France vs UK (via Surrey and Lancashire)

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France has approximately twice the landmass of UK (551,500 sq km vs 244,101 sq km), but approximately the same population. Ergo, the UK FTTH figure of £28Bn -the veracity of which was challenged on the first day it was published - aka the Big Lie, can now be laid to rest on the basis of a simple calculation. But there's more.....

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


The French have calculated that ubiquitous FTTH for France would be 30Bn euros, (according to the Tactis report which Benoit has kindly translated for us). FTTH costs reduce in more dense populations, according to the telcos themselves, and the evidence from new entrants and community deployments is bringing install figures ever further down too.

However, even ensuring that the figure for UK ubiquitous FTTH is a more rational, logical and realistic number (not one that has been pulled out of the air to justify the telcos' reluctance to let us see any light), it would seem that many countries, not just in EU but also including the USA, are facing a telco/incumbent fight for life. After all, there are plenty of new entrants who are showing that the trad olde worlde telco model is on the brink of collapse.

The USA is seeing more and more anti-muni FTTH bills being pushed forwards by telco syndicates, whilst those countries within the EU who are suffering from telco apathy (see the league tables from FTTH Council to pick those out) are facing what are beginning to look remarkably like 'dirty tricks' campaigns.

Yes, we know the telcos need to make a living, but no company should be able to hold a country, its citizens and all other businesses to ransom. Be they banks, oil companies, or telcos holding the hostages. There needs to be a level of regulation and protection in place to prevent such occurrences. In the UK, we appear to be seeing a massive failure of the elected ones in OurSociety in exercising rational thought and joined up thinking to prevent corporate greed leading us very severely astray.

In Lancashire, it seems likely that the County Council will follow Cornwall blindly into the 'non-light' of FTTC with a few handouts of FTTH/FTTP where it suits the bid winner's books. (And yes, we are dying to be proven wrong, but it didn't happen with ADSL and is even less likely to this time around). A live webstream from a recent Lancashire County Council meeting (1hr35) should give sufficient cause for concern that any bids for the procurement process will be treated with impartial scrutiny and that the correct decision for the present and future generations of inhabitants and business people of that county will be made. In Surrey, since my visit last week, the goings on during the death throes of the public body that used to be the lead broadband agency almost beggar belief.

Both these counties have awarded RDPE funding to far-sighted and innovative community projects, only to withdraw it, even after an official grant offer has been made in SEEDA's case. The reason? Well, it is hard to judge on much more than hearsay and supposition as it would seem that our public civil servants, whose wages we as taxpayers pay, are being bound to silence under NDA.

The future of broadband in this country is NOT a matter of commercial sensitivity, but of NATIONAL INTEREST. NDAs have no place in this quandary of appalling broadband that the telcos have lumbered us with.

We appear to have the axe of State Aid, which other EU nations seem considerably less afeared of than us, being brandished in the direction of career civil servants, councils and public bodies. Not by the EU - ho no, but by those who would be most threatened were said public bodies to apply State Aid as other countries have in the case of broadband. Following that are what look remarkably like empty promises, filling the gap behind the swoosh of that weapon.

Is this how we plan to become the greatest broadband nation? Are we going to cower in fear as yet another bunch of corporates take this country to the cleaners, aided and abetted by often well-meaning people who are undoubtedly concerned about their own futures, but seemingly less so about those they are employed to serve?

There are many people in this country who have been here before, not just in the broadband world, but in a multitude of other sectors. It is time for a radical, perhaps even maverick, approach to this society's problems. Getting IT right with the broadband deployment this country needs would not only rejuvenate the economy, but might perhaps help out the many other sectors where similar tales of woe and corporate manipulation of our public purse are all too apparent.

Let us hope that no other counties or regions follow the lead of the 'pioneers'. If very recent history has anything to teach us, it is likely that time will show that they have been misled. Luckily, or sadly, depending on your viewpoint, those responsible are likely to have left the building.




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TV catch up - it must be me.

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Read more! So far, nigh on 2 hrs have been spent, including lighting the fire and washing up (ish), whilst iplayer found itself...Been away 9 days, so I thought I'd watch a TV soap and chill. I can tell you what happened in January i.e. when I last watched it on terrestial TV, but beyond that....nowt.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



I've not seen 15 mins of TV yet due to buffering. And you want to tell me that my internal wiring is dodgy, (I removed my face plate such a long time ago and hacked my wires in - search on 'carpet' for photos). Or mebbe it's my laptop. Or sproglet's. Or my PCs and Minimac - probably all of them, eh? 6 digitally connected devices, plus 2 phones, won't let me view even 15 mins of uninterrupted soap.

My Apple Tv, over a wired connection...that doesn't work either. Despite my best efforts of playing dumb to see if it was just me. Nope, when you break it down, it's pretty darned simple - you have nothing that anyone elsewhere in the world would call 21st century connectivity. Even in the 1980s, this would not have counted.

