Tag: home

Categories
broadband Engineer

Evidence that video is driving home internet use

home broadband usage

Home broadband usage driven by TV streaming

Evidence is emerging of what applications are driving home broadband usage at the Davies house.

broadband usage wife at workThe two graphs presented herein for your entertainment and delight are of the broadband traffic over our Timico 80/20 FTTC line at home over the last two days – Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first graph shows very little happening during the day. As it happens my wife Anne was at work – she is a supply teacher. There isn’t that much going on in the evening either really although were were hitting 10Mbps at 10.30 pm.

DSL usage wife homeThe second graph shows the traffic when Anne was at home during the day. What a difference!

Most of the bursts are running at around 1.2Mbps and lasting between 30 minutes and two hours.

Now I happen to know that Anne, who always keeps herself busy, often has cookery programmes on during the day in the kitchen. There is so much to catch up on – Master Chef, Great British Bakeoff etc etc. She plays them on her iPad.

The bursts of traffic look very much as if they represent this kind of TV programme watching. Also interesting is the bandwidth required. It isn’t very much although I’m not sure what codecs were being used by iPlayer.

The other usage must basically represent everything else though the spike at 10.30 looks like a download – I know not what. All this just goes to show what this tinterweb thing is being used for. This is in no way an accusation that Anne sit around all day doing nothing – if you knew her you would know she is a very active person. I would however say that she was very representative of the average consumer even if I am not.

You can check out our home broadband data usage trend here.

Ciao bebe…

Categories
Business mobile connectivity UC

Working from home

It can be a joy to work at home. The sun filters through the canopy of sycamore trees that line the garden above the beech hedge. A gentle breeze occasionally nudges the conservatory doors, opened wide to take advantage of the absolute delight that is the peak of the British spring. Fresh garden smells mingle with happy birdsong.

It is natural on a day like this to want to work in comfortable clothing and my rugby shorts and very old Mitel VoIP tshirt fit the bill. Wouldn’t fit in with the office but that is ok. I’m at home this morning.

I’m off after lunch to Laandan to the Global Telecoms Business Awards where we are finalists with Genband in the Innovation category. It’s all about mobility. I have my Timico mobile VoIP client running on my Samsung Galaxy S4 on one side of the desk and a high quality business handset one the other. It is plugged in to one of the two Cat5 ports in the conservatory. I have Cat5 in all the rooms downstairs though I rarely use them other than to plug in a phone.

homework setupWhen my phone rings I normally answer the desktop handset. However the beauty of having the mobile client is that I can wander off to make a cup of tea in the kitchen and if the phone rings I answer it on the mobile instead of having to rush back to the conservatory.

I also use the mobile client when I’m out and about. It genuinely is useful, especially when I’m roaming overseas. The hotel (garret – cat swinging will cause injury to both parties) I’m staying at in town has free wifi. I’ll be able to use my work extension there and I’m pretty sure that the Park Lane Hotel where the bash is tonight also has free wifi though I doubt I will be able to hear the phone ring amongst all the noise of champagne cork popping and celebrations. You know what it’s like.

That’s all for now. Gotta go. Things to do & penguin suit to dig out.

Categories
competitions Engineer

winner of the most home networked devices is @NeilMcrae

Neil came in clearly ahead of everyone in the competition for who has the most home networked devices. He gets the mug. There were some great entries and it was all a bit of fun so I’m going to give everyone a fabulous Timico pen for entering. What’s more if you really want a mug you can have one of those too:)

Can everyone wishing to take possession of their prize (s) please email me their address and I’ll try and sort it out on Wednesday when I am next in the office.

PS don’t forget to sign up for the Trefor.net xmas bash. It’s gonna be a goodun.

The competition is now closed…

Categories
Engineer gadgets

Home networked devices

I took a look at my router yesterday, as you do, and counted 14 devices connected over WiFi and 4 over Ethernet.

WiFi included 4PCs/laptops, printer, 4 android phones, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Ethernet included my laptop, a VoIP phone and a couple of homeplug devices that hook up the XBox.

That’s not SoHo. That’s a small business. We certainly have the overheads:)

Categories
End User Regs surveillance & privacy

Draft Communications Data Bill – a summing up of why it is wrong

Home Secretary Theresa May launched the draft Communications Data Bill yesterday with an interview on the Radio 4 Today programme. She has also written a foreword to the Bill arguing why we need it.

I have already written arguments against why we should implement this act. All of my previous points remain and I will restate the two most important aspects here.

  • Firstly what is being proposed represents a serious threat to our privacy as a nation. The government wants to collect personal information about our private web browsing, phoning, email, tweeting, Facebook and all other internet related communications. They then want to store this information “securely” for one year so that it can be accessed buy anyone granted permission by senior police officers.

I refer you to last week’s LinkedIn password debacle where 6.5 million passwords being securely held on a server were stolen and published on a Russian website. The next time this could be details of websites you visit. It would happen if this Bill moved into law. Guaranteed.

  • Secondly the proposed measures will not catch those who the police et al are trying to catch. If you are hell bent on crime you will easily find ways of going undetected on the web.

Here I refer you to the recent court orders for ISPs to block access to Pirate Bay. One of my most visited blog posts this year and certainly high up on the list of search terms  covers how to bypass these blocks. The same will be true with criminals looking for anonymity.

I’ve been thinking of whether there is a middle ground here where ISPs collect data on specified targets rather than everyone and subject to court orders. This could work though opponents will argue that once the capability has been put in place it will be abused. My second point above would also apply so the effort might be futile and money spent wasted (it would probably cost almost the same as if we were collecting all the data).

On balance we all need to oppose this Bill. Email your MP with a link to this post.

Previous posts on this subject here and here.

Categories
Apps broadband Cloud End User

A Home Packed with Technology

I have decided, and I haven’t told my wife this, that my house needs to be a case study for the connected home. The technological home of the future.  The question is what does this connected home look like?

I have Cat 5 cabling downstairs a switch, wifi and shortly I will have FTTC. This is all very well but other than working from home occasionally and accessing the internet what am I going to do with it all.

I would welcome suggestions for services or technology that will be of use in the home that I should be testing.

Thanks in advance

That’s all folks.