Categories
Business internet Regs

Government stuff and the cost to ISPs

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
datacentre Engineer

Shock Horror – High Performance Laptop Costs $100m

Did you know that a state of the art supercomputer costs $100m?  The price never comes down with time – the speed just goes up. Today’s leading edge box — actually it’s a datacentre full of racks, not a single box — has over 1Petaflops of processing power.

Such is the progress of technology that in three years time this will not even be in the top 500 of supercomputer performances. At that point the maintenance costs also start to ramp up so your average supercomputer owner just bins it and buys another one. It’s what I’d do 🙂

What is also interesting is that today’s supercomputer processor speed flows down to the laptop of 12 years hence. So in 2021 you will get one hell of a bang for your buck. Whether you will need that much power to send emails and operate Word 2021 (or whatever it will be called then) is unlikely.

I guess the power will be usable for improved 3D HD graphics for gaming and TV but I’m not sure what other apps will need it.  Whole brain simulations on a laptop perhaps.  Build it and they will come…  It does point to a huge continued growth in network bandwidth usage.

Of course the laptop won’t cost $100m. I just put that in for effect! My guess is that all laptops will come free with subscription to network services.

Categories
broadband End User

Digital Divide Anglesey Style

Anglesey mobile broadband service

Pillaging mobile broadband service gold, they are!

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

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

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

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

Categories
End User engineering

Engineering at Bangor University

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Engineer internet security

Woke up this mornin and nearly got the IMP blues

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

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

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

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

Categories
End User social networking

Virtually there is no escape- parenting via Facebook

I just put one of my kids to bed via Facebook.  He had already been sent up to his room but I could see that he was still online  – almost certainly using the wifi connection on his iPod touch.

The IM conversation went like this:

Tref          oy

Tref          bed!

Joe           ok

Tref         goodnight

Joe          is offline

I know that the cynical amongst you will decry this as poor parenting but pshaw I say. It is modern life – location independent fatherhood.  There is still, however, no replacement for a real cuddle which is dispensed regardless of the age and sensitivities of the offspring.

Categories
Apps Engineer voip

Strictly Come X Factor needs British Talent – bring on the Media Resource Broker

It’s a fair bet that most punters enthusiastically ringing in to cast their votes on popular game shows don’t think about the network capacity problems they are creating! Typical Joe Public eh?

When someone dials in to one of these shows they make use of Media Servers in the telecommunications network. Typically Media Servers are boxes especially designed for a single purpose. There are a number of such types of server used by Telcos (and I count Timico amongst them) for specialist applications such as the aforementioned IVR based voting system and business services such as conference bridges.

The problem is that the kit used for voting is different to the kit used for conference calls and meetings. This means that expensive bits of kit lie idle in a network for much of the time. Conference bridges are used during working hours and TV Game Shows are on in the evenings (apparently 🙂 ). The surges in network demand prompted by game shows also results in sometimes between 10 and 100 times overprovisioning of capacity compared to the average state of affairs which exacerbates the costliness!

This is all about to change – watch out for the virtual network!

On Friday I met with Chris Boulton of NS Technologies at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport. Chris used to work in the Office of the CTO at Ubiquity Software, a Terry Matthews SIP company that was bought by Avaya couple of years or so ago and has a blue chip heritage in designing advanced IP communications networks infrastructure.

Chis is currently working on the Media Resource Broker. We are all used to the idea of running different applications on a PC or handheld device, or even games on a gaming box. Telecoms networks though have always been built using dedicated kit. The MRB changes this by allowing telcos to build networks that use standard platforms targetable at different applications according to demand at any given time.

So a box that is used as a conference bridge in the day can be used for voting out contestants in the evening. This will not only save huge amounts of money but also result in a flexible and scalable network architecture that can then quickly be applied to other functions, many of which will not even have been thought of yet.

We talk about doing things in the cloud but it is interesting to see that even infrastructure is moving in this direction.

