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Category: Net

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

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Engineer internet

Internet routing pedestrian style – OSPPF

I walk to work. Takes me half an hour, give or take. Doesn’t seem to matter which route, in the great scheme of things. Depends whether I dawdle in shop windows or not.

I like to vary my way in. This morning I had decided to take the shortest route. It is mostly busy main road, down Lindum Hill if you know Lincoln, and is certainly the noisiest route but it is probably the easiest and certainly the most direct, Google recommended way to go.

This morning I got to the traffic lights at the Peacock Pub – you know, the junction of Greetwell Gate and the A15. Up until then it was all plain sailing.  I managed to cross the road before getting to the lights whilst the traffic was queuing on red. This saved me time because the lights will have changed by the time I got to  them and I’d have had to wait.

When I got to the lights  they were

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Engineer internet

Manbag for a network engineer

Ever wanted a manbag? Something cool you can sling over your arm when you’re on your way to the data centre? Something that will attract the attention of your fellow engineers?

adrian_gpo_smallLook no further. Here for your delight and delectation is an original GPO engineer’s kitbag.

Original real leather with handy compartments for tools and spare relays/connectors the GPO manbag of 2014 is suitable for carrying a laptop together with your jimjams for that overnight stay in the Docklands Travelodge.

This superb retro man accessory is modelled by BT’s biggest fan, Adrian Kennard of AAISP. Click on the image to see the lad looking super cool.

Want one? Ask Adrian. They are probably like rocking horse poo but I’m sure Adrian will let you have a go at holding his. He’s just that kind of guy.

Categories
Engineer peering

Offline and LINX84

Suppose it doesn’t do any harm to be offline for a while. I’m on a short flight back from the Isle of Man to London City Airport and LINX84. The offline state seems a little strange when compared with the highly connected nature that is the whole purpose of LINX.

At every LINX meeting they report the vital statistics. Increase in membership, port count, usage. In my offline state all I can report is the number of pages read in my book. This is not very many. I bought the book, “Exile On An Island” by Don N.L.Giovannelli, TS in a the second hand bookshop in Peel. I’ve quickly lost interest in it tbh. Ah well. No idea what the TS stands for. Some Italian title perhaps. Can’t look it up. I’m offline.

It’s amazing how much we use the internet without realising it these days. Even my eighty year old dad, when we were talking about the takeaway menu at the local Chinese, said “just look it up on the internet”. I already had of course 🙂

They are always the same anyway, Chinese takeaway menus. It is expected. Annoys me when I got to an Indian restaurant to only find out that it does “designer” meals – tandoori lobster or venison. All I want from an indian restaurant is a familiar menu cooked well. Simples.

Anyway I can write the first LINX84 related post for you from the airplane. I looked up the stats this morning. Peak traffic is up to 1.981Tbps, membership numbers are up by 7 already in 2014 to 501. All good stuff. Onwards and upwards. Downwards actually. We are 15 minutes from landing and have to put away our laptops.

Ciao bebe.

Posted from the London City Airport DLR platform at 14.15 courtesy of EE4G.

Categories
Engineer media

Snowflakes, snowdrops and YouTube streaming formats – signs of spring in deepest winter

Worked from home yesterday. Weather was pants. Didn’t really matter. I lit a nice coal fire and sat in the front room doing stuff.

Here’s a vid of the snow falling in my back garden. It didn’t stick. The noise is water falling off the tree above the conservatory roof.

This morning I went for a swim and then walked down to the office. I vary my route and today’s took me past the old graveyard in Park Street. It was bitterly cold though that didn’t matter moving along at a briskish pace.

The graveyard was covered in snowdrops. Most of the gravestones have lain flat for years and are covered in moss or lichen. The prominent exception is the one in the  photo which is more of a tomb-like structure.

snowdrops in graveyard

Very poignant I thought. A symbol of death in the depths of winter surrounded by new growth and optimism.

That is all.

PS Good word, briskish.

PPS YouTube was playing up a bit this morning – had to load the video twice. Also the video was taken using an Android phone (SGS4) but YouTube told me processing would be quicker if the file format used (mp4) was compatible with their recommended streaming codecs (mp4!).

I know someone is going to come along now and tell me it was a specific flavour of mp4 with green spots and chilli spice topping.

YouTube message re streaming format

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broadband Business ofcom Regs

Should Ofcom compel BT to publish broadband maps?

Should BT have to publish broadband availability map?

trefor_150We keep hearing complaints from many quarters about the lack of transparency related to the Government subsidised Superfast Broadband rollout into the “final third”. Should BT be compelled to publish broadband availability map?

County Councils are apparently seen to hide behind “non disclosure agreements” signed with BT that prevent them from disclosing details of broadband plans.

Having sat on the Broadband Panel for Nottinghamshire the input from BT was that it whilst they had an outline plan for target broadband rollout areas this would be very much subject to change when detailed site surveys were made of conditions on the ground.

For example

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datacentre dns Engineer internet servers

Diagnosing very slow website loading problem

downtime_graph_smallBeen having intermittent problems with trefor.net since moving the site to a new virtual platform at Christmas. It’s all sorted now. Thanks to the lads at the Timico Datacentre.

I asked Ian Christian to describe the issue and how it was resolved:

Well… explaining it is a little hard…. The key to figuring it out was this:

At the bottom of every page it shows when the page was generated, and how long it took. I suspect in wordpress somewhere it might have told you this too – but I’m not sure.

What we were seeing was

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End User peering

Football Association founded here @LONAP AGM

FA_plaqueThis morning I walked from Kings Cross Station to The Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen’s Street. I was early, it took half an hour, saved money on a taxi/tube and was good exercise.

