Categories
Cloud Engineer internet

Virtual Machines

I’m doing some research into Virtual Machines, storage trends and cloud computing. I’d be interested in hearing from people who use these services, thinking about using them or from software vendors offering solutions in this space.

I’m particularly interested in who is using such products in the UK. Timico already offers these types of services but I’m looking at expanding this area of activity and would welcome input with product definition and market segmentation.

Anyone wanting to contact me can either just leave a comment on this post or email me (tref at timico.co.uk) and I will happily call them back.  Thanks in advance.

Categories
Business internet

How the Internet can help you through the credit crunch

Article written by yours truly for this month’s Federation of Small Businesses “Business Network” magazine, reproduced herein case you didn’t get your copy.

The last year has been a tough one if you are in business in the UK and preservation of cash has been foremost in the minds of most managers. Companies that emerge successfully at the other end of the downturn will be not only be those that have saved costs but also those nimble enough to position themselves for growth during the new cycle.

Often this means adopting new technology that can improve efficiency as well as saving money. In today’s terms this means moving towards being an “online” business. This doesn’t just mean having an attractive website. It means moving some of the functions of your business into the internet “cloud” thereby reducing costs and increasing productivity.

Typically this also involves moving to a subscription based model with low capital outlay and the ability to scale up or down as your business needs it. The vast majority of applications needed by business today are available either free or via a rental model on the internet.

VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol, as the name suggests, makes use of internet technology to make phone calls rather than the old fashioned telephone network. No longer an emerging technology VoIP has gone mainstream in a big way and is now used by tens of thousands of businesses in the UK.

During the recession sales of office phone systems have plummeted. People have just stopped buying. Businesses have instead been turning to “hosted VoIP” solutions.

Hosted VoIP is where the phone system is held remotely, typically at a secure datacenter in London’s Docklands. Instead of buying a box to sit in the corner of your office you just rent the service off an Internet Telephony Service Provider, of which there are over 100 now in the UK. All a small business needs is a broadband connection.

Hosted VoIP allows a business the flexibility to grow without having to invest in expensive systems. They are also ideal for companies with home workers (eg sales people) or people who like to work from home sometimes which, with today’s environmental concerns and the cost of fuel, is increasingly becoming a trend. A home worker gets the same service as if he was in the office and calls between extensions are free wherever they are.

eMail
eMail was one of the first internet applications to be adopted by business. Historically for small businesses basic email was provided by their Internet Service Provider. Big business bought its own, highly functional email system, normally Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes.

Nowadays this differentiator has disappeared. With hosted Exchange and Hosted Blackberry even one man bands can now have the same high end email and mobile email function as the biggest corporation.

If you don’t want to pay anything and provided you don’t want to use your own company domain name you can also use free email and calendar services such as those provided by Google et al.

Web based marketing
Web based marketing, as stated earlier, no longer means putting up a website and counting the vists. It must encompass many strands including lead generation and online ordering, (ie eCommerce).

Companies would also do well to harness the power of new Web2.0 facilities such as Facebook and Twitter. Large companies employ staff just to manage the company’s Facebook and Twitter presence. Dell, for example, is proactive in seeking out people commenting, good and bad, on the company’s products and services. Dell contacts the complainants and find out how they could improve the customer experience.

This needn’t mean employing dedicated staff. It might means as little as setting up a Facebook page to advertise a specific product or service.

There are some very high profile business successes where Facebook has been used to market a product. Animoto, for example, was a startup offering an unique photo album service. Customers upload their photos and Animoto’s system sets them to music in a slide show that is totally different for every customer.

Animoto used Amazon’s cloud computing service to host their system. Within 48 hours of advertising their service on Facebook the rush of new customers meant that they had to scale up their use of Amazon’s cloud based “virtual” computers from 30 machines to 4,000.

Cloud computing
This use of the internet by what was a small business meant that Animoto could grow their system without having to make the risky capital investment up front. The same rationale can be applied to storing your company’s vital data. Many members of the FSB will be too small to have their own IT resource. Subscribing to an online backup service can bring huge peace of mind. The ability to quickly recover data from a crashed PC could make or break a business.

