at around 6.50pm

It was the 5th most popular item on the BBC website on Thursday – by 6.18pm it had had 92,357 story views, competing mainly with the Pope’s

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broadband Business

Rory and Tref Pigeon Versus Broadband Race – The Highlights

Short amateur video of the Rory and Tref pigeon versus broadband stunt from last week.

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broadband Business

Pigeon Versus Broadband – Rare Video Footage

This rare video footage was uncovered from the archives this lunchtime when I was looking for some photos to send to the Skegness Standard who want to cover yesterday’s Rory and Tref pigeon versus broadband race.

You will note the firm but fair grip that must be excercised on the racing pigeon prior to launch.

Catch that pigeon! #trefandrory #roryandtref

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broadband End User

Haircut Video – Complete and Unexpurgated (Pigeon Versus Broadband)

This is the video that failed to upload from Furrows Farm to YouTube in yesterday’s Rory and Tref pigeon versus broadband race. It is complete and unedited so you might not want to sit through it all. On the other hand you might (we are all different – witness daytime TV).

For reference it was a “number 2 back and sides” at Antonio’s on Wragby Road in Lincoln. Also for reference I went to the Isle of Man for my holidays this year – information that didn’t come out during the haircut.

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broadband Business internet

Pigeon Versus Broadband Update Rory and Tref

The great Pigeon Versus Broadband race began when the birds were set off at 11.05, and they clocked in at the loft 1hr 15 minutes later. At that time the broadband upload to YouTube was only 24% complete, and then only after having to reset it as the connection was dropped.

The distance according to Google maps was 75 miles and according to Unikon pigeon specialist Ray Knight the straight line flight path was 65 miles I believe (I am assuming they flew in a straight line).

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broadband Business

Pigeon vs broadband trailer on the BBC

Audio of a trailer intereview I did with the BBC last night talking about the rerun of the South African broadband versus pigeon race but in the UK this Thursday.

Update 17.20 15th Sept

There is a fair bit of media interest in this event with live radio interviews for BC Humberside and BBC Lincolnshire for tomorrow’s breakfast shows, mid morning and drivetime on BBC Lincolnshire as well as extensive  TV coverage on Look North. The BBC main news website is also covering the event.

Look out for the  rory&tref  hashtag on twitter during the day.  Rory and Tref are the two pigeons that will be carrying the microSD cards (Rory Stewart is the MP for Penrith).  Check out the Cumbrian Rural Broadband event he is organising here.

On a side note we will know the exact time of arrival of the pigeons back in the loft because they will be RF ID tagged. I am expecting a convincing  avian victory.

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broadband End User

Breakfast, Broadband Speeds and Bandwidth

I got home last night, reopened my laptop, had food (enchiladas) and started working again. 4 hours later at 11.30 after significant online usage I went to bed.

This morning I had a very refreshing cup of tea in bed, opened my laptop again and kept on going. At breakfast I had all bran and a banana which I ate whilst tweeting and then I cracked on again with some work.

A little later, having sussed the problem I had been working on, I downloaded some Open Source software (phplist if anyone is interested) and began to upload it to a test site.

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broadband Business internet

Broadband Connectivity: Superfast IP Networks, 21CN and MPLS Mixing and Matching

Superfast all IP networks are not just around the corner they are here already, at least if you are a business. The big growth area in business networking is in Ethernet data circuits that are rapidly replacing ADSL as the business connectivity of choice.

In fact businesses are keeping their old ADSL connections as a backup to their new Ethernet circuit so whilst the market for broadband is relatively flat the general business of internet connectivity is seeing a boom.

At Timico we will see almost twice as many Ethernet circuits installed in 2010 as we did in the first five years of our existence. Next year we expect the number to at least double again.

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broadband Business internet ofcom

Ofcom – Increased Broadband Speeds and ISP Voluntary Code of Practice

Big headliner from Ofcom this morning is that average broadband speeds in the UK have increased by over 25% in the past year. Research, conducted in partnership with broadband monitoring specialists SamKnows, has found that speeds have increased from 4.1Mbit/s to 5.2Mbit/s.