When you walk somewhere you see a lot more than when taking public transport. The Freemasons’ Hall stands on the site of the Freemasons Tavern. There is plaque to that effect. Actually the plaque tells us the Football Association was founded there on 26th October 1863.

Bet they had a good old night of it. It’s not often anyone founds anything as big as the Football Association. Wouldn’t mind doing it myself. Not the Football Association obvs. Some other equally exciting (!) Association.

Note it looks as if the season started quite late in those days – assuming they got on with it after founding the Association. Gets earlier every year.

I understand that the 2015 season will shortly be getting under way, allegedly, so I’ve heard. An all.

I’m not a Freemason btw. The LONAP AGM is being held at the Freemasons’ Hall – read more about LONAP here.

Read more about regional Peering Exchanges and specifically IX-Manchester here.

Lots of posts regarding LINX here.

Euro-IX meetings posts here.

Categories
End User peering

Alarm clocks, body clocks and LONAP AGMs #IXP

On the 07.20 from Lincoln Central Station headed to the LONAP AGM (sung to the tune of Homeward Bound by Paul Simon).

Piece of trivia for you. Traditionally when I catch the 07.20 I get a cab to pick me up from the house at 06.50. We are only 5 minutes from the station, especially at that time of day, and I like to make sure I have plenty of time to get there, just in case of a problem en route.

At that time of day there is never a problem. I always get there far too early and end up spending 10 – 15 minutes in the waiting room. Time that would have been better spent in bed.

In order to get showered and ready for a cab at 06.50 I set the alarm 10 minutes earlier than normal at 06.20. This means I wake up at odd times during the night to check to see if it’s nearly time for the alarm, in case it didn’t go off. Result: terrible night’s sleep.

After years of doing this, and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long, I have come to the realisation that

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Business internet mobile connectivity social networking Weekend

No mobile network coverage but WiFi saves the day again

No mobile connectivity no longer a problem.

Went to a Burns Night dinner last night organised by the “Friends of William Farr School”. A good time was had by all and I got to wear my new Irish tartan kilt (photos withheld due to health and safety reasons).

The bash was at Hemswell Court, a former RAF Officers Mess – there will be quite a few such buildings in Lincolnshire which was known as bomber county during the second world war. It’s a v pleasant venue with memories of men in sheepskin flying jackets and the roar of Lancaster bomber engines echoing around the place.

Being in a rural spot, as most RAF bomber command airfields were, there is sod all mobile coverage at Hemswell Court. Ordinarily in town I’d feel somewhat naked without mobile coverage. In Hemswell I didn’t give it a second thought.

This is a) because

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Engineer peering

LONAP AGM & my first Banksy

banksyGot together with the LONAP board yesterday to go through arrangements for next week’s AGM. It’s been another year of growth. Better not tell you any more at this stage or I’ll be spoiling it for Tuesday.

As a not for profit we try to keep overheads down and yesterday we borrowed a meeting room off Vision IPTV in the shadow of the BT tower.  On the end wall of the building was a Banksy. My first one! I was thrilled.

Apparently when the council leased the building to it’s current occupiers they wanted to charge them extra because of the Banksy. That angle didn’t work. Then some time later someone else in the council decided the mural was getting a bit worn and wanted to paint over the whole lot!

That’s when Vision IPTV decided to place a clear protective screen over it.

coldwar corridorThere’s not much else to report other than the meeting was held upstairs in what appeared to be a building right out of a 60s cold war movie. I could imagine Michael Caine striding up to me, leather shoes echoing along the corridor, saying “My name is Harry Palmer”.

We all sat in the meeting room jointly editing the slide decks for the AGM in the LONAP Google Apps Drive space. Internet connectivity was provided my my EE 4G  MiFi dongle. I was getting 16Mbps – perfectly adequate for 4 laptops hanging off it.

London is a bleak place in January. We finished our work and retired to a warm pub, an old favourite, The Lamb (Conference Room L) in Lambs Conduit Street, for a cheery pint and a chat about life, the universe and internet connectivity.

All work and no play makes Tref a dull boy. As you know:)

Categories
4g Engineer engineering mobile connectivity

EE 4G mobile broadband roadmap in UK #LTE-A #mobilebroadband

EE4G4G speeds continue to grow in the UK as EE trial LTE-A 300Mbps.

Sat in an interesting talk at UKNOF27 given by Bob Sleigh of EE. You will know that EE were the first of the mobile operators to sell 4G services in the UK. Bob told us that by the end of 2013 EE 4G services have reached 66% of the UK population with 98% potentially covered by the end of 2014. This represents the fastest rollout of 4G services in any country anywhere and EE now claim that the UK has moved from a mobile backwater to one of the world’s leading implementers.

This claim of world leadership is likely to be on the back of EE’s Techcity LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) trials (November 2013) which saw maximum 4G speeds of 296Mbps. EE expect to roll out LTE-A services in 2014.

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broadband Engineer internet Net

BT achieves world record for fibre transmission rates – fair play @neilmcrae

BT Tower (source Wikipedia) changes to WBC and WBMC FTTC and FTTP Cease charges

BT world record broadband speed

Had an excited Neil Mcrae come up to me this morning  asking if I’d read the press release 🙂 Neil is Chief Technical Architect of BT Group. The conversation began over beer and a curry last night where Neil alluded to an important announcement the next day but declined to elaborate. Normally beer will loosen a person’s tongue but Neil doesn’t drink enough beer for this approach to work.

Next morning I had naturally forgotten all about it until prompted by the lad.

