Category: Net

connectivity and networking posts – both fixed and mobile, fast and slow

Categories
broadband End User

BT Chairman has Only Broadband Service in the Village!

broadband

Lucky Sir Michael Rake enjoys exclusive Hambleden broadband service.

Lovely piece reported by the BBC today, where British Telecom (BT) has admitted its chairman is the only person with broadband service in the village of Hambleden on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border.

BT said Sir Michael Rake’s broadband service connection was part of a trial of new technology. The village, they say, is too far from the exchange for a standard ADSL service.

The article doesn’t go into which technology was being trialled, but here’s a thought: BT could set up Sir Michael’s home as a POP and run tails from there. That way everyone in the village could get broadband service connectivity, and all would be happy. Sorted.

Categories
Archived Business internet

Timico makes top 25 fastest growing tech companies in Europe

As the title says Timico has been recognised as one of the 25 fastest growing technology companies in Europe. Wahey.

This is according to Deloitte who base their calculations on five years compound annual growth (5,055% in our case). This nicely complements our 7th place in their UK rankings and the third appearance on the trot in the upper echelons of the Sunday Times Microsoft Techtrack 100.

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Business internet

The market for IPVPN

I note that three carriers have launched a wholesale IPVPN proposition. BT, Cable and Wireless and Opal have all opened up for business into the reseller channel. This really does reflect the growing opportunity in this space brought on by lower cost IP connectivity and greater use of internet/cloud based services.

Timico has been offering such MPLS based services for almost five years.  We call them Private Wide Area Networks (PWANs). This year the number of Ethernet leased lines we will have installed for customers looks like being 50% as many as we did in the first five years and next year the way things are going I expect the estate to double.

When we started to offer PWANs in the market there were very few ISPs doing it.  This was partly because the vast majority of ISPs had low bandwidth 34Mbps central pipes that did not support L2TP, a practical necessity for the provision of MPLS PWANs.  Many still don’t have the technical knowhow even if they have the right connectivity and it is quite common for small ISPs to resell another’s IPVPN and claim it as their own.

This announcement from these 3 carriers effectively creates a dividing line between the haves and the have nots. Those who can build their own networks and those that just resell others’.  None of these “builders” has the reach to provide a network that is exclusively their own.  They all buy tails from BT Openreach for the many locations in the UK outside their own network footprints.

Our own approach is not to offer wholesale connectivity.  We want to build up the Timico brand in the  business end user community. We do operate our own MPLS network though and I see this as being of strategic importance in building the successful  Communications Service Provider for the business market of the future.

Categories
End User internet social networking

Village shop to reopen – read all about it!

As usage of the internet grows it has of course totally changed the way people interact. It seems as if I sometimes don’t see my seventeen year old, Tom for days on end but it doesn’t stop me communication with him. We just chat on Facebook.

The image this portrays is of online addicts (of which I confess I am one) buried in their PCs for hours on end ignoring everyone else in the house.

This might well be an unfortunate by product of the internet age. I do however think that this is a phase we are just going through. As technology improves it will give us more control over our lives and allow us to start living again.

This is very much likely to be the case in what might today be called a dormitory village. Most people in these places commute long distances, buy their groceries from superstores on their way home (or online) and village life becomes an impoverished cousin of its glorious social past.

In the future the internet will take away the need for these people to commute, for at least some of the time. The efficiencies that will come will give people time to physically reconnect with others in their local environment and village life will come again. Maybe the village shop and Post Office will reopen!?

In the meantime I have to clean my rose tinted spectacles, get back to my 16 hour day and someone somewhere needs to get around to putting fibre into that village.

PS Tom does occasionally update his photo on Facebook so I do keep up with what he looks like as well. Kids change so quickly don’t they? 🙂

Categories
Business internet piracy

Alliance Against IP Theft meets MPs

The Alliance Against IP Theft held a meeting yesterday at Westminster Hall in The House of Commons.  Present were 5 speakers from the creative industries – from Fulham FC, Universal Music, a freelance writer and journalist, a publisher from Random House and a construction manager at a film studio – and a panel of MPs including Tom Watson, John Whittingdale, Kerry McCarthy, Lord Corbett and Steven Pound. The meeting was chaired by Janet Anderson who leads the All Party IP Group.