The whole world is moving towards becoming virtualised. I can even see the day when the typical household will have a box under the stairs next to the gas and electricity meter that will be its network processing resource. This will bring with it huge opportunities in business.

It will also of course heighten our reliance on such resources and the Domesday scenario of when it all goes wrong becomes even more of an issue. But there again even that represents an opportunity…

Categories
Apps End User internet social networking

Google wave first thoughts – Grassroots Digitalbritain and the digitally excluded

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

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

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

Grassroots Digitalbritain wave
Grassroots Digitalbritain wave

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

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

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

Categories
Business piracy

Peer 2 Peer Piracy – good lord no!

Had a meeting with BIS this morning as the final opportunity to influence the forthcoming Digital Britain bill. Nothing was said really that hasn’t already been published somewhere. We will know the precise content in a couple of weeks.

There is an awful lot of detail that will have to be worked out and with only around 5 months or so until the notional date of the General Election there is, apart from the increasingly vociferous opposition from the ISP industry,  a concern that the time available is not enough to properly consider the bill.

Notwithstanding all that ISPs will have to start working very hard to make sure that all MPs fully understand the issues being debated/proposed here.

This includes Members of the House of Lords which of course introduces a whole new set of issues. What will their Lordships think of a Bill with a major tenet being Peer to Peer Piracy? It is just not the done thing old chap. The Upper House works on a strong basis of trust 🙂 . Seriously though the bill will have to go through the Lords and their Lordships are likely to be closely examining the privacy / consumer rights aspects of the legislation

Notwithstanding that bit of fun I thought it worth adding a few educational points to the debate at this late stage.

Firstly serious P2P illegal downloaders will just move to on to private encrypted networks/Newsgroups that hide your underlying network address and so make it hard to track you down. These do charge which might make it unattractive for Music Pirates wanting freebies. These sites are also unfortunately apparently often attract child pornographers and other lowlife.

If you don’t know anything about them check out the links below:

wikipedia NewsRazor UseNeXT

There is also a continued stream of information suggesting that those that do indulge in Music Piracy also spend more money than those that don’t. Check out the latest market research here.

Categories
Business voip

Job vacancy for VoIP network operations engineer – please retweet

I’m looking for a VoIP network engineer to join our expanding VoIP team.  The job entails assisting with the running of our Nortel A2E SIP platform, the development of new services, interoperability testing with vendors and other service providers, 3rd line support and, I’m sure, a plethora of other interesting and challenging tasks as we think of them.

VoIP is an important string to the communications bow these days. Timico is a VoIP operator rather than a White Label service provider reselling soneone else’s proposition. We probably don’t lead with VoIP in a large percentage of deals but the ability to provide VoIP services is becoming an important part of winning corporate Wide Area Network business.

For example it is fairly typical for a company to outsource the management of a few hundred sites’ connectivity to us.  They will then take advantage of the fact that  they now have an MPLS network and run VoIP between sites and to all their homeworkers.

If you want to join a company that is going placesdrop me a line with your CV or take a look at the Timico website.

PS it is always a risk posting a job ad on the blog – I get inundated with calls and emails from recruitment organisations! It is the cheapest way to advertise though.  Please retweet 🙂

Categories
Business Cloud google

Some Clouds are Better than Others

I’ve been thinking about clouds. It’s a very trendy thing to do at the moment. It’s something you notice about trade shows. A trade show will evolve its name in line with what the organisers think will bring in the punters.

For example in the UK “VoIP for Business” became “VoIP for Business incorporating Unified Communications” which then became “Unified Communications”. I fully expect Unified Communications to morph into “Unified Communications with cloudy bits”. It will probably be the same underlying list of exhibitors.

Anyway the popularity of the cloud buzzword is of course because the world is moving into the cloud. The cloud is still for most an ethereal place that is difficult to get the grey matter around. It appears on the advertising copy of so many vendors how do you decide how to take advantage of it. This is the case whether you are an end user, a business or a potential provider of cloud services.