The press release, which you can read in full here, tells us that BT, in conjunction with vendor Alcatel Lucent, achieved “trial speeds of up to 1.4Tb/s with a record spectral efficiency of 5.7 bits per second per Hertz (b/s/Hz)on an existing core fiber connection. This is believed to be the fastest speed ever achieved in commercial grade hardware in a real-world environment and is equivalent to transmitting 44 uncompressed HD films in a single second.”

This press release has been picked up by online media all over the world. After all 1.4Tbps is a pretty advanced performance for a fibre connection. In fact the connection made use of multiple fibre strands running off BT’s Alcatel Lucent 400Gbps capable kit. Multiple ports were used to get the speeds.

Not many companies have this kind of kit to play with but the development of advanced performance fibre transmission networks is key for large ISPs and content providers to be able to cope with the growth in consumer demand for internet services.

This particular trial majors on the efficiencies of the technology. It uses existing “old” fibre connecting BT’s Adastral Park R&D centre with BT Tower in London. This is important because it will allow bandwidth to grow using existing fibre in the ground.

BT are quoted as saying that a 1.4Tbps is the equivalent to transmitting 44 uncompressed HD films in a single second. Now I happen to know that Neil Mcrae is a big fan of the latest and greatest TVs – he is the only person I know to own a 4K TV (in fact he has a Sony 4K Ultra HD job). It’s all becoming clear.

There must be a 3rd node on the BT network with the Alcatel Lucent kit in Neil Mcrae’s back bedroom. He is going to have a Sony 4K TV in every room.  Seems obvious. 1.4Tbps is still a little overkill even with all these TVs but there is such a thing as future proofing you know. As 8K becomes available Neil will be able to upgrade his TVs without having to go to the hassle of changing his home router.

Respect:)

Meanwhile I think we can be proud that this kind of pioneering work is happening in the UK and I think Neil is right to have a smile on his face this morning. Onwards and upwards.

Categories
Engineer peering

Internet connectivity powered by beer and curry #ixmanchester

Did you know that the internet is powered by beer and curry?

Am at the IX Manchester meeting today. IX Manchester is an Internet Peering Exchange that allows networks local to the area to connect to each other so that internet traffic destined for each other’s networks travels by the fastest path rather than having to be backhauled to London then boomeranged back up to Manchester.

Consider the scenario of you, sat in your front room. You want to check out the opening times of your local sports centre so you

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chromebook Engineer media video webrtc

Bandwidth use for Google Hangouts #WebRTC

Was on a WebRTC conference call this morning. I was calling from the Chrome browser in my Chromebook. Volume could have been slightly louder but the quality of the call was terrific. All I did was click on a link and hey presto. I’ll tell you more about it in due course.

We chatted for over half an hour. It wasn’t video as the other participants were using standard SIP phones. We were hooked up through a WebRTC gateway in the (good ole) US of A.

One on the subjects that came up was bandwidth use of video streams when making WebRTC calls. Using a gateway minimises the amount of processing that you have to do locally and also cuts down on the internet bandwidth you need.

Google Hangouts apparently use your laptop/local device to do the video mixing and thus you need more i/o bandwidth. Google tells us that for person to person video hangout the min bandwidth required is 256kbps/512kbps (up/down) and ideally for the best experience 1Mbps/2.5Mbps).

For calls with more than 2 persons the ideal scenario changes to 900kbps/2Mbps. This means that many people living with poor quality ADSL connections will not be able to properly experience the power of Google Hangouts.

It also explains why calls at weekends (that’s when we hangout) to my daughter at Durham University are also poor quality. It has been known for four of us kids to be on the hangout – one in Durham and three in separate rooms in the house in Lincoln (me and the two lads still at home).  We have 7Mbps up in our house but in Durham it is an ADSL connection shared between four in a student house.

Shame really. For the want of a few quid more on the broadband line it could be much better. Students however are always skint and conserve the cash and we should recognise that they are representative of many people in the UK.

With time everyone will be on a faster broadband connection but for the moment, and I know I’m quite likely to get noises of agreement (or maybe just the occasional assenting nod) from readers in rural areas, many still have to live with limitations of their internet connection.

Mind you I’m all right Jack:)

That’s all.

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Business internet online safety piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

An evening with Julian Huppert MP – Internet Hero #fundraiser

julian_huppert_mpI’m not in the least bit political. If I get involved on the periphery of Parliamentary discussions and debate it is because I occasionally see MPs trying to implement legislation that doesn’t make sense in our modern internet based world. This is often because MPs have so much information thrown t them that they have to resort to keeping ideas simple so that they can get their brain around them.

Unfortunately when it comes to legislation that touches the internet, and by default touches those of us whose livelihood depends in one way or another (an increasingly large cohort of people) on the internet, the simplistic view often taken by MPs is often at odds with the practical workings of internet technologies.

We end up spending a lot of time and money fending off such legislation, more often than not pretty successfully but usually after great effort and pain. This is because it takes an age for people (MPs) who because of the practicalities of their job have to look at complex issues very simplistically.

I’m all for keeping things simple (stupid) but we also need people in our Parliament who can get their brain around the complexities associated with the internet. What to the layman is a simple network that “just works” is in reality a hugely complex ecosystem. In fact the complex issues faced by MPs often extend to non-technical considerations such as the privacy of the individual In reality it is difficult to separate the technical issues from the non technical as they feed off each other.

One of the few Members of Parliament who does understand these issues is Dr Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge. His background is research science at Cambridge University. Julian has taken a very active participation in internet and technology related debates in the House of Commons and was one of the leading opponents of the Digital Economy Act that was (outrageously in many people’s view) rushed through in the dying days of the last Labour government.