Each speaker gave a talk on how piracy was having a negative impact on things like investing in new talent.  The MPs then asked a series of questions.

Most vocal was Tom Watson who argued that to give the Secretary of State unrestricted power to make rulings on copyright in the future was actually a potential problem for rights holders – MPs would be concerned that a Bill was trying to give powers to the Secretary of State without parliamentary oversight.

Mr Watson also questioned the figures that rights holders produced that suggested that every unlawful download was a lost sale. The panel agreed with him when he said that the creative industries had never been in a healthier state in terms of popularity, despite filesharing.

Lord Corbett gave an indication of how the Bill will progress through the Lords – it will receive its Second Reading next Wednesday December 2nd and is likely to leave the Lords and enter the Commons by the end of January. With a two week half term break in February, it was suggested that as Parliament is rumoured to be dissolved at the end of March for the general election, there was a good chance that the Bill will run out of time.

This is clearly an important phase where lobbying for and against this Bill is going on.  It is the first time I have been involved at such close quarters in something so important – one that is generating high emotion from both sides. The strange reality is that I doubt that there is a single person who is against the proposed regulation on P2P filesharing who actually supports the illegal activity.  It is just that they don’t think this regulation is the right way to go about it.

Also I’m not a particularly political person but it does strike me that we should now just get on with a General Election because we are now entering a silly season where there is a danger that Laws will be rushed in without properly being thought through. Of course I know politics doesn’t work like that…

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

P2P regulation in Digital Economy Bill ain't going to work

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language.  It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.

First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control.  The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill.  Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.

In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body.  Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations,  such as terrorism or kidnap.

What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.

ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.

Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).

Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge. 

The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

P2P regulation in Digital Economy Bill ain’t going to work

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language.  It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.

First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control.  The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill.  Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.

In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body.  Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations,  such as terrorism or kidnap.

What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.

ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.

Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).

Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge. 

The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!

Categories
broadband Business internet piracy

Digital Economy Bill is a Lesson in Politics

It’s out, after the first reading in the Lords yesterday!  The Digital Britain bill that is, now known as the Digital Economy Bill.

After months of debate, lobbying and speculation the proposed detail has been published and at first sight it appears to have bits missing. Of interest to ISPs is that there is a lot of content pertaining to Copyright of online digital content – ie illegal P2P filesharing but nothing regarding the Universal Service Obligation for broadband.

There is clearly some political manouvering going on here.  The 50pence tax is already supposedly going to be in the Finance Bill.  Word is that the Government doesn’t think that the USO specifically needs to be in any legislation as it will either be covered by the Finance Bill or the money is already there from the Digital Surplus – the fund set aside to help with Digital TV switchover.

By doing this the Government is trying to increase the likelihood of some of  the Digital Britain Review becoming law by splitting it up into smaller bits. It is also quite possibly using this to brush under the table that they are going to struggle with the implementation of an USO.  They just can’t get their brains round the problem. It is very unfortunate for the millions of Digitally Excluded unfortunates around the UK in suburbs and rural communities alike.  I might be wrong about this but I don’t think so.

Also of interest are proposed powers that will allow the Goverment to take over management of Domain Name Registry Nominet if it doesn’t like how it is being run. Nominet has seen some board room action this year with a couple of Directors making a lot of noise over governance.   The issue is fairly compicated but I believe that one of the issues was the amount of surplus cash being generated by the not for profit organisation.

Details of the Bill can be found here.  Separate post on copyright comes next.

Categories
broadband Business internet

How to Win Votes at a General Election: Promise Next Gen Broadband!

Spanish Minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade Miguel Sebastian has just announced that 1Mbps broadband will be a legal right in Spain by January 1st 2011. Apparently 4 million people in Spain cannot get 1Mbps today.

What’s more they are putting up 400M Euros to help with this.  Whether this is enough is in my mind neither here nor there. Also I don’t know how solid this is – the UK Government also made bold statements with Digital Britain that have become more confused and wishy washy as more people get involved.

Here in the UK we now await tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech to tell us exactly what we will be in for. It already seems that the 50 pence broadband tax is not going to be part of it or at least this is deferred to a Finance Bill that is unlikely to see the light of the Royal Seal.

