In June, according to twitter COO Dick Costolo the micro-blogging site had 190 million users, growing by 300 thousand a day. These users were generating 65million tweets a day – that’s enough for twitter to be building its own brand new datacentre to handle all the traffic.

That’s less than a tweet each a day which points to many people signing up for the novelty value without taking it further. In fact although twitter is termed as a “social networking” site, which it is, there is far more to be gained out of it if you have a specific business objective, mostly currently related to marketing and PR.

I’m not a marketing person, though trefor.net does turn out to be a marketing vehicle which was never really my objective in starting the blog. I joined twitter just to see what it was all about. That and because a friend of mine, Jeff Pulver (joined 2 February 2007), is an early stage investor in the site.

My overall stats however hide a more recent behavioural change and by June I was tweeting an average of over 15 times a day – see chart below.

It may be seen I began to get more active in February because I was involved in the debate surrounding the Digital Economy Bill (Act) and twitter was a way of communicating with like minded individuals and getting my message across.

Twitter has now become the third biggest referrer to trefor.net which has, since the beginning of the year, been linked to by 412 different sites.

I do see people styling themselves as Social Networking “gurus” which raises a smile. I find it difficult to understand how someone can be a guru at a technology that is still relatively young – I have been in the VoIP industry for 12 years now for example and VoIP is still considered to be just past the emerging market stage

You can’t blame people for seeing an opportunity to make a buck or two though. What the experience with trefor.net does tell me is that twitter is a serious tool that belies the frivolity of its name.

I believe that twitter has the potential to be far more powerful than other social networking sites such as Facebook (look me up – I’m trefordavies) simply because anyone can follow anyone else. I can, for example engage with Members of Parliament without their having to follow me, or even know me. I just follow them and sometimes reply to their tweets – assuming I have something worth saying.

I know most of my Facebook friends but have met hardly any of my 906 twitter followers. it doesn’t matter because there is very little personal data to expose on twitter and I can happily tweet away in semi anonymity without worrying about the bad guys out there.

Anonymity isn’t the name of the game though. It’s all about reach and twitter reaches the parts other social networking sites don’t go.

As a result of this, the volume of data carried by mobile operators has risen twentyfold over the last two years (thanks iPhone), and is forecast to grow almost as much again in the next two years. The figures for fixed operators are less dramatic but still very significant.

Cloud computing is finally coming of age. Gartner forecast that by 2012 20% of all businesses will own no IT assets. That will not only further increase bandwidth demand but will also make high levels of service reliability ever more essential.

Now is the time for network operators to ensure they have their investments in place to service this rising market. As the CTO of an acquisitive company I see a lot of small ISPs struggling to find the cash to make these investments which very much points towards further market consolidation. The game is getting bigger.

PS thanks to Sally Davis, CEO of BT Wholesale for some of the statistics above.

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

The Ofcom data also reveals some very interesting stats about performance during peak times that don’t do some ISPs any favours. BT for example appears to be on average the worst performer when it comes to ADSL2+.

Interesting for me as a B2B ISP to note that the peak traffic times for consumer ISPs is 8-10pm compared with 1 – 5 pm for Timico. Our network is relatively empty after folk leave the office.

This is all good stuff, more of which can be found here.

The meat of today’s announcement really concerns the fact that consumers still aren’t getting the speeds they were expecting when they were sold the service.

In March of this year Ofcom published the results of some mystery shopping it commissioned to evaluate how ISPs were complying with the Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds.

This code, implemented in December 2008, sets out how ISPs should inform consumers as to the speed they are likely to get out of a broadband connection before being sold that broadband connection. The Code was designed to prevent the all too prevalent situation of expectations regarding broadband speeds not being met.

The research shows that although ISPs now provide more information on broadband speeds that information is often not sufficient to allow consumers to have clear expectations about the service they sign-up to.

Of the total, 15% of the telephone mystery shoppers were not given an estimate of their access line speed (the maximum speed a consumer will be able to get), and 42% were only given one after prompting the sales agent near the end of the sales process.

In addition, consumers are not always being given a consistent and accurate estimate of their access line speed. In some cases, ISPs gave an access line speed double that of another ISP for the same broadband line and technology. The majority of access line speed estimates given to mystery shoppers did not match (within +/-1Mbit/s) the speeds given by the BT Wholesale line checker.

Moreover whilst under the Code consumers are notionally offered a lower speed package if their broadband line comes below their speed expectations, ISPs are increasingly reducing the number of packages they offer and the move to a lower speed offering is now often not possible.

Ofcom’s answer is to revise the Code and this revised Code of Practice is published today. There are a couple of comments worth making regarding this revised Code.

