Categories
Business

Meet Geoff Smith

Not a very dramatic title for a post. Not an attention seeking one like “Meet the Prime Minster” or “meat and two veg” (well someone might find that one exciting!).

It’s not an exciting name – not like James Bond. He hasn’t even got a code name – 007 or Agent Alpha might have livened things up. In fact if you knew Geoff Smith you wouldn’t think he was a particularly exciting sort of bloke. Sorry Geoff.

However I have to tell you that I am excited about Geoff Smith. Geoff is our new Director of Customer Services. For me, being in the game of providing services to customers, the Director of Customer Services is completely what it is all about. It’s more important than anything else in the business.

I know others with parochial interests will say “no Tref you are wrong, having a strong network is most important for an ISP”. Or a salesforce that can bring in the business. Or a competent Finance Dept etc etc etc.

The point is that getting Customer Services right inevitably means getting all other aspects of the business right. In order for Geoff to become a star everyone else in the business has to provide him with services in a timely manner and at the right price and quality level. Geoff and his team are our ultimate sales tool, the ultimate reason why customers want to pay us and why we can continue to fund investment in growing our network.

As one of the fastest growing tech companies in Europe Timico is evolving into a seriously grown up company and Geoff is part of that process. He has just joined us. He has a seriously competent background in technical customer services with global experience. ISO9001, ITIL, Prince2, Investors In People sums him up and is going to sum the rest of us up. I really am excited*

That’s it. Excitement over. Photo below:-)

Timico Director of Customer Service Geoff Smith
Geoff Smith - Agent Alpha - whatever!

*I know, I know I do get a bit excited! Geoff isn’t in the least bit boring by the way (just in case he reads this).

PS Picture in the background was painted by my daughter a few years ago now. She’s exciting too.

Categories
Business Cloud hosting

School moves homework into cloud #digitalbritain #bbdf

This will fan the flames of the Final Third Campaign when I tell them that my kids school now provides a cloud based facility for them to deposit and retrieve files.  These files can be their completed homework, or anything. 

The school uses the facility to post notices, questionnaires, information about homework and social events.  Anything!

This is great. The service uses an external site called skillspace.com. Each child gets a 10MB allocation of space. Apart from my getting excited about this from a technical internetty perspective it also brings into stark focus the whole issue of Digital Britain and the Digital Divide – what ever you want to call it, as discussed at length by Gordon Brown this morning in his live broadcast.

Edited screenshot below.

another screenshot from school cloud storage space
another screenshot from school cloud storage space
screenshot from school cloud storage space
screenshot from school cloud storage space
Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

UK Gov to block access to Google? Chinese to follow suit?

I note that Google has stopped censoring Chinese searches and is routing its traffic via servers in Hong Kong in order to be able to do this. One wonders whether the Chinese will take measures to block access to these servers!?

I wonder also whether the UK Government has considered blocking access to Google within these shores.  After all millions of people will be using the search engine to find out how they go about indulging in a bit of Music Piracy.  How to avoid detection.

When I do a search for anything using Google I get a list of websites that match my search criteria.  If I was a naughty boy and wanted to download free music in breach of the copyright laws, that Google search would probably contain information as to where I can get this music and probably a link to the relevant song/page. Surely this is wrong! Isn’t it?

Will the Home Secretary be using the new found powers he is awarding himself through the Digital Economy Bill to block UK access to Google and thus prevent this miscarriage of justice from happening?

This might sound a bit extreme but I think the scenario shows the absurdity of what UK gov is trying to do with the Digital Economy Bill.

Categories
Business internet Regs

Gordon Brown speech on Building Britain’s Digital Future #bbdf

The election campaign is in full swing with Prime Minster Gordon Brown this morning giving a speech, entitled “Building Britain’s Digital Future” and broadcast live at about 8am on number10.gov.uk.