Whatever tactics you employ to survive the credit crunch it is clear that the internet should have a big part to play in your plans.

Categories
Business internet ofcom Regs

Ofcom report indicates reduction in music downloading

The Communications Market Report published by Ofcom yesterday has thrown up some interesting stats in subject areas regularly commented on in this blog.

For example Ofcom says that there is an overall reduction in the number of people downloading music and videos.  This overall decrease is only 1% but the number is marked in certain age groups.  15 – 24 year olds are downloading 8% fewer files and the maturer 25 – 44 age group is at it 5% less.

Now there is nothing to say that all these downloads are against the law but this must surely point to an overall reduction in illegal P2P filesharing which must in large part be down to all the high profile activity in this space of Feargal Sharkey and UK music. Any comment Feargal?

There is an awful lot of work left to be done in this area and it is going to be the subject of discussion for some years to come.  Ofcom’s chart purloined below – click twice to get a better res view.

ofcom09

Note downloading has increased amongst older folks. One imagines this age group is less likelyto illegally fileshare. Also note increase in uploading content.  This is going to be a driver for Next Gen broadband as currently being rolled out by Virgin and trialled by BT.

Categories
Engineer internet social networking

Twitter downed by ddos attack

I have to apologise to Dave Ward who manages the firewall at Timico HQ in Newark.  I complained to him that he was blocking me from accessing Twitter and he scurried off to check having denied it all. (it’s not a criminal offence in my book anyway).

I just read that Twitter was this afternoon hit by a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack which took out the service for a few hours from around 2pm.  Sorry Dave.  Whenever I publish a blog post Wordpress automatically sends a tweet on the subject which in turn updates my Facebook status. What would we do without Twitter eh?

Categories
Business internet net neutrality voip

Net neutrality, Skype and Commissioner Reding

Continuing with the theme of reports I’ve been reading the EuroISPA report that comes across my desk every month. Like it or not when the EC magisterially waves its authoritative hand we do feel the ripples in the UK.

This month in response to a parliamentary question on T-Mobile blocking Skype over broadband networks in Germany, Commissioner Reding, interestingly, referred to the provision of the Universal Directive, namely art. 2(3), whereby National Regulatory Authorities are empowered to intervene by setting minimum quality of service requirements for network transmission services, “as an additional safeguard in instances where competitive forces alone, are not enough to safeguard the openness of the Internet”.

If you’re like me your mind goes blank when you read all this regulatory jargon.  However with this one we need to note that in the pursuit of net neutrality, which as a consumer I’m all for, setting minimum quality of service levels requirements on ISPs is going to cost money. Skype should not be blocked by anyone but neither should ISPs be obliged to prioritise Skype traffic without someone footing the bill.

By the way you can use Skype to your heart’s content on the Timico network though most of our business VoIP customers chose to use our own VoIP service.

Categories
Business ofcom Regs voip

Ofcom today published its annual Communications Market Report

Ofcom today published its annual Communications Market Report. At 334 pages long it is a bit of a read but actually, at least if you are in the industry, it is very much worth ploughing through it.  It usually produces lots of interesting material to comment about so I’m probably going to pick and chose a few subjects dear to my heart over the next few days.

Last year the industry had cause to complain big time regarding Ofcom’s measurement of the growth of the VoIP market. In fact I met with the regulator to discuss this very subject earlier in the summer.

This year the report highlights the increasing popularity of VoIP, with evidence showing a growing awareness and take up of the service. According to the research, the number of UK adults using VoIP in Q1 2009 has risen to 12% and 60% of UK adults claim to know about VoIP.

The report does accept that most UK adults do not use the service citing reasons such as insufficient understanding on how it’s used, quality of service issues and competition from low-priced fixed and mobile telecoms services. However Ofcom stresses that many users are unlikely to realise that they are using VoIP technology, e.g. the BT home hub phone, and therefore usage is likely to be higher than the report suggests.