Because of his work supporting the internet industry, last summer Julian was awarded the Internet Hero Award at the annual ISP Association Awards dinner. Since then he served on the Parliamentary Select Committee looking at the Draft Data Communications Bill (Snooper’s Charter) and was highly influential in the decision making that lead to the Bill being killed it off for this Parliament.

We need to keep MPs like Julian in the House of Commons. He is good for the internet. He understands the issues. MPs need to raise a lot of cash to pay for their election campaign. I assume the next election will be in 2015 but much will go on between now and then.

I have agreed to help Julian by organising a fundraising dinner on his behalf. He is a Liberal Democrat but this is not a party political issue. In fact this is a technology blog not a political blog.

Whatever your political beliefs, if you work in a business, or maybe it is your business, that makes its living from the internet it is in your interest to support Julian.

So this is an invitation to you to a Fundraising Dinner entitled “An  Evening with Julian Huppert – Internet Hero”. This dinner, on Tuesday 25th February,  is a sit down job at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall – a totally high class environment if you’ve never been.

At £300 a head this isn’t a cheap do but we have to remember that the idea is to help raise funds to get Julian re-elected. We won’t be stinting on the quality of the food and drink in any case.

You will be in the company of 49 other influential people from the internet industry so it will also be a great night for networking. We shouldn’t forget that it will also be an opportunity to share your thoughts with Julian.

Click here to find out more or drop me a line if you want to talk about it.

That’s all for now. Please help if you can.

Categories
Engineer internet ipv6

Nest Labs – tax benefits and the internet of things? #IPv6

Google has bought Nest Labs for $3.2Bn. Nest Labs is into smart home devices and the internet of things. This we all know because it’s splattered all over the tech pages this morning.

I’d never heard of Nest Labs. I suspect it’s a by product of living in sleepy old Lincoln, somewhere in the deepest sticks of Engerlund and not in Silicon Valley. I live with it every day and I love it.

Ok it is interesting news and it focusses the mind on the growth of the internet, the further pervasion of technology into our every day lives and yes, IPv6 even. Google knows its stuff when it comes to IPv6.

A few things particularly spring to my mind re this acquisition. One is that Nest Labs was founded with over $80m of VC money. If you want to sell your business for $3.2Bn you have to think big and place big bets. Nest Labs will have spent its cash on an expensive team of people able to deliver.

I saw somewhere recently that startup had offered a Google employee $500k to move jobs. Unfortunately that Google developer was already earning $3m! I wonder whether there is the environment in the UK for this kind of activity. It needs both investors and entrepreneurs to be fully embedded in emerging technology cultures.

Secondly if this market is going to be as big as the size of the bet suggests then it has to be the demesne of huge businesses. Global businesses. This is somewhat dispiriting. There must still be room for small entrepreneurial organisation who can make things happen quickly.

Finally one presumes that Google has a huge cash pile. You hear about it occasionally, usually when MPs whinge about the ways large multi-national corporations are able to avoid paying tax in particular countries. All perfectly legal.

A quick “Google” shows that US Corporation Tax is 40% whilst Capital Gains Tax is anything between zero and 15% or 20%. One of the investors in Nest Labs is Google Ventures, fair play. Now I’m not an accountant but might there be huge tax benefits for Google in only paying Capital Gains tax rather than Corporation Tax on the $3.2Bn? Don’t get me wrong. Nothing improper going on I’m sure. Perhaps it all comes out in the wash so to speak.

It would be interesting though if someone out there was able to drill into the taxation specifics of such a transaction. I’m sure it wouldn’t affect the Google business case for the Nest Labs acquisition but an interesting by product nevertheless?

Answers on a postcard or via the comments section.

See ya, buddy…

PS Internet of things. IPv6. Very exciting.

Categories
Business engineering google social networking

Google Apps update – trefor.net is now working

trefSince Monday I’ve been trying to set up a Google Apps for Business account for trefor.net. I kept getting rejected with a message saying that “the domain trefor.net was already in use”.

I was using it via my personal gmail account – picking up trefor.net emails pulled from my Timico POP3 mailbox. Deleted any reference to trefor.net in my personal mailbox then when Google continued to reject my efforts to register a new apps account I discovered you have to wait 24 hours for “things to filter through the system”.

Over 24 hours later it still didn’t work and I made a comment to this effect on Twitter. Twitter is a truly powerful networking tool.  @AndyCDoyle offered to help and this lunchtime, having started to raise a ticket with Google, he found that there was already a Google Apps account for trefor.net. Funnily enough it was one I registered meself years ago. I’d totally forgotten about it.

A password reset came through to the recovery email address, my own personal gmail account,  and hey presto I was up and running. Ish. It does take time to learn how to navigate your way around and I can see why a business might want to contract the setup out to an IT consultant.

One thing that flummoxed me was that in all the help guides it says you have to verify that the domain is yours. None of the relevant fields appeared on my screen so either I had already done it (certainly don’t recall that which I’m beginning to find out perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise) or when I signed up for Google Apps you didn’t need to do that step. I suspect the former is true.

Setting up email was easy. I just had to modify the Timico hosted zone files so that the MX records pointed at 5 google servers. Once that was done it worked straight away. Simples. I can now add aliases to my heart’s content and because the account was set up before Google started charging it’s all free. Result!

It would appear that I can have up to ten users in the free account which is going to do me for the forseeable future. Not figured out how much storage I get yet but I have over 100GB in my other account thanks to me buying a Chromebook so that should be fine for a couple of years.

I’ve already set up some aliases including one for use in tradeshow registrations that is automatically filtered and archived 😉

Important to make a bit of progress every day and this is progress.