Years ago when I worked for Mitel there was a story that a politician running for election as Prime Minister of Ontario ran on a manifesto of getting rid of speed cameras.  Apparently he won with a large majority.

Here’s a tip for those running in the next UK General Election. Promise Next Gen broadband for all by 2012. It a guaranteed election winner and the cost is also neither here nor there.

PS the link is to a Spanish online service – I used Google Translate to read it – it is brilliant.

Categories
End User internet

Zi8 is a stunner and will drive internet bandwidth usage

Following on from the Jeff Pulver #140 Conference in London yesterday I’ve been trying out a new toy.

This is the Zi8 HD digital video camera by Kodak and I have to tell you it is a stunner. Presented to me yesterday by Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak the HD video quality is outstanding and it is extremely easy to use.

My kids have already latched onto it and started playing with it though rapid adoption by children is not necessarily a pointer to how easy a gadget is to use – technology comes naturally to them.

The camera facia comes printed with the YouTube and Facebook logos, which is a strong enough hint for even the dumbest of users.

I’m not going to bore you with the camera spec. What I will says is that the 75MB of the 59 second video below is well within the 2GByte allowance that YouTube gives for a single video!

The video is presented below for all to see. It’s no professional production and I note that I should have combed my hair first – I’m desperate for a haircut. That’s showbiz folks.

The Zi8 is groundbreaking and although I’m no expert I have no hesitation in recommending it after just a short test.

You may have noticed that this blog doesn’t major on gadget reviews.  The point here is that this another contributor to the growth in bandwidth usage as people start to upload more and more HD footage to sites such as YouTube. What goes up once of course gets downloaded many times, assuming it is any good. It’s a worry for those of us having to manage ADSL backhaul bandwidth but that’s progress for you.

Categories
End User internet social networking

#140conf London – a melting pot for realtime communications

Today I’m with Jeff Pulver at his #140 conference at the O2 Indigo. Jeff originally (not that long ago actually so to use the word originally seems a little strange) started the #140conferences in February as a vehicle to capitalise on the Twitter revolution.

Very quickly the theme of the conference has moved on to real time communications, rather than Twitter specifically although Twitter is still mentioned in every other sentence by every speaker.

Sitting here listening to the talks what strikes me is the complete diversity of people appearing on the stage – ranging from international media stars (ie Stephen Fry) the Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak, a farmer, an off license owner, a teacher, and a policeman to name but a few. Big business is here and so is small business

I’m not going to dwell on specific talks, although Stephen Fry interestingly uses the example of the invention of the printing press to compare with what is happening now on the internet with Twitter. I’m sure he pinched it from me because that is what I use for my new starter induction talk at Timico 🙂

Notably Kodak also ran a competition to name a new camera on Twitter. It was a  fast way of running a focus group with a huge number of people.

The biggest take away for me so far is the use of the word “authenticity”.  There is so much rubbish out there on the internet (Twitter, Facebook, blogland, everywhere) that you have to really have something to say to make an impact. Just rehashing other people’s stuff isn’t good enough, although I am always grateful for “retweets”. 

Being ruthless I have on occasion “defriended” people who indulge in uninteresting status updates.  I’m sure people have done the same with me – you have to be able to take the rough with the smooth.

Categories
Engineer internet

LINX67 15th birthday meeting – the internet continues to grow

A milestone for the London Internet Exchange with its 15th birthday meeting today at Goodenough College in London. These are seriously useful meetings of like minded souls from the internet industry.

The internet is run by geeks that work extremely hard. In fact they live and breathe technology on a 24 x 7 x 365 ¼ basis and these LINX meetings bring them together for long days of meetings and presentations but also long evenings of letting their hair down.

LINX meetings are quarterly. Since the last one in the summer the peak traffic on the LINX network has grown by an incredible 25%. If the trend continued that would mean more than doubling in a year. The traditional perceived wisdom for growth in internet usage is 50% pa which is close to what I see on the Timico ADSL network.

LINX’s growth has been fuelled by an increase in membership of around 15% this year though clearly that wouldn’t account for the proportional increase in bandwidth.