The reports also highlights a decline in the total number of UK fixed lines which is attributed to greater availability of alternative forms of communication including VoIP. The use of VoIP was also one reason attributed to the growth in business voice call volumes by 2.1% in 2008 to 89.1 billion minutes.

It is clear from the report that Ofcom are still unable to obtain genuine statistics of VoIP take-up from their current market research but at least it is progress over last year.

More when the day job allows.

Categories
broadband Business

Post Office Tower

I have to extend my thanks to BT who were my hosts atop the BT Tower in London yesterday.  It was a beautiful afternoon with great visibility of all of London’s well known landmarks.

It is also a stunning place for corporate hospitality and the food was as good as you would find in any top restaurant. We took some important PWAN customers along and had a very useful working lunch. What’s more we had it for our own exclusive use!

Members of the public are not allowed up these days so one of the few ways you can get there is by becoming a Timico customer ! 🙂 . 

Special thanks go to Victoria Bradley at BT Wholesale who is a class apart as an account manager.

Categories
Business internet

Situations vacant

I’m looking at taking on a product manager with a background in the ISP industry. This is part of Timico’s evolution as a communications provider where our focus is increasingly on managed internet services.  This could be a job for a literate engineer looking to expand their horizons into the business side of things. I’m also looking to expand our project management team.

If you fancy a chat about this drop me a line at Timico or give me a ring.

Categories
broadband Business internet Regs

Stephen Timms MP to Become the New Communications Minister

Stephen Timms MP Digital Britain broadband

Stephen Timms brings significant telecommunications industry experience to his new Communications Minister role.

I understand that Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP is set to become the new Communications Minister, with responsibility for taking forward the recommendations of the Digital Britain broadband review. The position had been vacated when Lord Carter stepped down following the publication of the Review. It is likely that the role will change slightly, given that Mr Timms will sit jointly across the Department for Business and the Treasury, whereas Lord Carter’s position sat jointly across the Department for Business and the DCMS.

A former Internet Hero at the ISPAs, Stephen Timms brings significant experience to the role having worked in the telecommunications industry before entering Parliament and having previously served as a Minister with responsibility for e-Commerce at the DTI and BERR.

Whether the treasury connection will have any relevance remains to be seen.  I see one of the biggest challenges for this Government is going to be how it faces up to the need to invest massively in the Next Generation Access network (ie fibre).

Whilst I was on holiday I visited my in laws in Liverpool. Grandad had saved me an article from the local paper describing the outcry amongst Liverpudlian councillors when they found that BT’s initial £1,5m investment in Fibre To The Cabinet was not going to be gracing their fair city with it’s presence whilst favouring local rivals Manchester.  Nonsense I cried and reached for my BT FTTC broadband rollout map (never go anywhere without it).

To my surprise, he was right. All the dots identifying the initial (spring 2010) roll out sites come no closer than Altrincham. The good burghers of Liverpool should not feel that they have been singled out, because there will be huge swathes of the UK left out in the high speed broadband cold.  I don’t for a moment blame BT, although I’m sure that competition from Virgin will in due course give them a bit of a prod in the right direction.

This is why I say that the Government has a lot to do in this space, and why I wish Stephen Timms every success in his new role.

Categories
Business Cloud storage backup & dr

Cloud Computing Summit – Martin Bellamy to Speak

The Cloud Computing Summit got my attention, and it should have yours, too.

I don’t typically go around endorsing conferences and trade shows, but this one looks quite interesting. What caught my eye initially was the fact that Martin Bellamy — the Government’s “Cloud Computing boss” — is speaking.  It was certainly news to me that the Government had such a person, though looking at his bio he is actually Director, Office of the Government Chief Information Officer Cabinet Office.

I have a feeling that I will be writing a lot on the subject of cloud computing during the coming months. It is starting to come of age and certainly arousing interest amongst our customers. The conference is being organised by BusinessCloud9.

In a similar vein worth a read is this arcticle published by The Register last week. It’s all based on the same general principle, call it what you like, cloud computing or virtualisation.