I’m not going to provide a detailed analysis of this.  You can catch that from all the tweets at #bbdf. The PM covered a wide range of subjects that fall under the banner of Digital Britain. Much of the content I am concerned with was just a regurgitation of what has been said for the last year – 50p tax on phone lines, high speed access for all etc. etc. I don’t really see the evidence that this is going to happen yet, or at least not much progress.

What was important in my mind was the recognition or reinforcement of the point that UK.gov has to embrace web technology.  There is a long way to go here as well. I note that the speech was broadcast on the number 10 website. I found out about it on twitter via @hadleybeeman. When I “tuned in” there were 87 watchers.  By the time I had to leave to go to work there were 157. That’s only 157.

There is clearly a disconnect between the PMs speech being made available on line and people knowing it was there or feeling inclined to watch it. There is a long way to go before Government is properly online.

It was probably to some extent down to the timing – during the morning rush hour.  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of much of what the Government is saying about Building Britain’s Digital Future. Regular readers will know that this doesn’t extend to how they are going about it though. 

The appointment of Sir Tim Berners-Lee as joing head of a new Institute of Web Science might sound good but web technology, once it got off the ground has proliferated because private industry recognised that there was money to be made. That same private industry is even prepared to take big punts where it isn’t quite  clear where the money will come from (eg twitter).

So in my mind the main area of focus should be creating the environment for ideas to flourish. An Institute of Web Science can no doubt contribute to this – just by being there.  More important is to make sure that all the contradictions we keep hearing about – digital inclusion versus blocking of websites and cutting off internet access; the improvement of the rates  set up for fibre; reforms to the online copyright licensing regime etc etc.

If anyone wants to add to the list by making a comment on this post that would be great. After Easter the Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) is going to be working on its own manifesto stating what the ISP industry thinks Government should be doing. All inputs considered.

Categories
Business internet Regs

Gordon Brown speech on Building Britain's Digital Future #bbdf

The election campaign is in full swing with Prime Minster Gordon Brown this morning giving a speech, entitled “Building Britain’s Digital Future” and broadcast live at about 8am on number10.gov.uk.

I’m not going to provide a detailed analysis of this.  You can catch that from all the tweets at #bbdf. The PM covered a wide range of subjects that fall under the banner of Digital Britain. Much of the content I am concerned with was just a regurgitation of what has been said for the last year – 50p tax on phone lines, high speed access for all etc. etc. I don’t really see the evidence that this is going to happen yet, or at least not much progress.

What was important in my mind was the recognition or reinforcement of the point that UK.gov has to embrace web technology.  There is a long way to go here as well. I note that the speech was broadcast on the number 10 website. I found out about it on twitter via @hadleybeeman. When I “tuned in” there were 87 watchers.  By the time I had to leave to go to work there were 157. That’s only 157.

There is clearly a disconnect between the PMs speech being made available on line and people knowing it was there or feeling inclined to watch it. There is a long way to go before Government is properly online.

It was probably to some extent down to the timing – during the morning rush hour.  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of much of what the Government is saying about Building Britain’s Digital Future. Regular readers will know that this doesn’t extend to how they are going about it though. 

The appointment of Sir Tim Berners-Lee as joing head of a new Institute of Web Science might sound good but web technology, once it got off the ground has proliferated because private industry recognised that there was money to be made. That same private industry is even prepared to take big punts where it isn’t quite  clear where the money will come from (eg twitter).

So in my mind the main area of focus should be creating the environment for ideas to flourish. An Institute of Web Science can no doubt contribute to this – just by being there.  More important is to make sure that all the contradictions we keep hearing about – digital inclusion versus blocking of websites and cutting off internet access; the improvement of the rates  set up for fibre; reforms to the online copyright licensing regime etc etc.

If anyone wants to add to the list by making a comment on this post that would be great. After Easter the Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) is going to be working on its own manifesto stating what the ISP industry thinks Government should be doing. All inputs considered.

Categories
Business internet security

UK cybercrime defences are good says House of Lords but Estonia’s are rubbish

Doesn’t quite match does it? The House of Lords telling us that the UK has strong defences against cybercrime. It is quite possible that your average crusted baronet has no idea what cybercrime is.