This is no surprise really as ISPs move their base from ADSLMax (“up to 8Meg”) over to ADSL2+ (“up to 24Meg”). It’s a shame that the average is not higher but that’s copper for you. The research showed that cable customers fare significantly better than ADSL.

The Ofcom data also reveals some very interesting stats about performance during peak times that don’t do some ISPs any favours.

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broadband Business internet

Government Pushes Back 2Meg USC to 2015 – Let’s forget 2Meg and Go Straight to FTTP

I read in Jeremy Hunt’s speech at the Broadband Delivery UK industry day today that due to the lack of funds the government has moved the target date for implementation of its 2Meg Universal Service Commitment out to the “end of this parliament” or in other words 2015 (see my post in March on the feasibility of doing it by 2012).

It is about time everyone realised this is a waste of effort.  Lets forget about 2Meg and go straight for Fibre To The Premises (FTTP).  FTTP for the Final third by 2015 is a sensible objective.

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broadband Business internet Regs

Broadband Delivery UK Industry Day #BDUK

Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) is today holding an “industry day aimed at companies and organisations that have skills, capabilities and assets that they believe could be used to help deliver the government’s Universal Service Commitment and superfast broadband market testing projects”.

The agenda for the day, which is being held within the BIS offices at 1 Victoria Street, London is as follows:

09:30 – 10:00   Registration & Coffee
10:00 – 10:10   Introduction and Welcome – Ed Vaizey
10:10 – 11:00   Setting the context – Jeremy Hunt

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broadband Business internet

Broadband Local Architecture: FTTC and FTTP

FTTC and FTTP broadband local architectures? We’ve got the pictures!

FTTC broadband continues to be a popular subject on this blog. It gets linked to from all sorts of non-telecom forums.  There is clearly a hunger for information on faster broadband.

In the interest of adding to the body of information out there I’ve added some more info in this post.  Firstly pictures of both the FTTC broadband local architecture and the FTTP  broadband local architecture, and a link to the BT Openreach FTTC / FTTP product page. Note the larger cabinet for FTTC.

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broadband Business internet mobile connectivity

O2 BE broadband

Met with O2 and BE today for a general chat about the BE broadband network. They are pushing a wholesale offering and are now one of only four Tier 1 broadband wholesalers in the UK – BT, TalkTalk and Cable and Wireless being the others. Reality is I don’t see C&W doing much so probably there are only really three of them.

Telefonica has been backing BE and making not insignificant investments in their network. Their current ADSL2+ offering is competitive. The longer term question for them is really the same as for TalkTalk and that is how to leverage a new (ish) high capacity backbone once ADSL2+ becomes old hat and the world has moved on to greater and faster connectivity.

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broadband Business internet

Digital Vacuum Sucks in Digby? Fibrestream NextGenUs #FTTP #finalthirdfirst #digitalbritain

I braved the elements of a windswept rural Lincolnshire on Saturday to visit the Digby Fete. Digby is in the middle of nowhere. It’s two main distinguishing features are the fact that it is the home of RAF Digby and that it is the next village on the map to Ashby De La Launde.

The proximity to Ashby has become an irritant to the good parishioners of Digby because their neighbouring village has just announced that it is getting 100Mbps Fibre To The Premises (FTTP). Up until now neither village could get decent broadband connectivity.

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broadband Business internet Regs

@tom_watson @andrewpercy Questions to @edvaizey on Broadband Miscellany #finalthirdfirst #digitalbritain #FTTP

It’s Friday afternoon and the first time this week I have been able to sit down and blog, this time about broadband miscellany. It could be a full time activity if I had the time as so much stuff passes my way.

I note that Minister for Communications Ed Vaizey has been demonstrating his politcal sidestepping skills by answering MP Tom Watson’s request for a definition of “super fast broadband” with:

“Super fast broadband means broadband of sufficient speed and quality to deliver the services that will lead to Britain having the best broadband network in Europe. The technology used to deliver this could be fixed or wireless but will represent a significant upgrade on today’s fixed and wireless networks.”

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broadband Business internet

Broadband ISP Life: #Microsoft Update meets #WorldCup

The broadband ISP industry woke up yesterday morning to a spike on their collective networks. I had people down to my office asking whether the World Cup had started a new trend in online TV watching. It undoubtedly reinforces the trend but this time the bandwidth rush was due to a Microsoft Update and not the football.