Firstly according to Ofcom it has been produced in conjunction with its existing signatories (mainly the large household names ISPs as the Code is not seen as relevant to business users). Okay.

Secondly this revised Code is more complicated than the original which makes me wonder about its usability and therefore effectiveness and indeed why the existing signatories agreed to it.

For example ISPs are now expected to offer their prospective customers a range (20th%ile to 80th%ile) of speeds that they might expect to see out their line. If the speed subsequently comes in below expectations ISPs have to be able to tell the customer how their worst 10% lines perform.

This adds to the complexity of the systems that ISPs will have to develop to support this Code. This is on top of the complexity created in the system by the Digital Economy Act!

Businesses need to spend their time making their lives simpler not more complex!!!

The reality is that for a given technology there is not going to be a massive difference between ISPs. Your choice is really copper or cable and copper has a much bigger footprint than cable.

The way forward I believe is for Ofcom to stop ISPs promoting the absolute max speeds they can (occasionally) provide and to concentrate on a simple “typical” range. Marketing departments won’t like this of course.

There will I’m sure be plenty of comparison sites publishing actual speeds obtained by customers of particular ISPs.  The public will be able to make its choice based on these comparisons and any other related parameter such as bundles of other services, quality of tech support, price etc.

I understand that some ISPs using O2/Be are also concerned that the Code suggests that customers unhappy with their line speed should be able to leave anytime within three months whilst the ISP’s own contract with Be has a minimum 3 month term. This would clearly leave an ISP out of pocket if customers were to exercise this right to leave. Be will have to change their Terms.

Ofcom still has the old version of the Code on its website – I’ll provide a link when the new one is available.

The initiative is not based on a standard panic button solution but on a CEOP Facebook App and a CEOP Facebook page. This means that only users who install the app will have direct access to CEOP.

I have met CEOP CEO Jim Gamble during the course of meetings between CEOP and the ISPA and understand the hugely difficult nature of their job. CEOP volunteer staff have to spend much of their time looking at horrendous photographic evidence of child abuse. It isn’t something that a person can do for too long due to the mental stresses involved.

The success of the whole Facebook initiative depends on whether or not the CEOP app becomes viral. To facilitate the distribution of the app, Facebook has agreed to support the initiative via an advertising campaign.

CEOP deserves your support.

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

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

09:30 – 10:00   Registration & Coffee
10:00 – 10:10   Introduction and Welcome – Ed Vaizey
10:10 – 11:00   Setting the context – Jeremy Hunt
11:00 – 12.05   Policy & BDUK update – Adrian Kamellard
12:05 – 12:15   Session roundup and comments – Ed Vaizey
12:15 – 13:15   Lunch
13:15 – 14:15   Industry Exercise – Matt Agar
14:15 – 14:45   Infrastructure Paper – Simon Towler
14:45 – 15:00   Coffee
15:00 – 16:00   Superfast broadband pilots – Adrian Kamellard

This is a hot ticket with far fewer places than people wanting to go. Part of me is a little sceptical of this – I suspect a lot of people will just be there because of the prospect of a trough to stick their snouts in.

Having said that there is clearly a serious purpose to this day as is witnessed by the seniority of the speakers. For UK plc and the broadband impoverished dwellers of the Final Third (BT has considered it only worth investing in NGA for 66% of the populace) it might almost be considered to be a matter of life and death. Certainly life and death of their communities.

Let’s hope that BDUK is successful.

Unfortunately the track record of public organisations in delivering technical projects in this space is not good. Witness my own county of Lincolnshire where around £15m of EU money was scattered liberally on a wireless broadband project only to be blown away by BT when then realised that the whole project was going to be uneconomic beyond the initial subsidy phase. End users were being asked to pay £250 a month (plus VAT) for a symmetrical 2Mbps service! That was £15m down the pan.

I am not sure that any public money should be spent on this type of project and certainly not given to BT which is quite naturally only there to serve the interest of its investors.

We should be concentrating on helping communities in the Final Third to help themselves. Take Ashby de la Launde for example, again in Lincolnshire, where the villagers have reduced the costs of their NGA roll out by digging their own trenches for the fibre conduits. It remains to be seen how successful this project will be – it goes live in September – but it is an example of how to go about it.

If the government can do anything it should be to help make it easier for communities to get NGA up and running for themselves.

Rather than spending moneys up front the government should be providing tax incentives and reducing the rates burden on private investors providing infrastructure to these communities. All after the fact benefits that would help with up front investment decisions.