But apparently I know sweet nothing about broadband, or computers, or punch cards, or Fortran, or Acorn Atoms, or what the Net could be used for, or how the tech works, or ...well, anything about broadband, compared to a county councillor who gets his secretary to print out his emails as computers are too new fangled.

If Big Society keeps accusing me of lying, then what are we aiming for? The 82 year old that Libby took a photo of on Saturday at Warcop Exchange. Is Pat who you want to connect? Or are you going to finally let me, with all my ideas, and all those like me, connect? Because, do you know what, I have absolutely no chance over this unbelievably corroded piece of copper you try to tell me is sufficient for my needs;

However many openretch engineers you stick between me and the exchange over the coming months, however much of MY money, whether from my BBC licence fee or my income tax, you spend.....

this is not IT.


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Services and Applications -especially for Somerset

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Read more! Further to my post about oranges, it seems that the message just isn't getting through to people about even the very first applications and services which FTTH networks have enabled, and hence why the UK is SO FAR BEHIND in thinking, deployment and funding.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



The FTTH council EU Innovation Awards were not awarded for no reason. However, the shortlists also exclude a multitude of further projects which are innovative, ingenious, relevant, sustainable, potentially profitable, niche, mass market, exciting, and more.

If I were an investor, I'd be champing at the bit right now to get FTTH networks in to begin developing apps and services for the population of the British Isles.

There are projects which will succeed, and others which will fail. Some target massive groups of users, whilst others are so niche as to be possibly only relevant to the inventor. Such is the way of the world of innovation, and which we have watched the network economy over the last two decades both foster and founder in ways that were unimaginable before the advent of the Internet and the advancement of telecommunication.

PP 28-30 give a few examples of just some uses for FTTH, all of which should inspire the UK, as well as highlight just how little we are doing here.

How can we run experiments with hundreds of FTTH users when we don't have hundreds of FTTH users, as other countries do? How can we understand the value of FTTH when we have people who really don't get what high bandwidth, low latency, etc etc offers that ADSL (of any flavour) simply cannot? All declaimers should be forced to visit countries, towns, villages and homes where FTTH is changing worlds....

As preparation for those visits, here's some light reading......

FTTH Innovation Awards
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What would it be like to eat an orange?

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Read more! Imagine you have never seen or heard of an orange. Someone comes along and asks you, without even showing you an orange, "What do you think it would be like to eat an orange? How much will you be willing to pay for it? What else could you do with it?" We are doing exactly the same with FTTH.
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


Most of the people making the big decisions about FTTH - RDAs, government, councils etc - have never seen this particular "orange". They don't know the recipes you can make with oranges, what it tastes like, and hence can have no comprehension of what it might be worth either as a wholesaler, retailer or customer.

Right now, there aren't even any oranges for sale, so you can't begin to imagine what people might do with it. Stick cloves in it at Christmas? Use the peel to moisten dried out tobacco? Fire it out of a potato gun powered by hairspray? Who knows? None of these applications for oranges can even be thought of yet as we don't have a clue what people will come up with once oranges are freely available.

One of the big questions in Milan was "Which comes first - the infrastructure or the applications?". Here in the UK we are so busy trying to find out what people might use oranges for, that we have failed to actually arrange for anyone to grow them so we can see.

You can survey all 60 million people about FTTH but it's a total waste of money. Except for the very, very small percentage of people who have ever tasted an orange, the rest will stare blankly at you. And we, who have been lucky enough to taste an orange can shout as loud as we want about how bloody marvellous oranges are and the fact that the British are actually going to make something called "marmalade" which will become a global phenomenon far into the future, we appear to be wasting our time. Until someone starts growing oranges on a commercial basis and makes them available to everyone. And then we can come up with marmalade, tangerines, clementines, etc etc etc. Can't we?!
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More against the USC

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Read more! For those who still think a 2Mbps USC is sufficient, Geoff Daily reports on the Netflix results on his app-rising blog. And the UK should be worried. Very worried.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


Spot this line:

"....you don't just need broadband with a peak of 5Mbps (their HD video is encoded at 4.8Mbps), you need broadband that can sustain a 5Mbps connection."

And that's just to watch a film. Imagine if it was something important like an X-Ray or HD vid conf with your heart consultant...........

Or why not just forget that these normal, everyday things can and are being done around the world in 2011 in people's sitting rooms and offices, and pretend that up to 2Mbps asymmetrical in 2015 will be jus' fine and dandy....;o)
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EU fibre roll-out too slow

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Read more! Whilst some countries are achieving the targets hoped for in Europe for fibre rollout, others are failing. And three are failing abysmally. We (UK) are one of them.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



The final plenary made it clear how important it is for the EU countries to work together to create a single market for digital content, and fibre is the only way to achieve this. 100Mbps was dissed as a very low bar throughout the conference and the final plenary was no exception.