PS As you may have noticed at the top of this post I’m experimenting with new profile pics. Have managed to change my personal gmail pic but struggling with  one for the new trefor.net account. Keeps telling me the jpg photo is an invalid file. Google Apps is great for many things but it ain’t perfect and seems to have plenty of bugs that need kluges to work around. Not figured out a kluge for the profile pic yet.

PPS big thanks to Andy Coyle. Was surprised to hear he has a broad Mancunian accent. Shouldn’t have been because he lives in Manchester but that’s Twitter for you. Andy there will be a beer waiting for you when I come up for UKNOF27. Also you might want to think about using his services especially if you are in the Manchester area. His website is here.

Ciao all.

Categories
Engineer engineering

Growth in UKNOF attendee registration suggests healthy industry

With a couple of weeks to go the regular UK Network Operators Forum (UKNOF) meeting is seeing very healthy growth in registrations.
uknofattendees2_545

Take a look at the chart. Waaay back in the actually not too distant past UKNOF1 in May 2005 had 47 folk in attendance.

If you are in the game you will recognise quite a few names there.

Today, at the time of writing and with a couple of weeks to go, there are 232 people signed up.

A fair bit of this growth has come in the last 12 months which must sure be an emulation of other economic indicators. Although not all companies are doing well the well run ones are. I’d expect the final numbers for UNKNOF27 to exceed 250.

UKNOF meetings are not for the layman but if you are in the business the agenda reads very well – indicators of what’s going on in the internet plumbing world.

This meeting includes talks on:

  • progress with the new generic top level domains by Leo Vegoda ICANN – remember the industry is expanding from the relatively short list of domain suffixes (.com, .net etc) to include hundreds more (/plumbing, .sexy, .photography etc)
  • 100GigE rollout at Janet by Rob Evans (ref yesterday’s post on Janet)
  • DDOS equals pain by Richard Bible

These are all subjects that, if you but knew it, affect everyone on the planet one way or another. We may all want a website that uses the new gtld (.plumbing might become cool:) ).  Faster home broadband means that networks need faster and faster connections to carry the traffic back and forth from the internet (etc). 100GigE which has been in development for years was first mentioned on this blog back in 2010 but still only has 2 organisations using it in the UK (BT & Janet).

You may not notice a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack but every now and again if you have problems accessing particular websites there is a fair chance that this is because of DDOS. Even an individual broadband connection occasionally gets attacked – usually if the person at the end of that broadband has upset someone else. The internet is certainly still in the wild wild west web stage.

The fact that sponsors line up to support these events is a testament to the quality of the meetings and of the attendees.

That’s it for now. I’m going to UKNOF27 and will perhaps update on final numbers on the day.

PS took me ages to get the chart exported from google spreadsheet. There is a known bug that has been at least 2 years in the fixing (not). In the end I had to take a screenshot!

Categories
broadband Engineer

Well Done, Rob Evans @rhe #Janet

janet_office_speedDay two in the big brother house new office (spoken with  Geordie accent) and I’ve just done a broadband speed test. For the moment my network connection is a WiFi hotspot on a 4 year old iMac which is in turn connected to an Ethernet socket in the wall. Tomorrow we will be bringing in a router.

With this setup I’ve just done a speed test and as you can see got 66Mbps down with an equally good 40Mbps up. Impressivo. Remember this is through the iMac.

speed_fast_smallThe iMac itself connected directly to the Ethernet port gets even better speeds. On this occasion 141Mbps down and a whopping (the Sun says) 208Mbps up.

This must be a GigE LAN. Will have to investigate. I’m told that in the wee small hours when most of the whole wide world is fast asleep it gets even faster. It’s likely constrained by the speed of the Ethernet card in the Mac. Clearly it’s must be locally shared bandwidth.

This is all because the network is run by the University of Lincoln who of course will be attached to Janet.

At this point I’d like to thank Rob Evans (@rhe), who runs the Janet network, for his efforts here. Rob doesn’t mess about down at 1Gbps speed I know. He is more into 100GigE but nevertheless thanks Rob 🙂

I had intended to do some trade study work into various broadband services as part of being able to recommend providers. In the case of the office this would be futile so I will at some point do it on my home connection. I currently use Timico and see no real reason to change seeing as I know the network.

However I sense that I will want to move to FTTP on demand and also as a consumer might want to avail myself of TV and or sport bundles which as a B2b pureplay Timico doesn’t offer so watch this space for news on that score.

Categories
Business internet ofcom Regs

Business Rates

In the Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne gave small businesses an early Christmas present with some relief on business rates. Welcome news, I am sure, for all of our high streets and favourite independent hostelries.

However, when you start to look into the rates regime in telecommunications, things starts to get a little more confusing. Yes, they are due on our data centres and our offices and whatnot, just as we would expect them to be if we were a bank, a pub or a newsagents. But they are also due on fibre and ductwork. Worse still, one council or unitary authority (specifically one in England & Wales and one in Scotland) is often the beneficiary of the whole liability regardless of its potentially national coverage, which defies logic, but that’s a story for another time.

I have a problem with how fibre and duct can be rateable in the first place. Keeping the receipts and expenditure method of valuation (otherwise known as the “profits basis” out of it for a minute), to my simple mind, a factory has a rates liability – i.e. the bricks and mortar, but the machines inside don’t attract it. After all, tax is levied on their product (value-added tax, for example, or other duties in the case of alcohol) and the company producing them is also levied taxes on their profits (corporation tax, or income tax for a sole trader). It would seem somewhat akin to “two bites of the cherry” to tax the machines…… of course that argument could apply to the building itself as well, though I would suggest that as business rates are meant to pay for local services, a building is a fairer demarcation than counting widget machines for example; one could say fairer than some duct in a field.