Categories
Business Cloud storage backup & dr

Storage trends

I thought it would be interesting to look at storage requirement trends. This isn’t based on anything scientific other than a look at my own personal photo storage needs over the last few years.
storage1
The first 2009 datapoint is August 2nd and the second is an extrapolation to year end. I don’t know what happened to the file sizes in 2007.  There is otherwise a trend to be seen.
It would be interesting to see whether anyone else has similar, not necessarily scientific, data to share. If you email me at tref at trefor.net or leave a comment I’ll try and compile the results, assuming there are any.
Categories
Business travel

Out of office

My out off office is now officially on as I take the family away for annual leave in the sunny Isle of Man.

During this time it is unlikely that I will be writing posts but you can keep up with me on facebook if you want to.

PS I know that I have only just had a week in South Africa playing rugby.  That wasn’t a holiday.  It was a life enriching experience that boys sometimes just have to do.

Categories
Engineer internet spam

Anti spam best practice

You may have noted the spam theme of my posts this week.  This is because we are in the process of upgrading our anti spam capabilities. The management of spam is a hugely complex process and involves many factors contributing to a scorecard against which an email is rated.

 

There is a general set of principles that the industry could apply that would make it a lot harder for spammers. Unfortunately many ISPs seem to the fairly lenient with their customers about how they set up their email services and are prepared to accept mail from poorly configured mail servers.

 

For example most spam comes from compromised Windows computers at residential or business premises.  When a host connects, ie when a mail is being set up for sending, it should perform a HELO with it’s fully qualified domain name (FQDN) as specified in RFCs (industry standards or standards in waiting).  The sender sometimes lies and presents a fake or incorrect HELO string, which can be used to judge the validity of the sending server. The string given at HELO time should have forward and reverse DNS that matches. 

 

Additionally, the reverse DNS of the sending host could be considered.  If there is no reverse DNS, it’s very unlikely that the mail is legitimate, and should be rejected.  If the reverse DNS makes it clear that the sending host is within a DSL pool, ie at the user premises at the end of an ADSL line rather than an ISP’s mail server, this could also be taken into consideration when it comes to scoring.

 

A genuine Reverse DNS might look like mail.timico.net whereas a corresponding ADSL based DNS, (and therefore likely to be the source of spam), would be xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.adsl.timico.net where the x’s represent the ip address.

 

Another technique in the fight against spam is to rate limit emails from users. In other words to apply a policy controlling a maximum number of emails an individual can send in a day.  A rate limit for a residential user might be 200 mails a day for example.  It is unlikely that the residential user will send more than 10 or 20 mails in a day.  A compromised machine may, however, send thousands in the same time period. The rate limit would prevent this. 

 

Customers with a genuine need to send more emails than the limit can easily be accommodated.  The limit is there to protect the user rather than to stop them sending emails. The spam being sent would normally be caught here anyway but this technique does at least minimize the load on spam filters.

 

The factors taken into consideration in spam scoring systems are not normally made public domain because to do so would just help spammers.

Categories
Engineer spam

More spam

As an update from yesterday’s post the botnet attacks are getting even more frequent. I’ll post some notes tomorrow on best practice for ISPs contending with spam. You can see the increase in frequency and intensity over yesterday. Some crook somewhere has obviously decided on a new “marketing campaign”.

mail-darktues

Categories
Engineer internet spam

Spam attacks

I sometimes sit and watch SPAM attacks coming in on our mail servers. ISPs are constantly having to ward off spam. It is like being in a cyber war. What is mind boggling is that sheer volume. The chart below shows unwanted mail below the x axis and legitimate stuff above.

You can barely make out the legitimate mail because in the scale it is dwarfed by the spam. It is also interesting to observe that the attacks come in waves.  You can see the major incoming waves on Sunday evening followed by periodic smaller attacks which appear to be the work of botnets.

This spam is of course not passed on to our customers who pay us for a premium service. You can zoom in by clicking a couple of times on the picture.

mail-dark1

Categories
Business internet

ISPA wins award for raising industry standards

The Internet Services Provider Association has been announced as the winner of  Nominet’s Best Practice Awards in the Raising Industry Standards category. The awards recognise organisations that have embraced the challenge of making the Internet a secure, open, accessible and diverse experience for all.