I’m being a bit unfair here in the interest of humour.

This week the House of Lords European Union Committee published its report into protecting Europe against large-scale cyber attacks. The report looked into the resilience of Europe’s and the UK’s internet infrastructure which is deemed part of critical national infrastructure.

The report argued that there is a wide variation between Member States on this issue, with the UK having “sophisticated and well-developed defences to guard against attacked and disruption”.

Estonia however, and for example, which as a nation is heavily dependent on the internet, is knackered (my word not their Lordships) if subjected to even a minor cyber attack.

The Committee made a number of findings including: the public sector should take the initiative on how cyber-security could be developed on a global basis; EU and NATO should work closer together, and the Government should encourage this to happen; and the European Commission should propose establishing national Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTS).

More here

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

120A kicked into touch but Digital Economy Bill still likely to cost ISPs half a billion #digitalbritain

The Digital Economy Bill passed through the House of Lords this week after completing its Third Reading. During the debate the Government kicked Lib Dem amendment 120A into touch.

This was the one on blocking of websites illegally containing copyright content and which caused an uprising of the internet industry last week. Lord Young speaking for the Government commented that “the clause was not enforceable and was incompatible with the Technical Standards Directive”.

The Government did commit to proposing a compromise clause that could give the Secretary of State power to “consult on blocking measures”. The debate in full can be found here.

In laymans terms this potentially gives Lord Mandelson (or whoever sits in that seat in a couple of months time) the ability to take power into his own hands… hmm… Not much better than 120A was suggesting in many people’s minds. These things are best handled by court judges, as indeed is the current position in Law.

The First Reading of the Bill in the House of Commons also took place this week and the date for the Second Reading is yet to be confirmed. As I have previously mentioned on a few occasions now due to the shortage of Parliamentary time before the election the Bill is likely to undergo very little scrutiny at the Second Reading before the front benches consider the Bill during wash-up (stitch-up).

Interesting to note that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has also updated its Digital Ecomomy Bill Impact Assessment. The report estimates a cost to ISPS of £290-500 million with a benefit to rights holders of £1,700 million.

The report also admits that the costs and benefits of Clause 18 have not been subject to prior consultation due to the limited time between the introduction of the clause and the finalisation of the impact assessment. In laymans terms what this says is that they haven’t really considered whether this part of the DEB is worth the effort.

A recently leaked Music Industry letter to Rights-Holders discussed the fact that when it comes to pursuing online copyright infringers any cost sharing that might be agreed would be split 75% Music Industry/25% ISPs. I can now see where they got this figure from. Foot – Gun – Bang.  They are after 50/50 share of the costs which on the face of it doesn’t seem fair. In fact if the RH benefits is almost £2Bn as suggested and the costs to ISPs are £0.5 Billion there seems to me to be a strong case for RHs to pay all the costs as is, (and I might be wrong here) currently the law.

The perceived benefits to Rights-Holders has also to be taken with a degree of caution here. What they are saying is that if you stop people from downloading music (& movies etc) illegally they will start paying for it instead. It also presupposes that the measures under consideration will actually stop copyright infringement. During the Panorama programme on the BBC this week it was clearly suggested it wouldn’t.

Meanwhile the UK Performing Rights Society for Music, which represents songwriters, composers and music publishers, announced this week a 2.6 per cent rise in annual revenues to £623m and a growth in online revenues from legal licensed digital music services from 72.7 per cent to £30.4m.

!!!!!!

Categories
broadband Business

FTTC Broadband Cabinet – That’s About the Size of It

No question. Size matters when it comes to FTTC broadband cabinets.

Three photos – first one showing a “normal” street cabinet next to a FTTC cabinet. The latter is much larger to be able to take the DSLAM kit. Exciting stuff eh? Thanks to BT for the pics.  Edit much later – the bottom cab is definitely an FTTC broadband cabinet, however the other two are not (pics came from BT so error somewhere in the process). Thanks to reader Andrew Benham for pointing this out.  Thanks also to Andrew for the photos now inserted in this alternative and more recent post.