For those who still think a USC of 2Mbps is sufficient, and who cannot see why or how better connectivity is required and can be achieved, well, where the hell were you?!

The FTTH showcase highlighted some of the applications and services that cannot function without high bandwidth, low latency, QOS, etc. My knowledge of French poetry is now much improved thanks to the showcase, and the video application for teaching any subject across multiple communities and countries was more than enough to spark debates around the screen of the very many (limitless?) purposes to which such a service could be applied.

The healthcare apps seem to be old hat to many, especially the Dutch who seem to have telehealth nailed, and it continues to strike me as desperately sad that I couldn't find a single UK representative who actually had a personal interest in telehealth solutions, or whose job was in that sector. So, no doubt no-one will be reporting back to the NHS and we will continue to believe we have a Health Service that is the envy of the world. The truth is we are now a long way behind other countries, especially our nearest neighbours and also including those we would consider to be under developed or third world.

Wales seemed to be getting a great bit of press from the Dutch who are very pleased that the "Dutch model" has been adopted. (I presume that is Kees and Nuenen!). So, expect the Welsh valleys to become the new northern European tourist destination for anyone accustomed to FTTH at home.....;o)

Being the underdogs doesn't sit well with some nations, and it was fascinating to hear from some of the German vendors about both their product sets (extensive) and ambitions (more so). Ditto the Spanish companies like Key Fibre. Both nations have a certain level of respect that seemed to bring leads to their booths. The British companies also command a deal of respect; however, the British (government and incumbents) approach to FTTH does not lend itself to good PR for the UK. In fact, I got rather bored of the sympathy for Britain, as well as yet further ashamed.

It's pretty bloody simple really. We either start rolling out FTTH this year to every home, or we admit our failure and make concerted efforts to attract foreign investment in the FTTH landgrab. Even those projects and initiatives which are deemed to be exemplar within the UK are pretty goddamned pathetic compared to ...pick a country.....Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Holland, Russia, Ukraine, etc etc etc. Urban or rural, the UK is so far off the game as to be laughable.

And if you still think we are doing just fine with fibre, then I urge you to visit countries like Andorra, or the eastern Bloc, where FTTH infrastructure is now commonplace and what is happening now is the growth of GDP, innovative economic development, and a setting of the course required to compete in a global economy that we seem to have failed to comprehend nor engage in.

Great conference, as ever. Munich next year on Feb 29th/March 1st. It is 7 years since I started attending this conference, and I would hope next year there is, finally, a UK contingent who will report back to their various sectors - housing, planning, NHS, education, public sector, manufacturing, telecoms - about why and how we need to take our fingers out of both our butts and ears and JFDI before it really is too late.

(Oh, and if you think I am being harsh, you should have heard what other nationalities were saying about the UK, BT, the British government etc and FTTH.)






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Testbed by 'new entrants' deposes BT as FTTH leaders in UK

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Read more! This type of headline, methinks, is going to become ever more common now. BSkyB and TalkTalk are going for a test bed of 3600 homes for a FTTH trial in Harrow. They are not alone in pursuing FTTH -it is a natural extension to existing products - but others are steering clear of the press release/promo route, it seems, and are flying under the radar until solutions are in place, tested and saleable.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


Ebbsfleet, the much vaunted BT FTTH 'experiment', has connected how many since it was first announced about 3 or more years ago??

Anyone responsible for allocating public funding to next gen access should be watching this type of 'new entrant' announcement very closely. There are new players making the most of incumbent lassitude, and claiming ignorance of their existence when you allocate funds will be no excuse.

There are, perhaps, a considerable number of players wandering around this conference ready to upset the cosy position of the incumbent in the UK by....

JFDI.

Public money must be put into innovative solutions, because otherwise it is likely to be thrown away on olde schoole solutions and providers who have become a little too comfy in their position to realise the world is evolving without them. Fund olde worlde solutions and your constituents will hold you accountable for lumbering them with last gen solutions, surely?



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Milan - ups and downs

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Read more! As ever, a day of ups and downs. This is a syndrome that plagues broadband campaigners, I believe.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Down - Groundhog day - nowt new under t'sun! Very similar programme and out of session discussions that remind me of Amsterdam in 2004, etc.

Up -...more and more hard evidence that rural FTTH can be done. And is being done. Zero proof of BT's non-economic viability claim. In fact, now it is beginning to look like the corporate 'untruth' many have suspected for years. Possible international landgrab on the Final Third?

Down - text from rural UK saying yet another council don't get what 'innovative pilot' means. Yet more jam spread too thin and potential procurements being given to a company that has not yet proven it can even do FTTH. WHY???