The ‘Raising Industry Standards’ category honours organisations that promote high standards of ethics in business, deliver an exceptional standard of customer service to online customers, promote Corporate Social Responsibility within the Internet industry and take a leading role in developing consumer confidence in the Internet.

ISPA was able to prove that it has worked with members to ensure high standards through adherence to the mandatory Code of Practice and voluntary Best Practice documents. ISPA further cited its cooperation with Government in promoting effective self-regulation and its third party dispute resolution service for consumers as examples of raising standards in the sector.

I pinched that spiel from the ISPA website but I have to say I am proud to be involved with this activity.  The ISPA is a very well run professional  trade association which does a great deal of good work for the industry.

Nominet, for those of you who have never registered your own .uk domain name, manages all the UK’s domain names(eg .co.uk, .org.uk).  Last time I looked there were around 8 million of these. The day will come where everyone will have their own domain name. If anyone is interested, in my will  in  I am leaving trefor.net to my 9 year old. Funnily enough at this time he isn’t quite sure that this is a good thing.  He will come around to my view in time.

Categories
Business scams

Phorm fails

I read on Monday that BT had abandoned Phorm. I didn’t consider this worth commenting on. Today I see that Talk Talk has also dropped the behavioural advertising company.

From a consumer’s perspective I say hooray. As an ISP I don’t have a big enough business to make the Phorm business model work so I haven’t had the moral dilemma myself.  Apparently BT has said it has nothing to do with the furore over privacy rights but I doubt that anyone believes this.

Phorm is now having to say that it is concentrating on faster moving markets such as Korea and talks about live trials with Korea Telecom.  All I can say is that for it to work Korea Telecom has to have a thicker skin than any western based ISP.  Perhaps there isn’t the same privacy rights activity  in Asia.

Categories
Business events

ISPA council meeting, AGM and Awards do

Busy day tomorrow so I thought I’d get this post in today because I certainly won’t be writing anything during the ISPA Awards.

At 10am I have an ISPA council meeting, followed by the AGM at 12.15 and the annual ISPA Awards bash in the evening.  I haven’t been to this event before so I am looking forward to it, especially as Timico is a finalist in the “Best Business Customer Service” category.

I’ll let you know how we get on plus any publishable/non-incriminating  photos from the night.

It’s also  the Nominet AGM today so if I have any feedback from that I’ll let you know.

Categories
broadband Business

Broadband Network Traffic Peaks

I have occasionally written posts concerning the rise in internet traffic when there have been major world events.  Of course this included last week’s Wimbledon antics.

I thought it would be interesting for people to see an overlay in broadband network traffic week on week to see what a “normal” week would look like compared to a high traffic week.

The chart below shows last week’s Wimbledon peak traffic profile in the slightly lighter grey compared with the previous week’s.

wimbledon1

It’s a bit dark but if you click on the image a couple of times you should get a large enough view to see that when “our Andy” took to the court on Friday the traffic shot up by 30% compared to the same time last week.

The purple line at the botton represents an old low capacity 155Mbps BT Central pipe that is being decommissioned next month.  These older pipes struggle to cope with high network demand.  The 155 is being replaced with more 622 capacity.

Categories
Business travel

40 years since 1st moon landing

As I drove in to work this morning I heard a BBC Radio 4 interview with 2nd man on the moon Buzz Aldrin. Part of it included playback of the telephone conversation the astronauts had with President Richard Nixon who emphasised that he was using the telephone in the Oval Office to make the call. Of course this was a technological marvel at the time.

I actually met Buzz Aldrin 15 years ago on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the moon landings. What struck me was the high calibre of everyone involved with the Apollo missions.

The technology they used was so basic that the astronauts had to pilot the spacecraft manually. None of this onboard guidance computer stuff. In fact my Nokia phone now  has much more computing power than did the whole mission to the moon.