Consumers will use a few branded services such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc. Business however needs something different, even it is just a better service level. So at the moment I think the business world is manoeuvring to understand how the bits of the fluffy jigsaw fit together.

They will end up dealing with specialist cloud integrators. This will provide the differentiation and some clouds will definitely stand out as being better than others.

As it stands you need to be able to keep your feet on the ground and head just above the clouds so that you can look around and see where these better clouds are starting to form 🙂

Categories
Business social networking

#140conf London discount offer

Anyone interested in going to this conf (see previous post) can get a discount via this link.

Categories
broadband Business internet

Talk with TalkTalk Technology Chairman Neil McArthur

TalkTalk fibre Broadband Technology

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Business internet

Economic stimulation would be a result of universal NGN investment

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

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

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

Categories
broadband Business internet

Parliament TV Digital Britain Stitch Up

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
End User internet social networking

Google Wave invite has arrived

Can’t say I’m not excited!

More when I do have something to say:-)

Categories
Business internet Regs

1995 flashback

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

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

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

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

Daily Express Guide to the Internet from 1995
Daily Express Guide to the Internet from 1995
Categories
Business social networking

#140conf London

Just got my ticket to Jeff Pulver’s #140 Characters Conference in London on 17th November.  This was a difficult one because it clashes with LINX67 which is the 15th anniversary meeting of the London Internet Exchange.

The #140 Character Conference has evolved very quickly from being a “twitter” event to what in my mind represents groundbreaking thought leadership in the area of real time internet communications. Having known Jeff for over 10 years I think this is a not to be missed event. Jeff tells me that London is the world capital for thought leadership in this space.

There is an interesting mix of  high profile speakers including Jeffrey Hayzlett (@JeffreyHayzlett) CMO of Kodak, Babs Rangaiah (@babs26) – Vice President, Global Comms Planning, Unilever and Stephen Fry (@stephenfry), celebrity actor and writer.

Check out the website here.

.

Categories
Business voip

SNOM out of the box plug and play

SNOM is a German manufacturer of SIP  telephony handsets and iPBXs. They were an early entrant into the SIP phone market. SNOM software was always good but in the early days their plastic let them down.

I met with the Sales team from SNOM today to take a look at their phones. I am looking at new ranges for the Small and Medium sized Business market.

What I saw was very impressive. The phone was plugged into the Power over Ethernet socket in one of our meeting rooms. I connected to it’s IP address using my laptop, plugged in my SIP credentials and I was making calls.  OK it took me two goes to get the format of the credentials right so that the phone would register but the onboard logs showed me where I had been going wrong and a simple tweak made it work.

I then set up my voicemail alert (the light that comes up on the phone when I have a voicemail) and a busy lamp field for one of the engineers. It took seconds. In those seconds I basically provisioned something that a SMB would regard as a useful telephone key system.

Gone are the days when setting up a phone would have been a complicated affair. Actually our customers don’t need to set up their IP phones – they come preconfigured.    My point is that this was a totally strange phone to that I got working in no time whatsoever without it being preconfigured.  This is a long way from where it was in the early days of the technology and of SNOM.

This is a serious case study of the power of open standards, in this case SIP.  Well done to SNOM.

Categories
Business social networking

#eComm Amsterdam

I am somewhat envious of my friends who made it to eComm in Amsterdam. It looks like a marvelous networking event and akin to the early days of the pulver.com VON conferences.

VON was, before VoIP became mainstream, a great place to network with people involved in emerging technology. eComm looks to have taken over its mantle.  You can check out the website here and catch up with the Twitter stream at #eComm.

In fact I think I’ll stick one in the blog.