Jeremy Hunt is today announcing three Market Test Pilots. I sincerely hope that these are driven by third party commercial interests, or by the communities themselves and not simply by dangling money in front of anyone who wants to take it to implement a Public Sector devised plan. I’m sure that we will find out as we work its way through today’s agenda.

A little more information, though not much, is available on the BIS website here.

Attendees at the ITSPA Summer Forum sat on one side of an oval conference table that was mirrored on 4 large screens in front of us. A Polycom representative (sorry didn’t catch his name) did the spiel from the other room located in Slough.

It was as if he was in the same room and he could even hear the side conversations going on on our side of the table. I’m not the first to spout on about telepresence so this is nothing new but when you do see it you are bowled over and I had to comment.

Couple of thoughts stuck in my mind. We are talking a list price of $650k  per room here – thats for 18 seats. Each screen also uses 4Mbps of bandwidth which ain’t bad and there is a new codec coming out in October that will reduce this by 30% or more.  All in all very impressive.

This isn’t a volume sell though. Whilst the business case likely sells itself if it saves flying 18 people half way across the world the market, at least for the high end telepresence room, must be restricted to large corporations.

The only negative I took away was that in order for the person in the other room to appear to be looking at me he had to look straight into the camera whilst it is more intuitive to look directly at the person on the screen which then makes it look as if he isn’t looking at you (if you get my drift). The benefits massively outweigh this minor niggle.

Anyway well done Polycom. Pictures below are of the two halves of the room – taken from my phone so they don’t fully do justice to the room but at least it gives you an idea.

Polycom executive speaks to ITSPA from identical telepresence room in Slough

ITSPA members talking during Polycom telepresence demo

Now BT has strangled VoNGA in the womb. We never really heard it’s first cry.

Don’t get me wrong. It was only the acronym I liked – I thought it sounded good. The product itself, a reduced feature set Plain Old Telephone Service (if such a thing is possible), did not impress, partly because of its total lack of ambition but also its complexity. My biggest concern was that BT would replace such an obviously good acronym with some fancy marketing lingo.

Instead we now have Fibre Voice Access (FVA). Not nearly such a good acronym and though the product is simpler than VONGA I’m not sure that is is anything other than a fibre based POTS service. CPs will now just buy the basic service from Openreach – just like they now rent a copper cable.

The two diagrams below show the kit you would have in your premises and how this notionally connects to the phone network using the Communications Provider’s VoIP platform (both carry the usual Openreach disclaimers about being subject to change).

The one thing that annoys me is that the pricing for this product looks just like that Openreach charges for a copper line and that is despite the fact that fibre should not cost anything near as much to operate. I guess if I was the operator with Significant Market Power I’d be looking to squeeze as much out of the punters as I could get.

Moreover it remains to be seen what value users will get for this money. In my mind there should be nothing to stop CPs selling voice over broadband services to people without the involvement of Openreach as long as the basic Fibre To The Premises capability is there.

The Openreach pitch is that this product provides PATS (Publicly Accessible Telephone System) compatibility, a legal requirement. However most ITSPA members will attest to already being PATS compliant.

Before getting too animated here we should remind ourselves that this is in anycase a long term play for Openreach. Based on the FTTP planned footprint, which will be available to 25% of people in Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) areas. This means that by Summer of 2012 there will be roughly 2.5m premises that might be able to get FVA rising to roughly 66% of all UK premises by 2015 (15 millions or so premises).

Not exactly numbers to excite. Even the acronym is boring. I think the UK’s stable of Alternate Operators will have to take the lead here in providing VoIP over broadband based services that offer 21st century features. Openreach does claim to have interested CP partners.

Fibre Voice Access kit from Openreach

The BBU in the picture is Battery Backup Unit which is likely to cause problems – who changes the battery when it no longer works?  The Communications Provider? If the CP choses not to do this does this mean they are liable  in the event of non-functioning of the telephone if there is a power cut – an analogue telephone takes its power off the copper line – this is not the case for fibre. Openreach is, I believe still in discussions re the best approach here.

This product is initially only being considered for brownfield sites.  Greenfield sites will also be available for voice only as BT is obliged to provide a service under their Universal Service Obligation.  It is expensive though. Also FTTC is not in the frame initially.

schematic Fibre Voice Access (FVA) system

Best Shared Hosting winner is: Namesco

The judges were impressed with Namesco’s high level of customer satisfaction, with good use of security and technical support complemented by a clear pricing structure.

Best Dedicated Hosting winner is: NewNet

In an extremely competitive category, the judges decided that NewNet’s wide product range, provision of 24/7 technical support and a dedicated account manager set them apart from their competitors.