BT Openreach FTTC cabinet next to a normal street cabinet
FTTC broadband cabinet next to a normal street cabinet

Second photo shows inside of an FTTC broadband cabinet – no DSLAM in it yet.

Inside a BT Openreach FTTC cabinet
Inside a BT Openreach FTTC cabinet
Third  photo shows a cabinet with DSLAM kit in it. I will check the first two are right because they do look different.  FTTC cabinets are definitely bigger than normal ones.
BT Openreach FTTC cabinet with DSLAM kit inside
BT Openreach FTTC cabinet with DSLAM kit inside
Categories
broadband Business

FTTC – that's about the size of it

Three photos – first one showing a “normal” street cabinet next to a FTTC cabinet. The latter is much larger to be able to take the DSLAM kit. Exciting stuff eh? Thanks to BT for the pics.

BT Openreach FTTC cabinet next to a normal street cabinet
FTTC cabinet next to a normal street cabinet

Second photo shows inside of a cabinet – no DSLAM in it yet.

Inside a BT Openreach FTTC cabinet
Inside a BT Openreach FTTC cabinet
Third  photo shows a cabinet with DSLAM kit in it. I will check the first two are right because they do look different.  FTTC cabs are definately bigger than normal ones.
BT Openreach FTTC cabinet with DSLAM kit inside
BT Openreach FTTC cabinet with DSLAM kit inside
Categories
broadband Business internet

Rural Broadband: The Tim Padfield Interviews

This week saw a series of interviews by Tim Padfield on BBC Radio Lancashire – all focussed on highlighting the problems caused by there being no access to broadband internet connectivity in rural areas in the UK.

I won’t make specific comments but I’m sure there will be plenty of people wanting to do so on this post.

1 Christine Conder
Christine Conder of Wray Community WiFi Network says a third of the country can’t get decent broadband and on this basis this area should be first on the list for the NGA rollout. Talks about Final Third

Continue reading “Rural Broadband: The Tim Padfield Interviews”
Categories
End User internet piracy Regs

3 strikes has resulted in increased illegal downloading #digitalbritain

I caught this article in Sam Knows telling us that in France the number of people downloading content illegally has increased since the 3 strikes law was introduced.  One wonders if it has encouraged people to do more of it,  knowing that they can get away with it twice even if they are caught!!

Categories
End User internet media piracy Regs

Music Industry piling on the punches in final round of DEB big fight #digitalbritain

In the press today is a report that says “The growth of illegal file-sharing could cost European countries 1.2m jobs and 240bn euros (£215bn) by 2015”.

“the UK’s creative industries experienced losses of 1.4bn euros in 2008 because of piracy.”

Really, so where did that 1.4bn go? It certainly didn’t go into bank accounts (otherwise the ratios would be really healthy), it hasn’t been spent in the shops (or they wouldn’t be suffering) and its not been invested in anything (because that amount of investment would have been noticed?).

The basic maths works something like this:

Continue reading “Music Industry piling on the punches in final round of DEB big fight #digitalbritain”
Categories
broadband End User internet

FTTC Broadband – What Exactly Is It?

FTTC local architecture
FTTC local architecture

Readers who are somewhat unclear on FTTC broadband soon won’t be. Read on.

FTTC broadband exchange rollout posts have attracted a huge amount of interest on this blog. More so in fact than any other subject I have posted on. There is clearly a demand out there for the faster speeds.

There isn’t that much info out there on what the proposition actually is so I am happy to remedy this. The following spiel has been pinched from the BT Wholesale FTTC Handbook (thanks to BT for letting me do this) .  This is normally only provided to ISPs who are reselling the technology/solution.

As is the nature of these things I have had to simplify the wording but if you see some complex technospeak it is probable left over from the original text. I’m afraid there is no getting away from the acronyms. The diags are BT (Wholesale & Openreach) originals.