For geeks everywhere who believe that size does matters the LINX network currently has over 2.5Terrabit per second capacity. The organisation is clearly providing value for money which is why all these new members are knocking on the door.

A year ago I seem to remember a statistic that said that 65% of the internet was reachable via LINX peering. Now this has grown to 70%. This is good news for end users as it helps to keep prices down.

Interestingly 75% of new members are from outside the UK, including a fair number from Russia. The UK is becoming increasingly an important place on the internet map.

More snippets from LINX67 as I think of them. The meeting is absolutely packed.

Categories
Engineer internet

IPv4 drops below last 400m addresses

I noticed over the weekend that the exhaustion counter for IPv4 dropped below 400m addresses. This is just a stake in the ground. As I write there are 653 days to go.  I’ll revisit this when it drops below 300m.

Categories
broadband End User

Stormy Weather Affects Phone Lines, Broadband

broadband

The cats and dogs rained merrily upon the good citizens of the UK on Friday and Saturday, and in consequence the number of problems with phone lines and broadband shot up. I don’t have the definitive numbers to hand as I write this as I am headed southbound on the train, but anecdotally we probably saw double the number of faults being reported compared with a normal Saturday.

These would have been for phone lines and broadband, though I know from experience in driving home through a cloudburst that mobile services also degrade during really bad weather. Roll on Fibre to the Premises, I say.

Categories
Business internet Regs

Government stuff and the cost to ISPs

I try and keep the content of this blog varied. One of the nice things about my job is that I am able to do this.

One of the recurring themes though relates to regulation.  As a board member of the ISP Association I get a lot of visibility of things going on here.  In fact a huge amount of the value that ISPA provides to the industry lies in the fact that the it does so much work in this area – thus removing the need for all ISPs to be expert. 

It is undeniable however that the regulatory pressure on ISPs is increasing and at some point this is going to start having a serious effect.  This week alone the subjects being discussed in Parliament include the Intercept Modernisation Programme (Big Brother is watching you), Music Piracy, website filtering under the Terrorism Act and Safety Online. I am afraid that in the medium to long term the cost of all this regulation (or proposed regulation) is going to mean that only larger ISPs can cope with it. 

The industry is already struggling with the network upgrade costs associated with increased use of the internet (iPlayer,SkyPlayer, interactive gaming etc etc).  A small ISP with perhaps only two or three thousand customers – and there are many of these – can’t afford the capital expense associated with this. Timico has already made three acquisitions of such ISPs.

Not everybody is fortunate to have the same private equity support and ambition as Timico and I predict that within the next five years the number of UK ISPs will shrink significantly, perhaps to fewer than 50 (from maybe 300 today). I see this as a real business opportunity because in actual fact the market is going to grow. It is just that the barrier to entry will get higher.

Categories
broadband End User

Digital Divide Anglesey Style

Anglesey mobile broadband service

Pillaging mobile broadband service gold, they are!

Last night I met someone at the Engineering Dinner at Bangor University who put a different slant on the Digital Divide.

Stephen Yates lives on a small-holding just outside Holyhead on the Anglesey coast. Although only a three mile walk from his nearest pub in Holyhead he can’t get broadband service – the copper winds its way around the lanes and by the time it gets to his place the speed has slowed to an unusable dribble.

Interestingly, he does get a very fast mobile internet connection but only when there are no ferries passing by. This puzzled me at first. Is the steel side of the ship having an effect on the signal strength? Actually no. Whenever a ferry comes into sight of Holyhead everyone on board starts using their mobile phones and all of a sudden instead of having the base station practically all to himself the cell is shared with the incoming hordes.

In the old days these incoming hordes were called Vikings, pillaging gold on their way around the Irish Sea. In modern times they just pillage the mobile broadband service bandwidth.

Categories
End User engineering

Engineering at Bangor University

Attended a meeting of Bangor University Industrial Panel today. I am pleased to say that undergraduate intake is up on the previous year which was itself up on 2007. Moreover all places were filled well in advance. This is I’m sure helped by two factors.

The first is that Bangor’s School of Engineering is ranked second in the UK according to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.