Anyway, that can all be debated ad nauseum. What I want to get across here today is that when we talk about incentives to develop telecommunications, say 3G coverage to address those so-called “not spots”, or dealing with the issue of slow speeds in rural broadband, one of the critical factors facing a telco in deciding whether or not to build masts, unbundle exchanges (those taking BT Openreach Access Locate space have to pay a room licence fee, which is code for “their share of the rates bill”) or dig up fields to lay fibre out to a rural community with dial-up speeds on their ADSL is how much that activity will increase their rates liability. Seeing as fibre in rated on a sliding scale per pair per kilometer (contiguous in your network) basis, and given the distances that can be involved, it can soon add up.

We have high profile government initiatives such as BDUK, to deliver rural broadband, but I wonder…… instead of spending to “stimulate commercial investment” for telecos to expand into these areas, how much could be achieved through some simple manipulation of basic levers such as business rates? After all, if it were profitable for a telco to expand into such an area (be it a 3G mast or high speed broadband), an economically rational profit maximising entity would’ve done so already. One can only assume the investment appraisal delivered a negative net present value…. perhaps, just perhaps, it may have swung the other way if the rates regime in telecommunications was different.

As ever, very interested in all of your views.

Google+

Categories
Cloud End User media video

BBC iPlayer growth – tablets shifting our viewing habits

Richard Cooper runs the BBC’s online platforms. He was guest speaker at the ISPA Conference last week and his subject was naturally iPlayer which with 245 million requests in September has enjoyed 23% year on year growth.

bbc_iplayer_request_growthI took pics of some of his slides – this first one shows the increase in requests. The step function in January is interesting. The BBC have labelled last Christmas as the year of the tablet. The growth in traffic is largely down to the increase in people getting tablets as Christmas presents. Apparently you could almost plot the rate of opening of presents based on the growth in the traffic on the day.

bbc_iplayer_trafficnov13The second pic shows the exponential month by month growth in iPlayer streaming traffic expressed in TeraBytes. Impressivo. Apparently, according to Richard Cooper, the perceived wisdom is that this rate of traffic growth is set to continue until 2025, based I think on the continued development of Video quality and usage until the point comes where the human eye can benefit no more.

bbc_iplayer_timeofdayFinally we have a chart that shows how TV viewing habits are changing now that people are watching programmes on more than just the TV. Internet usage peaks at approx 5pm – this includes all web browsing. TV watching peaks just after 9pm and iPlayer requests peak around an hour later. People are taking their tablets upstairs and watching in bed.

A few observations spring to mind. People are starting to do everything online. Music listening is moving to streaming, movies are moving to catch up TV and video on demand and why would you bother with physical copies of games? The time is rapidly approaching where people won’t bother with hard copies of anything (me excepted – I’ll be a book buyer until I pop my clogs – I am of a certain generation and won’t buy an eBook). On this basis there’ll be hardly anything left for people to open on Christmas Day – it’ll all just be brown envelopes with gift vouchers & subscription codes for downloads. The frenzied throwing of paper around the front room will become a thing of the past. Sad really.

The other snippet is that apparently with 4k video you need to be sat 8 feet away from a 10 foot diagonal screen to get the benefit. Screen tech is getting better than our own eye tech. Not sure I completely understand this one but it’s all to do with pixel counts of screens versus what your eye can interpret. Maybe someone can elaborate. Just maybe (I think that’s an advert for something – not sure what).

Whatever happens it’s going to be some time before traditional broadcast TV is replaced by streaming video – there just isn’t enough bandwidth available. Bring it on.

PS pics aren’t perfect soz – better than nothing as you can see the data.

Categories
Business internet Net

GNS3 crowdfunding reaches 460% with 12 days to go

GNS3 crowdsourceMany of you will be familiar with GNS3 – the open source network simulator. GNS3 is used by a number of network engineers I know who swear by it.

Well the folks at GNS3 want to take it to the next generation and have used crowd funding to finance the development. It makes you feel good to know that so far, in their quest to raise a mere $35k, they have hit $160,937 or 460% of their target. And that’s with 12 days to go!

It says a lot about what the global network engineering community feel about GNS3 that they have received such support. Funders get advanced copies of the software which won’t go on general release for a year.

Well done to GNS3 and good luck with the new dev.

atb

Categories
End User gadgets media Weekend

Sony 4KUltra HD TV KD-55X9005A and XBox1 Console sales

Sony_4k_UltraHD_TV_KD-55X9005A4k_Ultra_HD_TVContinuing with the weekend posts I swung by PC World and Currys. Looking for a speaker system to add a bit of richness of experience to the Chromecast we installed last week. PC World hardly has anything – they are moving back to their computing roots.

Currys is where it is at for thispricing for Sony 4K Ultra HD KD55X9005 kind of stuff. I was unnaturally thrilled to come across this Sony 4K Ultra HD TV (the good old KD-55X9005A). A snip at £3,299. OK it is a nice TV. The picture quality was great. However £3,299 puts it in the more money than sense bracket. Since when has that been a problem for the multi-millionaire looking to impress the bloke in the next mansion.

I imagine that the promo video it was playing on the loop was one of the few bits of content you could get for it. Apparently you get 8 “free” Blu-ray discs to watch when you buy the TV.  I managed to find 10 movies available in 4K format on one site and 11 on another – all Blu-ray. I’m sure there will be more.

It is early days for 4k TVs. Of course prices will come down. However I may be wrong but I can’t imagine that Currys will sell many this Christmas. If you are going to blow the dough you might as well buy the Bose sound bar for three hundred quid. Great offer.

xbox1 console sold outThe XBox1 console on the other hand is a different kettle of anchovies. If you ain’t planned ahead on this one you’re not going to be taking it home from the Lincoln Currys store, nosireebob.