Up - Fibre Friday plans between different countries now coming to fruition

Down - UK not in global rankings or even on speaker list - after all, UK has zero to boast about here. British delegates - the few there are - play for humble pie not FiWi Pie. How sad.

Up - Diffraction Analysis launch (booth swamped!!) yummy retro sweeties including spaceships. Best networking space at the conference.

Down - conference network overwhelmed, Finally get online at 4pm.

Up - No internet so go walkabout and meet fascinating people, plus old friends

Down - More and more people now know I am British. "WTF is the UK doing?" is the question everyone asks first.....

Up - the camaraderie at Council conferences. Yes, it is very industrial but there is still space and time for us consumer peeps....there should be more though.

Down - not enough output about what the tech can do... still. A big failing as industry just want to show off to each other "my pipe is fatter than yours" etc

Up - one more day to go. Frank Jaffer, Andorra, Skelleftea and 101 others still to catch up with, plus all the unknown connections to make.

As ever, a big thank you to the FTTH Council EU for a great conference.

29th Feb and 1st March next year in Munich...


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#milanftth11

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Read more! Loving the lack of rain and cold in Milan. But even more so the pre-conference conversations.
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Am looking forward to scanning the delegate list in the morning for BT and VM attendees. Judging by the conversations I have overheard already, the UK #FTTH frustration is 'under attack' (a very welcome attack, I would say) from new entrants.

Very much looking forward to the next two days, particularly for rural UK solutions. Read more!

Yorkshire "Almost blanket coverage" - again?

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Read more! Like I've said before - memories are short in the broadband world. Welcome to all the newbies getting involved but please accept some of us have been here before ...

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Another Yorkshire broadband event is announced, with these lines in the report:

The NYnet scheme was heralded as being as important as the arrival of the railways when it was announced four years ago.

It will see almost blanket coverage of internet broadband to attract a new breed of businesses which rely on cutting-edge technology to North Yorkshire.

Which sort of makes you wonder about this headline in 2006:

Yorkshire hits 100 per cent broadband coverage

which comes from ZDnet, amongst others who heralded the arrival of 100 % coverage. Funny that, it turned out to be a lie after all....hmmm, wouldn't ya just know it?

And in another 5 years' time, according to my crystal ball, all the Cornwalls, Lancashires etc, will be doing exactly the same as this. Holding events to announce that it turns out that FTTC can't cut the mustard after all and it's time to work out how to do the right technology (that'll be FTTH) to attract the businesses that rely on cutting-edge technology, blah blah blah.

Groundhog day. We should make a film about it. Except it'd take centuries to upload in the UK.....
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AT & T adopts developers

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Read more! New networks require new apps. And what better way to make sure these apps work than to let the developers on to the networks and testbeds? This is what we have been arguing is continuing the chicken and egg lack of demand for FTTH in the UK.....lack of access to high speed networks because they simply don't exist means no-one is innovating to create the demand for the apps that require FTTH...

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



AT & T are opening innovation centres to encourage developers to help bring telehealth etc apps to market far more quickly than AT&T would be able to alone.

Now, let's see similar approaches in the UK. There are literally hundreds of ideas out there for services and apps that require all that FTTH brings to the table which so-called "superfast broadband" cannot. Yet, how can anyone develop their ideas if they cannot test them without travelling abroad to do so?

Such innovation centres could be one possible spend of the money that should be returned to the public purse when all these non-viable areas prove to be economically profitable.... After all, there are going to continue to be advances in wireless for a long time to come which will need constant innovation, as well as a never-ending stretch of fibre networks to 10, 100 Gbps and beyond as apps and services are developed.

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FTTH Council Conference, Milan

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Read more! Don't forget to book your pre-conference workshops. There is quite a choice, although the focus is definitely on funding and sustainability at present, but the Trentino one should put all of Britain except one small village to shame so I'm looking forward to that session.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



I'm there as a reporter for Computer Weekly as well as wearing my normal hat of a UK consumer/end user. I'll be in the Press Room some of the time - just on the right after the Entrance - if anyone wants to catch up, promote their products, or tell me about the many places where we know rural FTTH works just fine e.g. the Fibre to the Farmyard speakers, please do. Or DM me on Twitter @digitaldales during the event.

Ciao!



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Fibre Tax Update

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Read more! This just in on the issue of business rates aka Fibre Tax.....

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com

In future, the VOA propose to assess super fast broadband networks on the basis of per home connected rather than per home passed which will help with rates costs in the start up phase.

For those who missed the round table in December (that'll be nearly everyone involved in fibre tax!), the docs from that meeting are available on the BIS site.


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Greed bites.....