The football is starting to have an effect though – viewing figures during the opening ceremony were up around 30% over normal video watching. This didn’t have any ill effects on the quality of the experience at least at my end.

30 minutes into the opening game between the Hosts South Africa the score remains nil nil and the video traffic has grown by about 60% above the norm.  This is not as many people as were watching the shennanigans the day after the general election (although it almost is).  But this is not England playing here…

Just to remind readers the concern is that online viewing is going to flood the internet and affect regular users. Warnings have been issued by many ISPs and content providers. Looks like our pipes are ok at the moment although as predicted we have hit a record high in terms of bandwidth usage. If you are making a VoIP call or sending email etc you should still be fine.

You do wonder at Microsoft’s timing though, releasing an update just before the biggest demand event the internet will have seen to date. I guess there are geeks everywhere.  Football? What’s football?

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broadband Business End User internet

Broadband ISP Life: #Microsoft Update Meets #WorldCup

The broadband ISP industry woke up yesterday morning to a spike on their collective networks. I had people down to my office asking whether the World Cup had started a new trend in online TV watching. It undoubtedly reinforces the trend but this time the bandwidth rush was due to a Microsoft Update and not the football.

The football is starting to have an effect though – viewing figures during the opening ceremony were up around 30% over normal video watching. This didn’t have any ill effects on the quality of the experience at least at my end.

30 minutes into the opening game between the Hosts South Africa the score remains nil nil and the video traffic has grown by about 60% above the norm.  This is not as many people as were watching the shennanigans the day after the general election (although it almost is).  But this is not England playing here…

Just to remind readers the concern is that online viewing is going to flood the internet and affect regular users. Warnings have been issued by many ISPs and content providers. Looks like our pipes are ok at the moment although as predicted we have hit a record high in terms of bandwidth usage. If you are making a VoIP call or sending email etc you should still be fine.

You do wonder at Microsoft’s timing though, releasing an update just before the biggest demand event the internet will have seen to date. I guess there are geeks everywhere.  Football? What’s football?

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broadband Business internet

The BT Broadband Interviews – Part 5 – Future Capabilities

Final part of an interview recorded for BT for their FTTC launch.

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broadband Business internet

The BT Broadband Interviews – part 4 – Future Demand

Part 4 of an interview recorded for BT for their FTTC launch.

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broadband Business

The BT Broadband Interviews – Part 3 – Drivers

Part 3 of an interview recorded for BT for their FTTC launch

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broadband Business

The BT Broadband Interviews – Part 2 – Directions

Part 2 of an interview recorded for BT as part of their FTTC launch.

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broadband Engineer internet

Broadband Fault – The Davies Household Grinds to a Halt

I woke up this morning to a fault on my broadband line. OK this kind of thing happens. There is a BT engineer coming tomorrow morning to fix it. Fine.

It does however bring home how reliant we are on the internet. I found out in bed at 6.30 am that that the “internet wasn’t working” (after I had been down to make the tea!). My wife’s instant reaction was “OMG what if I get any emails from potential eBay buyers asking questions about my sales items”.

“Don’t worry” I said, “in an emergency you can use my phone”.

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broadband Engineer internet

I'm sorry there is a fault – the Davies household grinds to a halt

I woke up this morning to a fault on my broadband line. OK this kind of thing happens. There is a BT engineer coming tomorrow morning to fix it. Fine.

It does however bring home how reliant we are on the internet. I found out in bed at 6.30 am that that the “internet wasn’t working” (after I had been down to make the tea!). My wife’s instant reaction was “OMG what if I get any emails from potential eBay buyers asking questions about my sales items”. 

“Don’t worry” I said, “in an emergency you can use my phone”.

Continue reading “I'm sorry there is a fault – the Davies household grinds to a halt”
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broadband Business internet

The BT Broadband Interviews – Part 1 – Markets

First in a series of videos recorded by BT as part of their launch of FTTC.

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broadband Business internet

Workers All Watching the Election Shennanigans Online from Offices

Internet traffic is up significantly this morning as bleary eyed election-watchers come into the office and pick up where they left off last night.