Currys look as if they were caught by surprise with the rush because they have had to scribble a quick sign guaranteed to disappoint the eager gamer looking to upgrade his or her experience for the festive season.

Can’t understand why you’d want it meself but I don’t think I’m representative.

I leave you with a video taken of the TVs in Currys Lincoln. I am easily impressed and thought that the splendid array of colour was very nice.

Ciao beb.

Categories
Apps End User gadgets media

Chromecast – a second review

chromecast setupHaving read Terry Hughes’ Chromecast review I eventually got round to rushing out (metaphorically) and buying one from Amazon. It was forty two quid or so ($35 in the USA) but the cheaper ones involved longer shipping from the States or an additional postage charge so ripped up the budget and clicked.

The Chromecast is now installed and in use. I have some observations:

  1. You have to actually physically switch on the Chromecast dongle – it doesn’t just power up in the “on” state
  2. Installation from Chromebook didn’t work. I don’t know why. I moved on to do it from the S4.
  3. Installation from my Android was very simple. I guess this is it’s core use market/scenario (if that’s the right phrase)chromecast ready
  4. The dongle sits nicely and unobtrusively at the back of the TV and is powered by the USB port of the TV (didn’t realise I had one but now I do – phew – Anne would have complained if there was another dangling cable)
  5. It is very easy to use. In my case I just selected HDMI2 input and hey presto…
  6. It is also easy to “cast” content onto the TV from your phone – there is a small icon to select inside the app view.
  7. Now this is where it starts to get interesting. You can use Chromecast to stream movies, music, YouTube and Netflix. I only use YouTube to store the occasional vid for use in embedding in this blog – as in this post for example. I have no interest whatsoever in Netflix content – though many others must be as it takes up a significant chunk of ISP bandwidth. I have no movies to stream (and rarely watch them anyway – 90mins?!) and all my music is on my phone.
  8. chromecast musicThe latter point is definitely interesting. This is all about driving traffic into the cloud. In moving operations to Google Apps, Chromebook and cloud storage I began the process of shifting my music to Google Music (or whatever it’s called) but I stopped for some reason. I think it might have been because it involved entering my credit card details. Obviously Google wants to make it easy for me to buy more music.
  9. Currently any music I buy is in CD format and I then upload it to my phone. In my new cloudy ecosystem I may have to rethink this. Although I like having a CD in its case to touch and feel this might be because I’ve grown up with that experience. My kids think nothing of buying music from iTunes and never having a “hard copy”.
  10. Chromecast is likely to change my habits here. I had already been thinking of buying a surround sound system for the TV room and this may top the balance in its favour.
  11. I will also say that I was astonished at the quality of HD streaming on our TV. Although the TV is HD “ready” we have never had an input source to supply the HD – no Blueray, no Sky, no Virgin etc. The HD footage I took with my Samsung Galaxy S4 – this ride on Stephenson’s Rocket for example, was really good quality full screen 1080p on our 42″ box (flat panel).
  12. It was also very easy for multiple users to take advantage of the Chromecast. One of the kids came home from a music rehearsal and had downloaded the App and got it working in seconds. The kids are much bigger users of YouTube than I and he was streaming jazz videos in no time, (until his mum wanted to watch the news).

In conclusion – Chromecast – very easy to set up and use, obviously aimed at delivering content from the cloud, and could well move my music listening to streaming from that cloud. It’s all driving bandwidth use. Onwards and upwards.

I note Phil’s comment re waste of space. It does need to support more apps. I didn’t try seeing if I could surf using it but I suspect not – it would have been more in my face. Rewind – just noticed this icon in Chrome – not tested it but looks positive.

Update on casting from Chrome browser here.

chromecast in browser
Update 17th March Google Chromecast to become available in the UK – leading to lots of visitors to reviews on this site

Categories
Engineer internet peering

#LINX83 – traffic growth and regional expansion

I’m at LINX83. The eighty third quarterly meeting of the London Internet Exchange. The statistics associated with LINX continue to astound.

LINX has 492 members, 1191 connected ports 683 of which are 10GigE and 1 100GigE port with 2 orders in process. The LINX network carries 1.791 Tbps of peak traffic with 7.324 Tbs capacity (plenty of headroom there) to 60 member countries.

This is an enormous amount of traffic and capacity upon which I’m not going to dwell much more (unless as I’m sure it will, something interesting comes up during the LINX83 sessions).

I do however want to talk about regional peering efforts.

Continue reading “#LINX83 – traffic growth and regional expansion”

Categories
Engineer internet peering

Sensible freebies for network engineers at #LINX83 #IPPerformance

usb bottle openerWhen engineers get together at conferences and trade shows a flock of vendors naturally flutters down and starts pecking around looking to impress (totally random collective noun btw). This is indeed the case at LINX83. One of the tools of the trade in the conference impress the engineer game is to hand out freebies. LINX83 is no different. There are pens to be had and there are USB memory sticks.

USB memory sticks are a standard freebie but one that vendors need to take great care over. The bar is set by LONAP who handed out 32GB USB sticks at their AGM at the beginning of this year. Every USB freebie is measured against this mark.

AT LINX83 USB sticks are available but not at 32GB. They are only 4GB! Ordinarily this would engender contempt but not on this occasion for as you can see from the inset photo, these USB sticks are also beer bottle openers. IP Performance, the fine organisation handing out these freebies has struck at the very heart of what makes an engineer tick. Beer.

