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 (more…)
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.
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.
Timico top performing salesperson Jo Barker shows off her new Audi R8. I’m told it does over 200mph but Jo assures me that she has set the cruise control to never go over 70mph.
Personally a car is no use to me if you can’t get a set of golf clubs in it – doesn’t look very practical to me!
Great day out meeting the Network Operation team at NewNet HQ in Fareham. In making this acquisition Timico will look to maximise the benefits to both businesses and just as importantly, to their customers.
This is the first of many get-togethers planned with the NewNet team to extract these benefits. Today we just discussed each others’ networks and looked at potential quick wins in terms of improvements and cost savings.
I’ll post separately on progress with these improvements as they happen. In fact I’m planning on making this a diary of this process so that readers can effectively watch it happening from the comfort of their browsers.
It should be interesting for people to see what goes on “under the bonnet (hood)” of an ISP.
The photo is of the NewNet network operations team with some of the Timico crowd at the meeting in Fareham today.
Iam pleased to announce sponsorship of the first Digital Dales Colloquium of 2010. Entitled “Making the Final Third Happen”, the meeting will take place at Timico’s Newark Headquarters on Friday February 26th.
Digital Dales events are key get-togethers for stakeholders in rural community broadband projects. They attract a wide range of participants including MPs, the media (including the BBC), equipment vendors, service providers, local authorities, community leaders and of course end users.
With the Digital Economy Bill currently very much in the news, and a March 1st meeting scheduled between the Broadband Stakeholders Group and the Valuation Office Agency to discuss Property Tax this February meeting is very timely. Rates on fibre connections are seen as a major obstacle to making rural broadband an economic proposition.
Also on the agenda will be a progress report on the FTTC Virgin Media trials in Cornwall, an overview of ongoing projects in the USA, a proposal by Dr Charles Trotman of the Countryside Landowners Association on collaborative approaches to the Rural Broadband problem, and feedback from Lindsey Annison on innovative funding options.
The sponsorship of the Digital Dales Colloquium is very much part of Timico as a service provider living up to our social responsibility. No one organisation is going to solve the problem of the “Digital Divide” but if we can all make a contribution then it will make a difference.
Check out more details on the Colloquium including how to sign up here.
I don’t generally use this blog as a vehicle to promote my employer, Timico. On this occasion though we have hit the news with the acquisition of Fareham based ISP NewNet.
“Uhuh” do I hear you say? Well there are a few points worth making.
Firstly there is an ongoing consolidation happening in the maturing ISP industry. We are seeing it at the top level, most recently with Carphone Warehouse’s purchase of Tiscali, and also in what might be termed as the Tier2 level in which Timico now operates.
Many companies in the mid size space have already been gobbled up by the biggies on their way to building market share: plus.net, bulldog, pipex et al spring to mind.
A void has to some extent appeared in the market for provision of quality ISP services to UK businesses. Many of those who used to do it are now part of big corporations where low cost is the most important issue, not customer service. Some have stayed independent, Zen being the obvious name that springs to mind, but their number is dwindling.
The challenge for ISPs addressing the business market is how to be able to sustain the necessary investment in infrastructure (eg MPLS, 10GigE, storage/cloud) and also to maintain the high levels of support demanded by a business customer whose internet connection has become mission critical.
Most ISPs in the UK today are still small operators whose idea of 24×7 operation is to give out the mobile number of the owner to a customer, or simply not to offer the service. This is neither scalable nor in the main satisfactory.
The Timico acquisition of NewNet makes great sense all round. Both companies have the same customer focussed culture, focussing on high levels of service. NewNet considerably extends the Timico capability in terms of co-location and hosting. Timico brings to NewNet a range of fixed line and mobile services and the combined entity is very much greater than sum of the parts.
All exciting stuff and more, I’m sure, anon.
Somewhat a digression from my normal postings but a worthwhile one. Timico VoIP operations engineer Wayne Mills-Kidals is taking part in the 2010 Mongol Rally.
This is a race from the UK to Mongolia and takes him through Europe, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kyrgystan, Russia, and no doubt a few more countries until he finally arrives at Ulan Batar four weeks (hopefully) later.
He doesn’t go until the summer but is looking for sponsors – the purpose of the trip is to raise money for the Christina Noble Children’s foundation. Anyone interested can check him out on his by-jimny website.
As an aside Wayne was born with a network connection in his mouth instead of a silver spoon. We will be able to follow his progress online – more anon.
Post present delivery massage for Santa
When Santa has finished for the day (night) he goes in for some well deserved relaxation. In this case Timico was pleased to be able to offer him a massage. We had a team of therapists, masseuses and beauticians in yesterday to give the staff a bit of a Christmas treat and luckily for Santa it happened on the same day as his visit. It’s a tough old game.
Note part of his outfit visible on the chair.
Santa made it to Timico early this year – some vids below include him meeting some of the staff – they have all been good boys and girls in 2009.
Santa visits the sales floor
Santa visits the Network Operations team