Categories
dns Engineer internet ipv6

IPv6 DNS progress

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

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

For those of you that know these things:

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

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

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

Categories
Business internet

Geocities closes today

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

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

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

Categories
Business piracy

TalkTalk pr campaign against Mandelson Digital Britain stance

Carphone Warehouse’s consumer ISP TalkTalk seems to have stolen a march on its rivals with a PR campaign against the Government’s stance on Music Piracy.  This is where Lord Mandelson wants to disconnect persistent illegal downloaders from the internet.

TalkTalk has done a great job with the campaign website, also available via the domain name dontdisconnect.us.

It must be said that this is a sterling effort on their part to even up the balance on the huge lobbying campaign conducted by the music industry on this subject.

Categories
Business internet security

Government confirms it won’t mandate IWF list

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Business internet security

Government confirms it won't mandate IWF list

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Business internet piracy

ISPs meet with Lord Mandelson to discuss P2P

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

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

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

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

Categories
Engineer internet

Hyperconnectivity – modern monitor stands

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

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

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

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

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

The 96 port switched desktop monitor stand
The 96 port switched desktop monitor stand
Categories
Archived Business

Deloitte Technology Fast 50 top ten spot for Timico

Today’s hot topic is that Timico came in the top ten of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.  Hooray 🙂

Deloitte Technology Fast 50, one of the UK’s foremost technology award programmes, is a ranking of the country’s 50 fastest-growing technology companies based on percentage growth over five years. It’s our first year in this list because we have only been going five years.

I’m not sure I have anything else to say on this one really. It’s an exciting ride, if exhausting at times.  What I can say is that we are just in the middle of planning next year’s network upgrades and I can tell you that 2010 is going to be even more exciting.

…and don’t go thinking I’m the sort of person who gets easily excited 🙂

Categories
Archived Business

Timico conference wrap up

I’d just like to thank all who came to the Timico conference at Stapleford Park in Leicestershire on Wednesday.  This is an annual event that we hold to get closer to our customers and to brief them on up and coming technologies and products.

We crammed 120 or so guests into the Grand Hall at the hotel and had a mix of both internal and external speakers.  I would particularly like to thank Dennis Turner, Chief Economist at HSBC bank,  Nigel Scott, Director of Customer Engagement at BT and  David Hiscock, Director of Product Management of the Nortel Carrier business for their valuable contribution and insights on the day.

Dennis Turner in particular made a bold prediction that he recession would end and lo and behold I woke up this morning to the BBC news telling me it had done so!  What  foresight!  I’m thinking I might even change banks to HSBC – provided they can agree to my suitably large overdraft requirements  🙂

Stapleford Park, luxury country house hotel and scene of the Timico 2009 customer conference
Stapleford Park, luxury country house hotel and scene of the Timico 2009 customer conference

Footnote: Friday’s news regarding the recession is somewhat more sombre – in fact the economy shrank by 0.4% over the last quarter.  Perhaps I’ll stick with my existing bank!

Categories
Engineer internet

Netsumo NOC helter skelter

Paid a visit to Netsumo’s Network Operations Centre today with Ben, our Head of Network Operations. We are looking around at best practice in NOC design and it is always a pleasure to spend time with Netsumo CTO Andy Davidson.

Andy is one of life’s genuinely nice guys and very knowledgeable in the Internet Networking space. Netsumo is based at state of the art office facilities at Electric Works in Sheffield and operates over 30 networks on behalf of is customers. The company represents the epitome of best practice for network operations in the UK.

Like all good technical businesses Netsumo looks after its engineers and the working environment is second to none. At centre stage of this is a four storey helter skelter that transports staff to the ground floor in seconds.

Of course we had to try it out – see photos below.

Andy tells us that the helter skelter has two functions. Firstly it is used for rapid deployment of engineers when on an urgent call out. Secondly it is used for rapid deployment of engineers when off to the pub after work. Both are laudible objectives I’m sure most will agree.

netsumo3netsumo1Pics are a little small – I uploaded them to Facebook from my mobile and that is how they turned out!netsumo2