Someone, I think it was me, suggested that a 32GB or even a 64GB version could be produced attached to a Screwpull corkscrew. This kicked off a debate about the sense of having electronic circuits near to a source of liquids. This would apply to beer as well as wine..

I say that an engineer wouldn’t spill his or her beer or wine regardless of how difficult the bottle cap or cork was to extract. I realise also that many fine wines come in screw top bottles but the very best, as consumed in great quantities by LINX members, will be cork and the Screwpull corkscrew is a suitable tool for extracting such stoppers.

I already have a Screwpull at home but if anyone has a stock that needs giving away please let me know – with or without 64GB memory stick.

You heard it first on trefor.net…

Categories
Business internet Regs

ISPA Conference – unbelievably great offer (etc)

Have I got a deal for you. The highlight of the annual conference season that is the ISPA Conference is fast approaching. I am chairing a session. Last year I chaired a session (can’t remember what on – I don’t dwell in the past) and caught the 07.20 from Lincoln to Kings X which was slightly delayed and arrived at 09.35. No probs I thought. Still got plenty of time as the conference didn’t start until 10am.

In the taxi on the way to K&L Gates in the City (Bill’s dad apparently) it occurred to me that I wasn’t entirely sure what time my slot started so I called someone at ITSPA to check. Apparently I was first on! It was almost like a scene from a movie where someone is dashing to get to an appointment or the opening scene of a play that they were in (you get the drift) and just make it in time.

I appeared at the back of the lecture theatre and strode down to the stage discarding coat and laptop bag on the way. At 10am exactly I introduced the panelists:)  I also had to chair the next panel as somebody else had had to cancel their trip.

Anyway I digress. The good folk at ISPA have asked me to promote this year’s conference. My bit is all about The Future ISP:

“What will an ‘ISP’ look like in 10 years’ time? A look at ISPA membership demonstrates how diverse the Internet industry is.  Whether it is small business, corporate or consumer connectivity, hosting or the delivery of TV, search, social networks or other services over the top, the expectation of what services an ISP provides is changing . This session will analyse what the internet industry will look like in 5, 10 or 15 years’ time.”

Key themes are (apparently):

  • What are the key challenges that ISPs will have to face?
  • What the key opportunities that ISPs will be able to exploit?
  • What are the key trends that shape the business environment for ISPs?
  • Is there a future in offering connectivity alone?

The other speakers are:

  • Dana Pressman Tobak, Managing Director, Hyperoptic
  • David Barker, Founder & Technical Director, 4D Data Centres
  • Matthew Hare, Chief Executive, Gigaclear

More details are available here. ISPA are offering some sweeteners for those who want to come. The first two people to put their hands up get a free ticket (you put your hands up by leaving a comment on this blog post saying that you are putting your hand up and want to come). Everyone who is disappointed at not getting in their hads up quickly enough can get a huge 50% discount by using the promo code TREF50 at the Eventbrite page here.

On a serious note this is a very useful conference and also brings with it good networking opportunities. You will also get to find out what the internet industry will look like in 15 years – which is why I’m going. Bring your crystal balls and we can have a seergazing session – ommmmm.

PS I dunno if seergazing is a word but it is now.

Categories
broadband Engineer

Evidence that video is driving home internet use

home broadband usage

Home broadband usage driven by TV streaming

Evidence is emerging of what applications are driving home broadband usage at the Davies house.

broadband usage wife at workThe two graphs presented herein for your entertainment and delight are of the broadband traffic over our Timico 80/20 FTTC line at home over the last two days – Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first graph shows very little happening during the day. As it happens my wife Anne was at work – she is a supply teacher. There isn’t that much going on in the evening either really although were were hitting 10Mbps at 10.30 pm.

DSL usage wife homeThe second graph shows the traffic when Anne was at home during the day. What a difference!

Most of the bursts are running at around 1.2Mbps and lasting between 30 minutes and two hours.

Now I happen to know that Anne, who always keeps herself busy, often has cookery programmes on during the day in the kitchen. There is so much to catch up on – Master Chef, Great British Bakeoff etc etc. She plays them on her iPad.

The bursts of traffic look very much as if they represent this kind of TV programme watching. Also interesting is the bandwidth required. It isn’t very much although I’m not sure what codecs were being used by iPlayer.

The other usage must basically represent everything else though the spike at 10.30 looks like a download – I know not what. All this just goes to show what this tinterweb thing is being used for. This is in no way an accusation that Anne sit around all day doing nothing – if you knew her you would know she is a very active person. I would however say that she was very representative of the average consumer even if I am not.

You can check out our home broadband data usage trend here.

Ciao bebe…

Categories
Engineer peering security

Team Cymru – the correct pronounciation

On a completely different note whilst I was at the Euro-IX conference last week someone gave a talk that included something about Team Cymru. Team Cymru are a top bunch of guys in the cyber security space.

However there is something that urgently needs addressing about the organisation and that is how you pronounce their name. I’ve been hearing Team Kim-roo which is understandable but totally incorrect. I’m sure that the good folk at Team Cymru will not mind me saying that the correct way to pronounce the name is Come-ree. It is the way that the Welsh would say it.

There. I’ve got that one off my chest. Cymru am byth!

Categories
4g broadband Business mobile connectivity voip

4G as fixed broadband replacement? – successful case study

4G

4g broadband can be used as a replacement for a fixed broadband service

Blog reader Mitch left a comment about how he now uses VoIP over a 4G line that has replaced his fixed broadband connection.  His broadband had always been rubbish and 4G is now giving him speeds as fast as fibre broadband. I asked if he would be willing to tell the story. It makes for a very interesting read that many will be able to identify with. It may also give hope to those folk in the “final third” who are the 2nd class citizens of the UK when it comes to connectivity.

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