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Read more! The telcos seem to have won an own goal and can now force you to submit to UBB (Usage Based Billing). Whilst logic and basic maths (plus hard evidence from areas where fat pipes are all the rage) implies that abundance rather than scarcity will always see a business prosper, the telcos can't get over their own 100 year old scarcity model. Sadly, it seems the regulators are equally as dim.


This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Canada has fallen for UBB this week. There is no round of applause from here and a huge sadness that Canada, who led the way for so long in fibre, next gen and true broadband, has so completely lost the way. (Apart from with the Inuits, who seem to be making the most of the infrastructure in the far north, far beyond the focus of the gummint). And long may it remain so.

It looks as though Cumbria is about to fall into the same pit, believing telcos over common sense. I wish I knew more about the other BDUK projects but I'm fairly sure there is at least one that will overcome all issues and endeavour to be the guiding light. Scotland.

1 out of 5 ain't bad.

Is it? {cough}.

As I said some time ago, 4 bed house in Cumbria for sale, I'm moving north, south, anywhere to escape this ridiculous approach to comms.

Imagine if during the stone age, they had restricted access to hides and bones, except for hunting or access to the tribal elders? There would have been no drums to communicate danger, no chance of developing language, and
zero chance of music becoming what it is today?

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Spot the flaw in the USC argument?

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Read more! Grasmere - home of Wordsworth and all those daffs - has geocoded some data about local broadband connections.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



There are people reporting download speeds of at least 1Mbps and some as high as 6 and 7Mbps. The majority are above the proposed USC of 2Mbps.

Spot the "No" answer in every single case to the last question!! The most oft touted reason for the USC being so low is that it is sufficient to allow people to use such current applications as iPlayer. Is it? In real life or just theoretically to suit the 2Mbps argument?

If you are using one of the many satellite services, you often cannot use iPlayer either as frequently your IP address will be coming from Europe - eg Belgium, and the Beeb don't let foreign IP addresses access our coveted licence fee paid for content.

How much evidence do we need from REAL PEOPLE that the USC is being set too low for 2011, let alone 2015 and beyond? We can argue the accuracy etc of the speed test results to the nth degree but it still doesn't alter the fact that these people, and many others like them, cannot use iplayer and similar apps even when speeds are above the proposed USC. Problem? I think so. Now and in the future.

The argument we should also be getting into is throttling and deep packet sniffing - who decides that iplayer is a burden on the ISP and hence that a BBC licence payer cannot access it? Are we going to end up with yet another postcode lottery that is entirely dependent on which ISPs operates in your rural area to govern whether you can/cannot get iplayer etc? Because looking at that, and with all the verbal and written evidence we have from around the country about iplayer being unusable, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that rural areas are being discriminated against, and that if insufficient capacity is put in the build-out of core network using the £830M (which is, after all, BBC licence fee money!), rather than faffing around in the first mile with BET, satellites etc, there could be a lot of people still unable to get iplayer in the future.


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Working Together...in action (not)

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Read more! Oh delightful. Cumbria County Council can't work with Lancashire to maximise the CLEO asset and seem determined to give the over-specced educational network to BT when we paid for it. We have politicians who are playing some sort of divide and conquer game in the North West instead of working together....excuse me whilst I apply my head to this breeze block.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



We're back in that stupid world where people forget broadband can cross county boundaries and are determined to go for some sort of personal glory instead of joining up the dots (and fibres and demand and funding) to get the best end result.

Let's pick a place at random, say, Sedbergh. Is it in North Yorkshire or Cumbria? Well, just to confuse matters, it used to be in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but now it's in Cumbria whilst also being in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the South Lakeland District Council. Where are the nearest shopping places to Sedbergh? Yep, in Lancashire and the Lake District, but many of the residents have relatives in Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales. (Look at a map if you are confused!) And just in case you don't grasp how multi-regional the people of Sedbergh feel, it's twinned with Zrece in Slovenia.

Sedbergh's exchange provides the phone lines for people up and over in Yorkshire (Garsdale) and could (if you look at a map) solve a problem for a bit of Cumbria directly over the hill from Garsdale.

But, oh look. We've got county councils being parochial in both their thinking and use of the funding, instead of communicating with each other about getting the best deal for the whole region, and politicians from different parties trying to group demand into constituencies instead of saying, "Hey, let's work together and make something really quite extraordinary happen."

I personally have a deal of respect from the majority of northern politicians, as I've been lucky enough to get to know William Hague, Tim Farron and Rory Stewart, but guys, guys, guys......rural areas suffer from lack of population. Don't divvy us up even further. And as for the County Councils in Lancashire and Cumbria, I think they need their heads banging together. The two counties are already joined up by a fairly substantial lump of infrastructure in CLEO. What on earth are you doing failing to maximise that asset so the whole of the North West could be sorted out? (Excluding all that urban bunch in the south of the region who don't fall into the Final Third and can resolve their own, different arguments with the telcos).

