BSG pushes traffic management code of conduct for ISPs

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Read more! The Broadband Stakeholder Group have managed to get some of their members to sign a Code of Conduct about making available information to users regarding traffic management policies used to throttle Internet connections.

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



Whilst this is obviously a good idea in the interim period (probably about another decade at this rate) until we finally break the Scarcity Model the telcos are so fond of, it does fail to address the actual issue - we need to upgrade our networks so they can cope with data usage in the 21st century.

Optical Reboot is such a nice term, and the ideology behind it is precisely what we require. We can come up with Codes of Conduct for errant ISPs wishing to avoid regulation, or we can tackle the problem head on. (Read the ADVAOptical blog, it's good.)

Today is Pi Day, and if we can celebrate a number, I think it's time we had a "Break the Network" day involving RaceOnline2012, that Online Centres bunch, BSG, BIS, BDUK, CLA, all the Unis, schools, hospitals, politicians, local authorities, and every other group who have ever been involved in technology, or should be.

The idea would be to show our telcos and government just how b0rked the network is in 2011, even with about half the country failing to comprehend what a computer is for or why anyone would even want one. If you made everyone use a computer on a specific day e.g. to fill out the census form, and then try uploading a video to the Census Dept showing what went wrong, that should cause a certain amount of network nightmares along with all the normal everyday usage that our connections struggle to cope with.

What do you think?!
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The Pressing Need for Fibre

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BSG have put out a call for evidence by March 17th re the fibre cost model that was submitted to the Caio Review back in Sept 2008. They are particularly interested in local and community projects as well as new entrants deploying innovative or different techniques. Meanwhile, one of the first replies sent to the BSG went like this....

Hi Peter
Thanks for the pdf, will read it properly tonight, but one thing isn't going to change and that is my personal experience of laying and lighting fibre in our network. (the first rural fibre lit by a community May 2009)

My initial thoughts are...
it aint rocket science.
If two housewives who are sick of bad connections can lay and light over a kilometre of fibre between three rural properties then surely telcos can do it too?

Cost £2.75 a metre for digging (by professionals) but me and Julie did some with spades in gardens so entire cost was £760 (we got a discount due to mates' rates).
Fibre (12core armoured fibre) £1 metre (delivered and donated by fibrestream just to see if we could JFDI)
Lighting kit (for both ends) £247 p property no discount.
Man to do the fusion £300 per day. Can do lots in a day... (but he's a mate so did ours as a favour)
videos we took of it are on youtube, just search on wennetvideo

Faced with a pile of ironing at 9am on a monday morning I decided to do IT.
By 3pm I had the fibre and the diggers, it was dug in by dark. It was dug through the garden and hole drilled into houses the next day. It was lit the next day. Three days from start to finish.IT just works. IT is mega. It is an example of FiWiPie. Fed by wireless 2meg symmetrical cos we have no ADSL or mobile round here. More details available if you want them. JFDI rocks.

Analysys Mason don't have experience of real rural communities?
We do. Many of them.
I still have over 100 properties round here with no broadband. I have only one brain, one pair of hands and lots of ironing.

There are plenty of others out there who have sought to solve the problems caused by the apathy in this nation over FTTH, who have the experience the BSG require to change their cost model so it accurately reflects what can be done, not what the telcos feel like doing, and there is untold hard evidence from abroad that should be being shared to make FTTH happen today.

Please contribute to the BSG - whether you are a new entrant, a community, a small project (such as Rutland) or an existing player who is using the latest tech to deliver FTTH at reasonable costs.
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COTS & Colloq

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Read more! Many thanks to all who were in Hull today contributing to the Colloq and the COTS meeting. Looking at the stats over 100 people were actively involved or lurking, in the venue or through remote participation. Wow!

My over-riding impression of the day was the energy which began in the morning, and has, I suspect, resulted in meetings being arranged for new partnerships to explore many different areas for next gen, and to JFDI. There seemed to be quite a few novel ideas circulating too.

Thanks to Hull City Council for an amazing venue, great lunch and use of the facilities, and thank you to the Lord Mayor for taking time to talk to us and listen in to the debate.

Thanks to Fibrestream/NextGenUs for pulling together such a quality event in a very short time.

Thanks to the BSG, Malcolm Taylor for chairing, the panelists, Lillian for all the back room work, Kizzy for filming, and of course, all the attendees.

A particular thanks to the exhibitors who between them put on an amazing display of 'FTTH' deployment which didn't seem to quite get the attention it deserved for the skill displayed. AFL for the fibre, Emtelle for fibre blowing and micro-ducting, Lucidos for training, safety and fusion / manual splicing, Virtually Transparent for cloud computing, virtualisation (and a fascinating conversation about virtual Asterisk PBX on a Nokia 95 etc!), Cable & Wireless for telecoms delivery (and Rob!), Allied Telesis for active equipment and HD TV demo, and the diamond drilling guys who luckily didn't demo going through the Guildhall floor!!

And thanks to all those who contributed videos, tweets, blog posts and so on at and since the event.

Please get involved in post-colloq discussion through the forum at http://www.fibrevolution.com.

The COTS steering group meeting is open to all and is on 21st September. BSG will be sending out an email to announce further details.

Further events are already in the planning stages. If you would be interested in being informed about or sponsoring these events, please send an email to info[at]fibrevolution[dot]com

All feedback would be gratefully appreciated, either publicly or privately.

Thank you all. Some very thought-provoking discussion and opinions today to mull over and act upon! There will be a report in more depth shortly. In the meantime, there are tweets on the day #nextgenus and @nextgenus and the COTS webcast will be archived shortly.