The Best Internet Telephony winner, sponsored by Magrathea, is: Gradwell

The judges agreed that Gradwell’s use of new media to interact with and help their customers made them stand out from their competitors in this category. Furthermore, the clear communication with its customers made Gradwell the worthy winner.

The Best Mobile Broadband winner is: FREEDOM4 WiFi

Winning for the second year running, the judges felt that Freedom4 Wifi made the best use of technology to offer the various connectivity options to suit both business and leisure travellers.

The Best Business Customer Service winner is: Claranet

The judges agreed that Claranet were worthy winners as they showed they had a clear path to resolving issues as they arose through industry standard methodologies and the latest technology.

The Best Consumer Customer Service winner, sponsored by mquadr.at, is: Plusnet

The judges were impressed with the effective way that Plusnet handled complaints, including flexibility in how customers can contact them, and were particularly impressed with the way Plusnet provided a geographic number for consumers to contact the company, setting them apart from other finalists.

The Access Innovation Award winner is: Cybermoor

The judges felt that Cybermoor deserved the inaugural award for delivering next generation broadband to a community that would not otherwise have received access to such broadband and for its community-based approach. The judges were impressed by the entrants to this new category and want to see it expanded next year as it shows the way companies and individuals can go beyond what’s expected of them.

The Internet Safety Award winner is: Childnet

The judges agreed that Childnet deserved to win as their work is focused on all those involved in making the internet a safer place – children, parents and teachers – and liked the way the Internet was portrayed in a positive light.

The Digital Inclusion Award winner, in association with Race Online 2012 and sponsored by Plusnet, is: Bolton Literacy Trust

The Race Online 2012 judges felt that Bolton Literacy Trust stood out among the entries, both for its longevity and for its impact. The scheme has touched the lives of more than 1,000 people in the eight years it’s been running, ranging from the elderly, those with mental health problems, teenage parents and asylum-seekers. It’s a great example of how local organisations can use computers and the Internet.

The Corporate Social Responsibility Award winner is: Orange

The judges felt that Orange were the worthy winners as they clearly involve their staff in CSR as well as devoting money to the work. The judges also commended the efforts they made on behalf of young people.

The Best Business Fixed Broadband winner is: Claranet

In a competitive field this year, the judges decided that Claranet’s use of both asymmetric and symmetric broadband made them stand out from the competition. Claranet’s focus on business-to-business was also commended by the judges.

The Best Consumer Fixed Broadband winner, sponsored by F-Secure, is: Be Broadband

In this fiercely competitive category, the judges commented that Be Broadband had clear pricing structures and offered good value for money. The judges also felt that Be Broadband stood out due to its bonding and contention.

The Internet Villain is: Lord Mandelson

The ISPA Council decided that Lord Mandelson was a deserved winner of the villain award for ignoring principles of better regulation to amend an open consultation following lobbying from an interest group – no prizes for guessing which one.

The Internet Hero, sponsored by Eclipse Internet, is: Tom Watson MP

ISPA Council members bestowed the Internet Hero Award upon Tom Watson MP for leading the opposition to the parliamentary fight against the Digital Economy Bill and continuing the campaign to ensure an informed approach to the Act.

This is likely to be because the latter two are far more closely aligned to the content provision industry with BT and TalkTalk being really just (or largely in the case of BT) connectivity providers.

People should not get too excited at the prospect of a Judicial Review. This is just a process of checking to see that the legal process was followed. Did it receive the required number of readings in Parliament? etc.etc

The Act, as we all know, was rushed through with outrageous haste as the last gasp of a dying government. The issue will be whether, in the rush for the door, the government made any mistakes in process that could invalidate the Act. This would mean that Parliament would have to start the whole process again.

There is clearly no desire on the part of the present government to revisit the Act although if the review did find any transgressions they would have no choice. I imagine if the review did uncover an issue a head might roll in the civil service – the politicians’ heads have already been lopped off for unassociated reasons.

How long a Judicial Review will take is also in my mind an issue. It wouldn’t surprise me if this lasts into next year by which time much of the damage, in terms of costs having to be incurred by ISPs, will already have been done.

The picture below is me with Feargal Sharkey at last night’s ISPA Awards. Feargal gave a speech and expressed the sentiments that two industries (ISPs and music rights holders) need to get the lawyers out of the equation and get on with the job.

Unfortunately the lawyers are already gathered firmly around the trough, are chomping away to their hearts’ content and won’t be shifted in a hurry.

Tref shaking hands with CEO of UK MUsic Feargal Sharkey at the ISPA Awards

PS I get to meet al the celebs – check out me and David Beckham here.

Additional news later on Friday – BT and TalkTalk press release here.