In Cumbria and Lancashire we are about to see two re-runs of the total failure that was Project Access, using even more money, without, seemingly an ounce of common sense being exhibited by those who were elected to do a job on our behalf.

I am increasingly disappointed with the news coming out of this region, frustrated at the abysmal failure to learn even one lesson from the recent past, let alone the many that could be learned, and embarrassed to watch the regional broadband news develop in a way that, at present anyway, can only be a substantial waste of public money, time and effort.

I suspect that once again we will look back on this time, as we did with Project Access and the ADSL rollouts, and be bloody ashamed we allowed such an obvious, basic, bunch of avoidable errors happen. Let alone the impact that making the decisions which look likely to be made, or already have been, will have on our long-term economy.

Shame on you, I say.





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JFDI - 3rd book published!

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Read more! There was only one other person who could have sat down and read all three of the JFDI books today, as she is the only other person who has all 3. (Luckily, she enjoyed her birthday instead!) The final part of this trilogy has hit the bookstands.


This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



I have been supremely lucky in my 'broadband' life to meet many of those who have made the world a very different place. Dave Hughes (Everest), Dave Isenberg (Stupid Networks), Abi Ransonet (Lafayette), Todd Marriott (Utopia) - I am lucky enough to have met them all. There are 1001 others, all of whom, to me, are equally important - this is not a name dropping exercise, more a very grateful thank you for the opportunities I have been granted.

For everyone who is planning a community network - please, please, talk to those who you meet. Whether they are building a new village hall in Cumbria, setting up TV bingo in deepest Alaska or the Andes, or overcoming natural obstacles in the Himalayas - your lessons are valid to each other.

The technology is irrelevant. What you do with it MATTERS.

Thank you all. This has been a very special part of my life and I hope my books may help, somewhere down the line. Every community and individual I have ever encountered through broadband has enriched my life.

THANK YOU.
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How bad is IT?

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Read more! I'm hoping that some of the truth around the absolutely shameful behaviour within the UK telco industry is about to out.....

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Whoever you are, wherever you live, it can no longer be hard to avoid that our telcos are behaving on a par with the banks. Ripping everyone off, banking phenomenal profits, whilst providing a degraded service that is only debatably fit for purpose.

Today, I spent the day staring at a phone that couldn't find a network. I wasn't close to a landline, but as soon as I was, I rang Orange. Undoubtedly they have the recording; until then, I'll paraphrase.

"My phone won't work, at all. It has been cr*p all day and I need a connection asap or an alternative."

"Your mast is white".

"Sorry? Does that mean it's offline?"

"We-e-e-ell, it means I can't actually find it right now ....can you put your phone on 2G?"

"2G? You think I'm in a 3G network area? We don't have 3G here, even 40 miles from your HQ in Darlington."

"Ah, no, but all will be well in February. A massive upgrade is due to all your masts, including the T-Mobile ones."

"So, I might get a connection again in February?"

"Honest, it'll be great in February. Just put your phone manually onto 2G now and all will be fine then."

"In February?"

"Yep".

"What about now?"

"There's a mast {here - unknown dale} - that's sort of online. Must be the upgrade."

"I've never heard of it. How far is it from me? Are all our masts down locally?"

"Well, the one in Kirkby Stephen is white, Maulds Meaburn is a bit low....Um, they're all off."

"There is no way I could even see those masts from here anyway, what about locally?"

"They are local."

"No, they are not. We have hills and forests that are in the way....."

"Oh, how about {names 5-10 different places that are within 50 miles}...?"

"No way can you see those from here....". [I've surveyed thousands of miles in Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire, line of sight for FiWi....]

"But they're...sort of working....it must be this upgrade to 3G. It'll all be fine later in February".

"What about tomorrow? I need a phone."

"All I can tell you is to put your phone, and your neighbours, on to manual 2G, find the best network [he suggested T-Mobile - which Orange own] and then stick with that until we upgrade."

"So, when will our mast be fixed?"

"Well, I have to say this is a bit tongue in cheek, but the repair date on your mast is currently unknown".

"So....tomorrow?"

"Um, I don't know. Really. My best advice is stand on the highest chair you have got..."

I hung up.

You know when you realise the person you are talking to on the helpline has no chance of making as much sense of the data as you, and you have no chance of seeing it? You just give up. I can't blame the operator, but I can blame the networks.

Do you know what? Your consumers are not morons? Don't treat us as such.

Meanwhile, BSkyB buy the Cloud, O2 offer nationwide wi-fi, most mobile networks in rural areas cannot download an app let alone use it; I hear it's as bad in London if you are an iPhone user. (But where is the news on that?) The country spends its life trying to pay over the odds connection charges to help lines for support issues, whilst getting nowhere. And we think it's ahem...normal?