Buzz described to me the way that they flew the lunar landing craft by hand across the moon’s surface until they spotted somewhere suitable to land.  The whole mission was balanced on a knife edge as the lander only had 40 seconds of fuel left before they had to abort the landing.  Fortunately, as we now all know, they spotted a landing spot and took it down.

The missions to the moon were the catalyst that set in train the whole semiconductor industry and brought about the technological revolution that is still going on today. One small step for man, one massive leap for technology.

I had my photo taken with Buzz at that event 15 years ago.  If I can find it I’ll scan it in and post it here. I wonder if he remembers me ?:-)

Categories
broadband Business internet

Andy Murray Drives Broadband Network to a New High

Our broadband network usage hit a new high yesterday as Andy Murray wallopped Juan Carlos Ferrero in straight sets at Wimbledon.  The peak remained at a constant high between 4 and 5pm, at which point presumably everyone left the office and watched it at home because the network traffic dropped right off.

My understanding is that whilst an ISP’s network might well have been able to cope with the added traffic levels some problems were caused at  local exchange level where virtual paths were seeing congestion. The virtual path is the backhaul from exchange into the BT network and on to the internet, and in this case to the BBC website.

BT’s new 21CN network should be better placed to withstand this sort of traffic burst.

Expect another peak when “our Andy” plays in the semi final.  I feel as if I have known him all my life :-).

Categories
Business social networking

Last post for a week but twitter updates will keep coming

I’m off on rugby tour to South Africa tomorrow so no blog posts until Thursday 2nd April at the very earliest. Not only would I not trust myself with a laptop on tour but I won’t actually have much time to write as we have a very busy schedule.

That isn’t to say though that the blog will be inactive.  On in the sidebar to the right of this post you will see a stream of tweets that will keep people posted re my progress.  Provided there is mobile phone coverage, and I can’t always be sure of that out in the wild, I will keep the updates coming including how I get on in the two matches we are playing.

You might also, if you are going to be watching the Lions v South Africa second test at Loftus Veersfeld on Saturday, keep your eyes open for me in the crowd.  Thanks to all those who have wished me well on this trip and I look forward to telling you all about it in person at some stage this summer.

I’ll post some pics on Facebook when I get back.

Categories
Business internet

Federer at the net attracts on net audience

Here we go again.  Wimbledon.  I never used to be a Wimbledon watcher but since taking my tennis playing son to see the tournament last year (Centre Court, Murray, Nadal, Venus Williams) I have changed my attitude.

This year I’m watching it from the office.  The web traffic that is.  At 13.00 hrs our network usage shot up and looking at it it is a mix of video streams that is making it happen. The same happened during Obama’s inaugural speech, this year’s budget speech (why?!) and last summer’s Olympics.

The effect is a bit like half time at an FA Cup Final when half the country gets up to make a cup of tea.  The other half of course gets up to go to the fridge to get another beer. Those kettles all going on at the same time ramps up the demand on the electricity network just like Roger Federer does for the internet.

I’m not really a football fan myself.  Come on Andy Murray!

Categories
datacentre Engineer

It’s all about wiring

Following my post on our fibre installation earlier in June The build of our new datacentre module in Newark continues.

Datacentres, whilst giving the appearance of being high tech,  are all about wiring and plumbing.  So I’m getting in the cable monkeys and plumbers.

Couple of photos below give you a feel for part of the process. Underfloor power connections to each rack space and a coil of fibre that might look innocuous but will carry the lifeblood of the datacentre, ie the data itself.

It makes me think of the pony express, or the old stage post mail system and how things have changed. I’m getting romantic in my old age.

cabling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fibre

 

Of course it will be tidied up a bit before we open for business.

Categories
datacentre Engineer

It's all about wiring

Following my post on our fibre installation earlier in June The build of our new datacentre module in Newark continues.

Datacentres, whilst giving the appearance of being high tech,  are all about wiring and plumbing.  So I’m getting in the cable monkeys and plumbers.

Couple of photos below give you a feel for part of the process. Underfloor power connections to each rack space and a coil of fibre that might look innocuous but will carry the lifeblood of the datacentre, ie the data itself.