Secondly when students are graduating with debts of £20,000 they are increasingly looking for value for money in the degrees that they take, particularly during these recessionary hard times. An Engineering Degree from Bangor is not an easy option but a valuable one once attained.

An University faces challenges remarkably similar to industry. One of these is to provide products, in this case course material, relevant to the employment market place that their graduates will face. This is of course where the Industrial Panel can add value and I feel honoured to be invited to contribute.

The irony is that the meeting today was held in the library of the Engineering building. Somewhere I hardly visited as a reprobate undergraduate 🙂 (Only kidding…?)

Categories
Engineer internet security

Woke up this mornin and nearly got the IMP blues

I woke up this morning (there’s a song there…) to the news from the Daily Telegraph that ” Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately-held “Big Brother” databases”.  This is the Interception Modernisation Programme that has periodically been in the news this year with general opposition and a subject I have posted on in the past.  It would indeed have given the ISP industry a headache.

I now hear a contrary position from the Guardian which tells me “Legislation to access public’s texts and emails put on hold. Widespread concern about the safety and security of communications data prompts Home Office rethink.”

My understanding is that it is the Guardian that is right on this occasion and that the Telegraph has tapped into the wrong wires. I imagine that the Labour party has enough on its plate in the run up to an election without further alienating the voters.

“When they woke up this morning someone got their wires crossed and my head it felt confused, oh yeah. ”  I think that’s what I was trying to say 🙂

Categories
Apps End User internet social networking

Google wave first thoughts – Grassroots Digitalbritain and the digitally excluded

Had a day or two to play with the wave.  Some of my Facebook friends have already commented that it is no good without others to communicate with.  At this time I have two friends in my wave contacts list :Luc from Google who invited me and Cyberdoyle.

This fits into the category of sad git with no friends.  However Cyberdoyle, who is the most advanced farmer’s wife (for I believe such is she) in the world when it comes to the internet, is showing me the way.  Cyberdoyle is hugely knowledgeable when it comes to Rural Broadband (or lack of) and the Digital Divide.  Martha Lane Fox should recruit her.

Cyberdoyle, ok Chris, started a wave and showed me the way.  Pic below:

Grassroots Digitalbritain wave
Grassroots Digitalbritain wave

There are currently 14 people catching the wave, none of who I know other than Chris. The resolution of the jpeg doesn’t do it justice. However what you are seeing is a multimedia collaboration work in action. This could be a cross departmental business tool, a group of friends planning a party or something online usable by any community anywhere (except where you can’t get broadband!)

This is impressive and I’ll keep you posted on progress with the Grassroots Digitalbritain wave which you might or might not have gleaned is all about a community of people trying to get the internet into their lives.  I get this image of an inner city council estate where the residents are trying to make life better by raising money for a community centre. There is no difference between them and rural communities wanting to access the internet.

Anyway Google Wave – so far so good. Thanks Luc for inviting me and who needs lots of friends when you have Cyberdoyle.

Categories
broadband Business internet

Talk with TalkTalk Technology Chairman Neil McArthur

TalkTalk fibre Broadband Technology

Very enjoyable chat with Neil McArthur, Chairman of Talk Talk Technology Group. Neil was one of the original team at Opal before they were bought by Carphone Warehouse and is the architect of the CPW Next Gen network.

I was very impressed with their broadband technology network, a dual 400Gig ring that comes with all the MPLS bells and whistles. I have to say that having seen it they have the potential to be a real force to be reckoned with.

They have come from a long way behind the incumbent and have made great strides from the days of the launch of the CPW LLU play, six months or so before it was actually ready.

They could potentially, given a level playing field with BT Openreach, become a real competitor to BT Wholesale. My position up until now has been that the only game in town is going to be BT with potentially a broadband technology competitor made up of Virgin and ANO.

It makes me think that the complete spin off of BT Openreach from the parent Group is essential to ensure this level playing field. The regulator could concentrate on ensuring fair play the local loop and let the battle happen at the wholesale network level, in the business market at least. It does make me suspicious of BT’s efforts to keep Openreach in house.

Categories
Business internet

Economic stimulation would be a result of universal NGN investment

I’ve been pushing for a more ambitious approach to the roll out of Next Gen Networks in the UK as an essential part of the investment in the future of UK plc.