Want my opinion? OK. Here goes....Not a reader? Start at "Everything old is new again" and read this about BskyB's acquisition of the Cloud. The Cloud (Niall Murphy) was one of my early event speakers and sponsors, before most of you had heard of wifi or broadband.

Our networks are fooked. They cannot provide the service required TODAY, whether wired or wireless.

It is time for a hats on the table summit where people TELL THE TRUTH and find the right solutions for UK plc comms. Because, otherwise, what is going to happen is that someone, somewhere, will put together a femto cell deal or similar over wifi that takes the lot of you greedy, difficult, mobile operators and telcos out at the knees. And if it doesn't happen from within industry, it will come from the grassroots people who are utterly and totally fed up with your shenanigans.

We need mobile comms not to feed money into your pockets, but to STAY ALIVE, to keep our businesses running, to track our kids, to share village news, to COMMUNICATE. WE don't need you purely so you make your profits. It's so simple. Get IT.

Read more!

110Mbps capable FTTP/H? Or not?

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Read more! Dear BT, Quick question, when you say your FTTP/H solution is 110Mbps capable (as per report on ISPReview) do you mean it could get there somewhere in the future or that it will deliver from the word go?

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



In Milan, we will all be eagerly awaiting the update about which countries have gained entrance to the FTTH Council League - I know the UK has not. And if they can all deliver 100Mbps+ now, is there a technical problem in the UK we should be aware of??? Read more!

What short and selective memories we have (2)

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Read more! If you are late to the party, the intro to this particular post is here

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Some of you won't remember LS29 and similar community networks who sought to connect communities to broadband when the incumbent was dragging its heels, urban and rural. Or even the trigger level campaigns for ADSL that employed well-meaning volunteers within communities around the country, (Think Infinity - it was exactly the same programme but more aggressive - most exchanges, not a just a "lucky" handful). Those people believed the adverts - everyone would be connected if they just trod enough miles around their Parish/exchange area to 'stimulate demand' with pre-prepared posters on behalf of a private company.

You probably don't recall the fight for the arrival of the LLU unbundlers. They came later in the tale. And their appearance was for a very good reason, but they are, sadly, still in the Betamax category for many consumers. And no-one seeks to help consumers make an informed choice, even today....

I know that the vast majority of the readers of this blog were not at the first BSG conference in Birmingham, (I did not sing my tagline; that rumour is not true!) or present when the Analysys Mason report was launched to huge dispute about that £28Bn figure for FTTH, or at the Amsterdam FTTH conference when the miniscule British contingent were so, so depressed at the oh so apparent lacklustre UK approach to telecoms infrastructure as we heard what other countries were doing.

Many of you may not remember the huge arguments during the trigger level campaign that ADSL was an "interim technology", "unfit for purpose in the 21st century" etc. The utter tosh (sorry, I mean corporate spiel) about how great ADSL would be for this country and how it would reach "nearly everyone" met with substantial resistance, but we didn't/couldn't spend £30+million marketing it to the British public. (£35M ISTR was the ad spend in year 1 alone by BT - Source: Marketing Weekly, on a train, many moons ago).

Back then, some were, and still are, trying to get party lines removed so people could have a phone line each. You think broadband notspots are bad? There are (AFAIK), or definitely were until very recently, still people in this country sharing phone lines on what used to be called 'party lines', so they must wait for the neighbour to get off the phone to make a call. House on fire? Tough. You won't find these people wingeing in online forums - they can't even consider getting online. And when that disconnectivity coincides with no mobile coverage? Well, go figure how this country is ever going to lead anyone in telecoms infrastructure when we allow that to happen.....

I'm quite sure most people don't remember the miraculous trigger level hits that occurred almost overnight when a community network offering an alternative to ADSL went public locally. Nor the fact that there were trigger levels reached that sometimes stretched the imagination for the total number of residents within that exchange area, or when local knowledge denied that that many residents could even access or use a computer to register. The announcements of ADSL exchange enablement which coincided (oh, how coincidental?) with community networks announcing to their residents that they were going live within days or weeks because the local demand was high, especially when there had been zero indication (in some cases, flat denials), that it would be 'economically viable' or that anyone else was willing to chuck a DSLAM in the exchange.

Someone, somewhere, was scanning local papers, which at the time were nowhere near as online as now, to counter any such community or technological 'attacks' on what can only be seen as a land grab. After all, if all you can offer a rural area is something worse than ISDN, do you *really* want a bunch of geeks to appear out of the rural or urban woodwork and set up a network that offers a far better solution, locally run, than you care to offer during THAT DECADE?

Can you spot the similarities yet? Are you mapping community activity to put in FTTH or alternative solutions vs Infinity and amended FTTC announcements? Well, you should be.