FTTC Intro

Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) utilises BT’s 21st Century Network.  If an ISP already offers ADSL2+ services based on

Continue reading “FTTC Broadband – What Exactly Is It?”
Categories
End User voip

Bang Bang you’re alive VoIP shootout

In case anyone is interested we are doing a VoIP shootout at Comms Business’ Convergence Summit North in Manchester tomorrow. This is a high speed high pressure job where you turn up, plug your kit in and expect it to work first time making phone calls.

It’s actually quite good fun, if somewhat pressure filled – the last time they did it two out of six contestants didn’t manage to get a call up and running. 

Anyone interested in watching should turn up at 14.45.  You will need to be quick on the draw to get a good seat.  Details can be found here.

Note it’s quite unusual to get a VoIP installation that doesn’t go fairly smoothly these days. Service Providers have got their act together, especially when it comes to understanding which bits of kit (routers, firewalls etc) can cause problems.  There is always the exception to the rule of course but as long as the installer knows what he is doing it is rarely anything that can’t be sorted.

Categories
End User voip

Bang Bang you're alive VoIP shootout

In case anyone is interested we are doing a VoIP shootout at Comms Business’ Convergence Summit North in Manchester tomorrow. This is a high speed high pressure job where you turn up, plug your kit in and expect it to work first time making phone calls.

It’s actually quite good fun, if somewhat pressure filled – the last time they did it two out of six contestants didn’t manage to get a call up and running. 

Anyone interested in watching should turn up at 14.45.  You will need to be quick on the draw to get a good seat.  Details can be found here.

Note it’s quite unusual to get a VoIP installation that doesn’t go fairly smoothly these days. Service Providers have got their act together, especially when it comes to understanding which bits of kit (routers, firewalls etc) can cause problems.  There is always the exception to the rule of course but as long as the installer knows what he is doing it is rarely anything that can’t be sorted.

Categories
Archived Business

2010 Graduate Training programme at Timico

This spring I’m looking to take on a graduate to work in the Network Operations team as part of the 2010 Graduate Training intake. I’ll put together a job spec but in the meantime if anyone knows of an engineering student about to sit his or her finals please point them my way.

This will be a great opportunity for an aspiring tecchie wanting to get into the internet industry.  Our NetOps team has challenging work thrown at them, not least because of the pace at which the company is growing.  Check out the Timico website for our credentials. I would expect the successful candidate to grow rapidly in knowledge and experience – far more so than if they were working for large slow moving organisations.

A wide variety of skills are needed in the Network Operations department of an ISP based around the core disciplines of network engineering, systems administration and software development.  Whoever joins us will get exposed to all three areas and probably begin to specialise downstream, based on progress and aptitude.

Interested persons can contact me directly by email at tref at timico.co.uk.

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

Lib Dems Spring Conf Emergency Motion against amendment 120A carried unanimously #digitalbritain

People closely following the Amendment 120A debate at the Lib Dem Spring Conference will already know that the Emergency Motion was carried unanimously (apart from one vote I understand).

I am reporting it here for the record and following on from yesterday’s short post announcing it. You can read a bit more on the Lib Dem website here.

The Digital Economy Bill is going right to the wire I feel.

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

Lib Dems to vote on Digital Economy Bill amendment 120A at spring conf this weekend #digitalbritain

An Emergency Motion against the Digital Economy Bill amendment 120A has been tabled at the Liberal Democrats Spring Conference in Manchester this weekend.

Obviously I’ll keep us all updated but it may make next week quite interesting on the Parliamentary front if the motion is carried.

Categories
Business piracy Regs

BPI thinks MI5 could scupper bits of Digital Economy Bill

The music industry thinks its prospects within the Digital Economy Bill are still good to middling with concerns over website blocking voiced by MI5 seen as a potential scupper.

A weekly newsletter sent by Music Industry representatives BPI to stakeholders such as Sony Music, Warner Brothers and EMI Music also discusses the results of a TalkTalk sponsored survey that finds that “71% of 18 – 34 year olds would continue to infringe copyright, in spite of the Bill provisions, and would use “undetectable methods” to do so”.