It makes me think of the pony express, or the old stage post mail system and how things have changed. I’m getting romantic in my old age.

cabling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fibre

 

Of course it will be tidied up a bit before we open for business.

Categories
Business internet

ISPA Awards 2009 Internet Hero and Villain finalists

It’s worth looking at the heroes and villains finalists for this year’s ISPA Awards. The spiel that goes with each is an adequate summary of why they are in the list and needs no further comment from me. The heroes all deserve to win and the villains all deserve to lose.

On balance my vote goes to Stephen Carter for Hero. Whether he will have left a worthwhile legacy with the Digital Britain Report remains to be seen but at least he tried.

As far as Villains go I think they should all be locked up in the big brother house and the winner is the winner, if you know what I mean. Otherwise if I had to vote I’d go for Sarkozy because of the port blockades, air traffic controller strikes etc 🙂

Internet Hero

• Billy Bragg and the Featured Artists Coalition – “For recognising publicly that the focus of music companies should be the development of new business models for distributing content online rather than attempting to pass responsibility to ISPs to take action against users”

• Community Broadband Network – “For their relentless pursuit and support for next generation access at grass roots level”

• European Parliament – “For rejecting by a significant majority an amendment to the Telecom Package designed to allow disconnection of users’ Internet connections for alleged copyright infringement without direct judicial oversight”

• Lord Carter – “For his attempt to bring a holistic view to government policy across the communications spectrum”

• Thomas Gensemer – “For showcasing the enormous power of the Internet in leading Barack Obama’s online presidential campaign”

Internet Villain

• Baroness Vadera – “For excluding a number of ISPs and Rights Holders in agreeing a Memorandum of Understanding that was exclusive and ineffective in progressing relations between the two industries”

• European Parliament – “For supporting an amendment to the Telecom Package on cookies which could yet bring the Internet to a standstill”

• President Nicolas Sarkozy – “For his continued commitment to the HADOPI law, which advocates a system of graduated response, despite repeated arguments suggesting the law is disproportionate from a number of important groups including the European Parliament”

• Stephen Conroy and the Australian Government – “For continuing to promote network-level blocking despite significant national and international opposition”

Following the publication of the Digital Britain Report there was a late entry suggestion that Lord Carter might also appear as a Villain with his 50 pence tax on phone lines. This missed the deadline so he stays as just a goodie on the list.

Timico has a table at the ISPAs. Look me up if you are there.

Categories
Business internet

NGA funding in Digital Britain can only be a start

Two funding streams have been identified for the 2Mbps Universal Service Obligation and the longer term Next Generation Access  broadband. The 50 pence per analogue line will raise about £180m a year and the diversion of funds from the unused digital TV switchover fund will account for £200m.

I guess my point is that in last year’s Caio Report the NGA network was estimated to cost £29Bn and a large proportion of this would have been spent in areas that currently can’t get broadband and would be in the USO area.. The per line cost of providing 2Mbps is probably not much less than the 40 or 50Mbps talked about in NGA.

So the funding identified for USO can only be a start and there is a scenario where they might just as well go straight for the fast stuff.  It is good that the Government has recognised that the Digital Divide exists but they do need to do more.

Categories
broadband Business internet ofcom

Initial Take on Digital Britain Report

2Mbps Universal Service Obligation by 2012.
This is the minimum that people need to get into the game. In the report the government recognizes that whilst much of the country will shortly be getting access to faster broadband (aka BT 40Mbps Fibre To The Cabinet or 50Mbps Virgin cable) a significant chunk won’t, which will exacerbate the Digital Divide.

The Government is therefore looking to promote/fund the extension of this Next Generation Access network into these “excluded” areas. I have been saying that 2Mbps is not enough and it is good that the Government clearly recognizes this.

The funding for the rural Next Gen broadband access is likely to come from a complex variety of sources. It includes a new tax levied of 50 pence on every copper phone line. I assume it includes Virgin cable connections to keep the playing field level. This will have to be passed on to customers so the immediate effect is a rise in the cost of broadband. It will also add to the overheads of the ISP which has to collect it.