Thinking about it the Government should also be encouraging investment in key areas of technology development to stimulate the development of services to run on this network. I realise that there is a token effort on the go in the guise of The Technology Strategy Board but we need someting a little more forward thinking.

If we could promote investment in Universities into the development of courses and research around web based technologies then the country would ultimately see the spawning of ideas and businesses in this space.  The combination of the two approaches would be very powerful and once a critical mass was achieved would be self sustaining.

Categories
broadband Business internet

Parliament TV Digital Britain Stitch Up

Representatives of BT, Vtesse, The TalkTalk Group, and Avanti Communications appeared before an AdHoc Committee of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills yesterday.

The guests appeared to support the 2Mbps target for Broadband Universal Service and moreover kept repeating the phrase Universal Service “Commitment” as opposed to Universal Service “Obligation”. As readers will be aware Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms has already reaffirmed that USO is where the Government is at. The panelists may have had their own agenda here or not keeping up with the times.

I also hear “we don’t need faster broadband today”, “we should let the free market decide”, “it is very difficult to say what people will do with higher speeds”, “it wouldn’t be public money well spent”.

In my mind there is a significant level of “heads in the sand” here. Yesterday I was looking at HD TV streaming speed requirements and 17Mbps seemed to be the requirement for the BBC’s output. Multiply that by the number of family members wanting to watch in their own rooms…  There are no doubt codecs (MPEG4) that support good quality at lower speeds.  However the point is that 2Mpbs doesn’t cut it.

UK plc needs to get more aggressive in the global internet game.  The video evidence is available here.  I didn’t watch all 2 hours so there could, I guess, be some revelations after the 40 minutes mark that you might like to hear for yourselves.

Categories
End User internet social networking

Google Wave invite has arrived

Can’t say I’m not excited!

More when I do have something to say:-)

Categories
Business internet Regs

1995 flashback

Timico Head of Network Operations Ben has just moved house.  Fourteen years of accumulated “stuff” moved with him including a cutting from the Daily Express he found from 1995.  He was just setting out to seek his fortune in the big wide world and thought he would get into this up and coming thing called the internet.

The 33 ISPs around at that time were offering dial up internet to around 500,000 customers in the and Trade and Industry Select committee chairman Richard Caborn was warning the House of Commons that “many people could be denied access to the information superhighway because much of Britain is not covered by the necessary technology.  Even if the cable companies met their obligations in full it would still leave more than one third of the country without access to a fixed cable network”  he said.

The article could, with a few name changes, be applied to the debate regarding Digital Inclusion going on in UK plc today.

What also struck me was that the pricing has changed very little since then with a range of options not dissimilar to what you can get today.  Speeds have changed of course :-).

Daily Express Guide to the Internet from 1995
Daily Express Guide to the Internet from 1995
Categories
dns Engineer internet ipv6

IPv6 DNS progress

IPv6 is on my mind and we have been busy in the background getting ready for the big day. You will have noticed the countdown timer on the bottom right of this blog. Time is marching on.

This last week we have been working on our IPv6 DNS capability. DNS is one of the first steps on the road to IPv6 deployment. It’s all very well having all your routers enabled but if noone can surf to a website, or send emails (to that fridge) then it’s no good is it?

For those of you that know these things:

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;cachev6.dns.as8607.net. IN AAAA

;; ANSWER SECTION:
cachev6.dns.as8607.net. 86400 IN AAAA 2001:40a0:5:53::10

PS if you really need to ask about the fridge then leave a comment or email me at tref at trefor dot net :-). Don’t be embarassed now.  I could just have easily have said light bulb 🙂

Categories
Business internet

Geocities closes today

It’s the end of an era today as Geocities officially shuts down.  Geocities was a leader in it’s time – an advertising supported free website builder. 

Compared with the sophistication of modern websites Geocities sites now look comical. In fact online geek comic xkcd has turned itself into a Geocities styled site in honour of the occasion. Take a walk down memory lane and click on the link.

I wouldn’t shed any tears though. It’s time to move on.

Categories
Business internet security

Government confirms it won't mandate IWF list

Further to my post of a couple of weeks ago it has been confirmed that legislation is unlikely to be introduced to mandate support for the IWF blocking list.