Noon-time traffic on Timico’s ADSL network is up approx 25% on the same time yesterday. This percentage seems to be reasonably constant for all major online events. Similar burst have been seen in the past for the Olympics, the Ashes Cricket, US President Obama’s inauguration and the last budget speech. Video streaming almost exclusively acocunts for the increase today.

This does suggest that there is a community of people in the work place that regularly accesses online video for the big events. One wonders whether this is with the knowledge and consent of their employers.  Most of Timico’s customers are businesses. I doubt that they have TVs in the office so this may be to a certain extent a B2B ISP issue.

2 hours later – traffic growth is now up by 33%.  In my experience this is a record for an event.

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broadband Business

Timico FTTC Pricing Released

I note that Timico has launched Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) under the “Fibre Broadband” brand. Pricing starts at £39 a month. More details here.  Next up will be Annexe M followed by FTTP.

FTTC rollout plan here.

Enquiries to [email protected]

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broadband Business internet

ISPs Plunge Knife into Broadband Enabling Technology (BET) #digitalbritain #finalthirdfirst

A Digital Britain session at today’s BT ISP Forum at the BT Tower saw a vocal opposition to Broadband Enabling Technology (BET) as a prospective technology to meet the Government promise of a 2Mbps Universal Service Commitment by 2012.  Bit of a mouthful that.

Firm pricing is not yet available, but we are potentially looking at an installation cost of £850 for a single line with 1Mbps capability, £1,050 for two lines with up to 2Mbps.  Moreover, although the minimum demand per exchange has not yet been firmed up, it is likely to be 15 subscribers.

There was absolutely zero interest in this product from the 60 or so (guess) ISPs in the room. It is seen as too expensive, to the point where it is not dissimilar in price, if you need 15 users in an exchange to sign up, to the

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broadband Engineer internet

Wholesale Broadband Connect Hits 1 Million ADSL2+ Lines in March 2010

21CN Network

Launched two years ago, BT’s Wholesale Broadband Connect pushes past 1 million lines, still a ways to go.

Wholesale Broadband Connect (ie broadband on 21Century Network) was launched by BT two years ago this month. There is always pressure to get new products out in a timely manner and BT is no different though their job is harder because the size of the ship makes for difficult steering.

The first (brave leading edge) service providers started to offer ADSL2+ services based on Wholesale Broadband Connect in the Autumn and by March 09 there were 10k subscribers. At this point BT probably kept quiet about the actual number of customers.

One year later the dial has moved significantly and BT now talks openly about the size of their 21CN estate having broken through the 1 million customer barrier in March 2010. In the intervening year their systems have also improved and fault rates come down to approaching those of the mature 20CN broadband product, ADSL Max.

I realise that we all want every thing faster, better, sooner but progress is being made. Still a long way to go mind…

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broadband Business

BT ISP Forum at the Post Office Tower

I’m off at the crack of dawn to London tomorrow for BT’s regular ISP Forum.  These are great gigs, fair play to BT. Organised by BT Wholesale the Fora are opportunities for BT to communicate with their Communications Provider customers.

Although we are guests of BT they don’t always get it their own way – there is often a lively and critical debate from the floor. The information exchange is useful but the opportunity to network is even more useful – having most of the main UK ISPs there in ine spot.  All ISPs buy from BT in one shape or form – LLU operators included.

Fortunately all I have to do tomorrow is to catch the train.  Several friends and acquaintances have been tweeting and posting lamentable tales of flight unavailabilities for eComm, #140 NYC and FiberFete, all going on in the USA this week. At least they can follow it all online these days though man cannot live by internet alone, even though it pays the bills 🙂

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broadband Business internet ofcom piracy Regs

Ofcom Terms of Reference for Tackling Online Copyright Infringement in Digital Economy Act #debill

Check this Ofcom announcement. It basically covers their terms of reference for the Copyright Infringement piece of the Digital Economy Act (was Bill – feels kinda final).

There is going to be a lot written on this between now and the end of the year.  There are no surprises at this stage though the statement does confirm that the process has to take no more than 8 months including 3 months for the Code of Practice to be approved by the European Commission.

The draft CoP also has to be in place no later than May.  There is an option for stakeholders to jointly propose a draft within this timeframe but I can’t see it happening.  I may be wrong.