The funding collected will be available on a competitive tender basis. I would expect the Government to somehow identify specific projects for funding and make the moneys available for competitive bids. Otherwise someone with BT with the massive resources available to put specific projects together would cream all the cash.

Music Piracy
Two things to say here. The Government recognizes that access to legal means of downloading music needs to improve which reinforces what the ISP industry has been saying (note the many blog posts on this subject).

Secondly the Government also wants a more graduated approach to punishing illegal downloaders. The three strikes and you are out approach has been replaced much to everyone’s relief.

We now appear to be looking at a scenario whereby the ISP would send a letter to the end user informing them that they have been identified as offenders. The next step would be to throttle the bandwidth available to users indulging in this activity or block P2P. The final resort would be legal action.

A cautionary note here. Most ISPs cannot easily block P2P. Only those big consumer players typically have the kit that can do it. Are we looking at the same scenario as the Data Retention Act where the Government only expects an ISP to follow the law only if specifically asked. In this case the ISP would have to be funded to do it.

There is also a fairly significant onus on Ofcom to make all this happen which is going to be an interesting play. I imagine it will take no small level of resource which probably doesn’t currently exist.

All in all I think this is a good report.  There were always going to be difficulties with putting together a document with such a wide remit and I’m sure that as we get time to digest it other questions will arise.  However Lord Carter should be able to move on to his fresh challenges with a reasonable sense of satisfaction.

Categories
End User internet media piracy

94 percent say they would choose a legal music site over a pirate one

Bit of a long post title but this is the feedback from research conducted in June on consumer behaviour and preferences in respect of music downloading.  The research was commissioned by music site We7 and conducted on 2012 consumers aged 16 to 60 over 7 days in June 2009.

Its key findings make very interesting reading:

  • 46% of UK music fans do not understand how to legally consume music online
  • 64% do not know how to stream and share music legally
  • 85% of consumers are happy to listen to a short ad in exchange for unlimited access to free music that they can share with others
  • 94% say they would choose a legal music site over a pirate one if it had the same range of music and was easy to use
  • Women and those over 55 are least likely to stream – 85% say they don’t know how and are unlikely to try
    64% of 16-24 year olds share music with friends online and 71% know what streaming is but only 48% have ever tried it
  • Londoners and Bristolians are the biggest sharers of music online but only 39% and 46% respectively have ever streamed music. 
  • The majority of music buyers (78%) would buy the same or more music if they could listen to streamed music too, showing that the We7 model compliments the industry rather than cannibalises it

All this reinforces the ISP industry’s position that what we need is more legal ways for consumers to easily access music online.  7  million consumers can’t be criminals.  We7 is doing a great job pioneering this so thanks goes to Steve Purdham, and his team. 

Tonight I’m going to go home and listen to some free and legal music streaming online. Frank Sinatra methinks.

Categories
Business internet piracy

Virgin agrees anti-piracy music deal

Virgin has announced a deal with record label Universal that will provide unlimited access to the company’s music catalogue for a fixed monthly fee.  The level of this fee is as yet unnanounced but is reckoned to be the equivalent to the cost of two albums. The service will be available by Christmas 09.

The biggest aspect of this news is that Virgin has also undertaken to attempt to tackle the problem of online music piracy with the ulitmate disconnection a potential penalty for persistent offenders.  This appears to be a big step forward and is likely timed in advance of the Digital Britain report, delayed now until later this week.

This deal is likely to bring pressure to bear on other large consumer ISPs.  It does remain to be seen how the removal of broadband service from persistent pirates (to put it poetically) is handled.  This has been the one aspect of the debate that has had ISPs up in arms. They don’t want to be seen to be doing the police’s job.

The Virgin paid for model is of course different to the We7 advertising funded service discussed last week. The whole area is of a great deal of interest to many people.  My We7 posts get more hits than any other published item on this blog.  Helped no doubt by the fact that I have been giving away free We7 promotional codes :-).

If you want one let me know. I got a fresh batch in recently.