Alan Campbell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, said that it remains the hope of Government that the target of 100 per cent of consumer-facing ISPs operating a blocking list will be achieved on a voluntary basis in answer to a Parliamentary question by James Brokenshire MP this week.

Mr Campbell said that the Government recognised the work of the internet industry in reaching the figure of 98.6 per cent of consumer broadband lines being covered by blocking of sites identified by the IWF. It remains the Government’s hope, he added, that the target of 100 per cent of consumer-facing ISPs operating a blocking list will be achieved on a voluntary basis.

The ISPA met with Alun Michael MP on Monday to discuss this issue and it was agreed that ISPA was commited to the eradication of child abuse images in the UK and that it will continue to work with the IWF and Government to achieve this target.

The Parliamentary question can be found here.  Again thanks to Nick Lansman and his ISPA team for both this input and the excellent work they have been doing in the background on this issue.

Categories
Business internet security

Government confirms it won’t mandate IWF list

Further to my post of a couple of weeks ago it has been confirmed that legislation is unlikely to be introduced to mandate support for the IWF blocking list.

Alan Campbell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, said that it remains the hope of Government that the target of 100 per cent of consumer-facing ISPs operating a blocking list will be achieved on a voluntary basis in answer to a Parliamentary question by James Brokenshire MP this week.

Mr Campbell said that the Government recognised the work of the internet industry in reaching the figure of 98.6 per cent of consumer broadband lines being covered by blocking of sites identified by the IWF. It remains the Government’s hope, he added, that the target of 100 per cent of consumer-facing ISPs operating a blocking list will be achieved on a voluntary basis.

The ISPA met with Alun Michael MP on Monday to discuss this issue and it was agreed that ISPA was commited to the eradication of child abuse images in the UK and that it will continue to work with the IWF and Government to achieve this target.

The Parliamentary question can be found here.  Again thanks to Nick Lansman and his ISPA team for both this input and the excellent work they have been doing in the background on this issue.

Categories
Business internet piracy

ISPs meet with Lord Mandelson to discuss P2P

Representatives of the big five consumer ISPs together with Nicholas Lansman of the Internet Services Providers Association met with Lord Mandelson on Wednesday to discuss P2P legislation.  I will have more details of the meeting next week.

There is quite a bit going on here and this week speaking before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee under persistent questioning from former Minister Tom Watson MP, Secretary of State Ben Bradshaw confirmed that rightsholders would have to seek a court order before restricting or suspending users’ connections and also explained that users would have the right to appeal before any sanction was enforced. The evidence session in full is available on video here (relevant section starts at 20:35). This appears to be  a postive move from the ISP industry’s perspective.

Also an Early Day Motion tabled by Tom Watson last week has now been signed by 36 MPs, including representatives from all three main political parties. The EDM and signatories can be viewed here.

I would like to thank ISPA for this input. This level of Parliament watching requires some diligence and in the ISPA trade association the industry has a faithful servant.

Categories
Engineer internet

Hyperconnectivity – modern monitor stands

As we strive to implement best practice for the Network Operations Centre the first major initiative has been kicked off.  Since Fast Ethernet became a commodity it is becoming increasingly cost effective to provide unlimited bandwidth to an engineer’s desk.

At the bleeding edge of technology today at Timico in Newark we made it happen again with the 94 port switched desktop.  Ironically networking equipment is becoming so cost effective that it is now cheaper to double up this kit as monitor stands rather than buy expensive purpose built metalwork that you source from your local office supply company.

Ok I know that the cynical amongst you will decry this as a falsehood.  Of course monitor stands are cheaper but when was the last time you saw a monitor stand doubling up as a network switch.

My only real problem in signing off this minor capital expenditure was the prospect that the two fibre links we have coming into the building will soon be inadequate to support all the extra work that the team says it will be able to get on with now that they have the desktop connectivity.

I am also worried that I won’t be able to give them work fast enough to keep them busy for the whole of their usual 18 hour day. It’s a nice problem to have, as we say in business 🙂

The 96 port switched desktop monitor stand
The 96 port switched desktop monitor stand