There is also the suggestion that MI5 might have helped pay for the survey!

Continue reading “BPI thinks MI5 could scupper bits of Digital Economy Bill”
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Business internet

Branson-Woodward-Beckham-Davies

Virgin Media Business threw a terrific launch party at the RIBA premises in Portland Place, London last night. Most of the ISP industry was there in one shape or form.

The hour’s worth of presentation (no such thing as a free launch party) wasn’t too onerous and the speech by rugby world cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward was entertaining – ask me how many F words he used when you see me next.

Continue reading “Branson-Woodward-Beckham-Davies”
Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

3 weeks to go to an election announcement is bad news for ISPs and democracy #DigitalBritain

It might be my naivety but I was surprised nay shocked at the ISPA Council meeting today. You must read all this post.

The informed betting is that the General Election is going to be on May 6th. The betting for the dissolution of Parliament is either the 1st or 8th April. Normally notice given is 6 weeks but I’m told that because the Labour Party is (allegedly) short of funds they only want a 4 week election campaign – eat yer heart out US of A. My bet is the 8th because they will all want a nice Easter break before the pitched battle to come.

The Government has confirmed that the Budget will be on 24th March (at 12.30pm for the detail minded – warm the TV up soon). Normally we might expect a week to be given for the media to digest and comment about what will presumably be a budget pitched to give us all as much of a feelgood factor as possible after the last year or two of financial hell/instability/crisis/disaster/nightmare/worry/prosperity (delete as appropriate).

Continue reading “3 weeks to go to an election announcement is bad news for ISPs and democracy #DigitalBritain”
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Business internet piracy Regs

Industry unites against 120A #DigitalBritain

News is distributed so quickly these days (thanks to us ISPs) that by the time us ISPs finish doing the day job and get around to writing up the blog it almost seems like old news already. However in the interest of completeness (ish) of content on trefor.net on the subject of the Digital Economy Bill I’m going to post it anyway.

Following on from my comments last week regarding the outrage amongst ISPs over clause 120A the industry has united and written a letter published in the FT this morning.  The signatories are a roll call of the heaviest hitters in the internet in the UK and include ISPA – drafts were circulated to us for comment on Monday.

It will be simply scandalous if 120A proceeds after this. Coincidentally and as a bit of an aside one of the consequences of 120A would be potentially to slow down the aforementioned lightening distribution of said news.  Half the websites concerned could be blocked!

To the letter

Categories
broadband Engineer internet media piracy Regs video

Cisco Drives Nail in Music Industry Coffin with CRS-3?

Most people won’t have given much thought as to how their email gets from A to B or how that video arrives from YouTube.  It just comes down the broadband connection which is plugged into the router next to the phone (or somewhere like that). Right?

Well today the worlds biggest router manufacturer, Cisco, announced their latest and greatest product.  It isn’t something that you will want to plug into your phone line though because it would take up most of the living room and there wouldn’t be enough room left for the sofa.

It would also be a bit of an overkill because this router, the CRS-3, is powerful enough to handle up to 322 Terabits1 per second, which  is roughly a hundred million times faster than the average UK broadband connection speed!

Continue reading “Cisco Drives Nail in Music Industry Coffin with CRS-3?”
Categories
Business piracy Regs

Is Pre-Release killing the music business? #Digital Britain

In the context of the debate going on over copyright protection in the Digital Economy Bill there is an interesting event happening tomorrow night at the Performing Rights Society in London.

Entitled  “Is Pre-Release Killing Our Business?” tomorrow’s discussion is centred around the fact that in order to raise awareness the music industry conducts promotional campaigns for up to three months before a CD is released.  This stimulates demand for a product that is not yet available and it only takes one promo copy of a CD to be pirated and loaded onto a P2P network for that CD to be freely available which of course eats into sales at launch.

Because of this industry bodies including ERA and the MMF are calling for abolition of pre-release windows in their entirety. Tomorrow night’s speakers including the BBC’s Head of Music for Radio 1 George Ergatoudis, Martin Talbot, MD of the Official Charts Company, Ben Drury of 7 Digital and Emily MacKay of the NME.