The good bit and the lesson that should never be forgotten was when Ed Brown of ADIT helped BT enable the 23 (was it 23? I think so) rural Yorkshire and Humber exchanges that BT claimed weren't viable. Yep, with public money, but, oh, if they prove to be viable after all, guys, you are paying that money back to the public purse. My sources tell me that repayment came to over a £1million.

So, if all these rural areas that we are planning to chuck £830M at turn out to be viable after all............? We should have anywhere up to £830M to play with all over again. N'est-ce pas?????


Some of the networks that consumed the Net from the mid 90s onwards and made it accessible to anyone in their region, on free spectrum that could be set to work on even the most battered PC that had been binned for running Windows 3.1, must have been a bit of a worry, I guess. But not to their users who (mostly) LOVED 'em and supported 'em. And many of whom, seemingly, are on worse connections now, 10 years later, because someone, somewhere has gone to great efforts to make it damned difficult for those altnets to bypass the...sorry, got to say it, incumbent.

I don't say this lightly, but I strongly believe, and am willing to hear otherwise, that there was an ethos of "Take 'em out at the knees" and we are seeing that again. Not for the greater good and well-being of UK Plc, but for a long-term gain that is endeavouring to capture as large a market share for THIS CENTURY as possible for shareholder interest.

And our memories are too bloody short.

Well, most of them are. You, whoever you are, are probably reading this because you are frustrated that the UK is lagging behind Latvia, Estonia, Korea, Sweden, and a whole host of other countries. Damn, where did our Empire go? Are we really Third World, or heading that way, because we can't play in the knowledge economy - we've not got much else to play with industrially. Have we?

Are we really going to forget that we were all promised the light fantastic with ADSL, and thousands and thousands and thousands of this people in this country have nothing, or near as dammit nothing, that you could call 'broadband' by the 1984 definition, let alone 2003 or 2011? Capable of simultaneous transmission and reception of voice, video and data - what the hell happened to that? I look at sending a less than 20MB PDF to the printer today and it's walk away from the computer time - pick a task to fill the time - I drove 10 miles to submit my self-assessment form (do it online? PAH!!!). In 2011. In Great Britain.

If you really believe that giving anyone the money for a future-proofed solution, when they are proposing a solution for the 21st century that reworks a 100+ year old copper telephone network, is right, then I suggest you take a look around the world at the places where for at least 5 YEARS, tiny little rural companies have been able to chuck more than is promkised with FTTC over far longer lengths of copper. Because if a certain massive multinational hasn't worked that one out when they should have been taking the lead, globally, then all I can say is that Peter Cochrane retired too damned early and we need him back in Ipswich to get fibre to the home back on the menu. Fast.

Or else we realise that ADSL is still, all these years later, a short term interim solution, as is anything over copper, and it is time to assess how much not having decent broadband is costing this country. That tax return I submitted today, well, dead sorry HMRC, but once again, you are getting nowt off me as I can't compete with the guys who started up in my sector 5 years and more after me. The competitive advantage that I, and many other companies in the IT industry had from being British, innovative, ingenious etc has now been so substantially eroded, you are now writing us cheques, year on year. Bloody genius. That should force the national economic recovery...not!!

If the Treasury, HMRC, our economists etc are willing to permit private companies to drag hundreds of thousands of small businesses into the gutter, when we should have been leading the world and cashing in, perhaps it is time to reassess exactly who is benefiting from this approach?

And you, oh Councillors etc who are going to make decisions for public purse money this year through the 5 BDUK projects, don't look to Cornwall. Look beyond these shores at what is being done elsewhere. Why are we NOWHERE CLOSE to being on the FTTH Council League tables even with the proposed spend on 'fibre optics' for the next few years being lauded in the press?

Ask yourself if the ASA was wrong to ignore all the complaints that, if you call it a fibre optic connection, it must be precisely that - not coax or any other form of copper. And are you falling for very expensive ad companies working their magic on your minds with convincing messages?

Or do you understand, fully, the implications of the huge savings this country will make - economically, environmentally and socially - if we have a comms infrastructure which is appropriate for this century? Are you going to deny this country that, by choosing, as David Durnford of Small World rightly pointed out yesterday, a non-innovative and oh so last century approach?

“Also the whole point of this Government money for Cumbria is to be innovative and BT’s approach is not innovative – arguably they shouldn’t even be bidding.”

Don't be governed by the pace of today. Make time to learn from history. Much of this very, very recent history is on the Net (accessible within seconds) and all of us owe it to this once great nation to look back, learn, and apply the lessons, so we don't find ourselves in 5, 10 or 20 years time from now in the same sorry state we are in today.

And yes, I accept this is a massive rant, but if in 1 or 2 (or another 15) year's time, when I am sitting on my fibred island, and I see the UK in a similar comms mess to the one it is in today, I would kick myself out of my hammock if I hadn't spoken out when I had the chance. Read more!