It just goes to show that the whole fight against music piracy is something that has to be conducted across many fronts.

More details on the Music Tank website here.

It strikes me that there are so many discussion points/arguments surrounding the Copyright aspects of the Digital Economy Bill that it will be worth collating them all in an easy to access format – watch this space.

Categories
broadband Business internet Regs

Broadband Access: Getting Sensible about Digital Britain

The government this week said that they hope to provide access to the Internet to over 7 million people who can’t get online today…by 2014.

You have to ask what’s the point!?

It’s so exciting when you come across announcements such as that made by the Government this week saying that they are attempting to get over 7 million people who can’t get online today, access to the internet. By 2014!

This is of course great news!

The plan is being underpinned by funding in a number of areas

Continue reading “Broadband Access: Getting Sensible about Digital Britain”
Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

Houston we have a problem – Digital Economy Bill amendment 120A #Digital Britain

The ISP industry is up in arms today as the House of Lords yesterday rushed through ill considered amendment 120A to the Digital Economy Bill proposing to allow rights holders to serve notice on ISPs to block access to sites considered by them (rightsholders) to have illegal content – music, movies, software etc.

This is a huge issue.  Rightsholders would be able to ask ISPs to block sites without a court order. If an ISP refuses and the rightsholder subsequently succeeds in getting a court injunction then the ISP will have to pay costs.

Continue reading “Houston we have a problem – Digital Economy Bill amendment 120A #Digital Britain”
Categories
End User internet

Bandwidth bandits – the story continues with the GoPro HD Hero

I have been raving about the Kodak zi8 but now enter the GoPro HD HERO stage left. This is a headcam that Ben, our head of NetOps, has bought this month to go snowboarding. Instead of holiday snaps he wants memories in 1080p HD on YouTube that all his mates can watch when he gets back. Black runs, off piste (on piste) etc etc etc.

This short 60 second video is a paltry 44MBytes. It’s a bandwidth bandit though because who knows how many fans

Continue reading “Bandwidth bandits – the story continues with the GoPro HD Hero”
Categories
Business internet mobile connectivity voip

What are ISPs doing about Voice?

The question is being asked “what are ISPs doing about voice?” This is particularly relevant as the market consolidates and B2B ISPs not only seek economies of scale but additional sources of revenues.

Timico was founded as a fully converged ISP from the outset. Early on we had to decide whether to simply white label services from other ISPs and ITSPs or do “get into manufacturing” and do it all ourselves.

At the outset there were no real white label VoIP options. You had to do it yourself. However there were plenty of ISPs providing Virtual ISP services.

Continue reading “What are ISPs doing about Voice?”
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Business internet mobile connectivity

Fixed Mobile Convergence needs a philosophical change amongst the mobile operator community

FMC is really the nirvana where all networks finally converge. We are already experiencing it with internet connectivity – I keep up to date with facebook, twitter (and, ahem, of course work and email) via the internet connection on my mobile phone. We use both WiFi and 3G/GPRS to do this and whilst service can be intermittent it does work and is reasonably ubiquitous.

Convergence of voice over fixed and mobile networks is really the final piece of the jigsaw. Since Timico started selling VoIP services around 5 years ago we have been looking at FMC solutions. These have all been based on WiFi for the mobile piece.

Continue reading “Fixed Mobile Convergence needs a philosophical change amongst the mobile operator community”
Categories
Business media

MP3 of the BBC interview re VONGA, fibre rates and the Digital Dales Colloquium

Trefor_Davies-Timico-BBC_Radio_Lincolnshire-1_March_09

Click on the above to hear the interview with William Wright on the BBC Lincolnshire Tech Spot on Monday March 1st.  Talk covers VONGA and the Digital Dales Colloquium including the problem of fibre rateable values.

Alternatively James Linton of Vegastream has uploaded it to YouTube which streams and might be easier for you.