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The Importance of Communication - Colloquium and COTS

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Read more! In order to get this country out of the Digital Dark Ages and into the light, we all need to communicate and work together.

Many individuals and organisations are making strenuous efforts, often seemingly and illogically against the flow, to drag this country into the world of next generation communications. This 'dragging' includes both infrastructure and applications, as well as an under-educated populace, which including politicans, RDAs (Regional Development Agencies), government departments, citizens, businesses, telcos and so on.

It is apparent that education and coming to compromises on many issues will be crucial to the success of these endeavours, and in order to do, people need to talk, share ideas, work together and if necessary, rock the boat to achieve forward motion (and possibly the loss overboard of some of the least workable ideas!).

So, here are a list of things which currently require attention in deadline order:

1) BSG has put together a spreadsheet of ratings scenarios for property rating for the VOA (Valuations Office Agency). Comments are required by 2nd September 2009.

2) FTTH Colloquium - part of the JustNextGenUs 2009 event in Hull, this morning session will bring together all those interested in community networks, whether suppliers, Parish and County Councillors, residents, LSP members, planning departments, community organisations, ISPs, etc etc etc. Funding, business models, ownership, technical aspects of FTTH and NextGen, community engagement, education and more will be covered. There will also be an exhibition of next gen equipment and services. Attendance will be £10 for the session. Donations are also welcomed to share with RNLI Spurn Point.

3) COTS Meeting - next Thursday 3rd September, afternoon session. A second opportunity to learn about the COTS Project and get involved to help make it workable for community networks and operators/telcos to work together for a viable nextgen future. Sign up now to attend the free COTS meeting in Hull

4) If you are attending either of the above sessions (remotely or in person) at the JustNextGenUs event, please visit the Fibrevolution forum to add any questions, introduce yourself, and get involved in the ongoing discussions.

5) All-party Parliamentary enquiry into Digital Britain targets, in particular broadband speed. Deadline 25th Sept 2009.

Anything else I have missed for this coming month?

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4 snippets of JFDI FTTH news items this week

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Read more! As it is all the trend to write lists, here is a list of FTTH news items for y'all...

1. COTS Meeting - for all those who missed the first meeting, for whatever reason, the date of the next meeting is Sept 3rd, 1.30 intro for 2 - 4pm start. Make a note in your diary right now. And, good news, it's oop north, in Hull City Council Chamber, thanks to Hull City Council and Fibrestream. The agenda will be finalised tomorrow and released here as well as on the BSG site. Watch this space for booking info - places are limited. However, the event will be webcast and we expect all remote participants to engage through the backchannel on Twitter!

2. FTTH Colloquium - we have been promising a Colloquium for some time on this topic and there is now so much going on, it just has to be done. So, Sept 3rd, 9-9.30 for 10am start. Also in Hull, so you can walk through City Hall to the COTS meeting in the afternoon after partaking of a buffet lunch kindly laid on by Hull City Council.

The Colloquium is really important because whilst standards are being drawn up through COTS, and the Digital Britain Implementaiton plan is out there, many communities and grassroots activists are already out there digging, or planning to start (and finish, long before 2017!). The Colloquium will, with NextGenUs, provide suppliers, councils, community leaders, community champions, rural activists, small businesses, and other interested parties, with the opportunity to get together, discuss ongoing and foreseen problems, find solutions, see demos of equipment, share ideas, and feed information from grassroots and community broadband networks to the COTS meeting in the afternoon.

This is a talking shop, hence the name "colloquium" and is a perfect opportunity to get your community, local or parish council, products, backhaul solutions, and so on into the next gen access eNdGAme. There will be help and advice on funding, business models, sustainability, technical solutions, FiWi, community engagement, mapping, as well a chance to dispel some of the myths about FTTH costs and so on through the experiences of some of those present who have been there, JFDI and got the tshirt.

Once again, spaces are limited, and we always try to have the perfect mix of community/consumer, public sector and industry, so we strongly advise you to book your place early. The booking form will be available later in the week.

3) RNLI Big Dig - yes, as promised, it has all started. Thanks to many who have pledged and then delivered support, the fibre ducting is now all being laid and the fibre will be blown soon. You need to watch the videos....especially this one which now has had over 8000 views ...

4) And more internationally, the EU are looking beyond i2010 and are seeking views on where the Digital Europe strategy should be going. Your chance to have your say on what we require. You don't need to answer all questions in the survey, just those of interest to you so go to it!

More tomorrow....

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The COTS Project

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Read more! The BSG (Broadband Stakeholder Group) have just sent out an invite to the initial COTS Project meeting next Wednesday. For those who cannot get to London, we will know early next week if there is to be a live stream. Anyone going please tweet or live blog on #oplan or similar...full details below


Commercial, Operational and Technical Standards for Independent Local Open Access Networks (The COTS Project) – kick-off meeting



Venue: Ingenious Media, 15 Golden Square, London W1F 9JG

Date: Wednesday 29 July 2009

Time: 14:00 - 17:00



What is this meeting about?

Around the world there are now numerous examples of successful local and community-led broadband infrastructure projects. Looking forward, it is likely that similar projects could play a key role in delivering next generation broadband to parts of the UK.



However, there is a need to ensure that this does not lead to the emergence of a disjointed ‘patchwork quilt’ of networks that results in consumers and businesses being offered a sub-optimal range of services at the retail level.



In order to mitigate this risk a degree of standardisation and harmonisation is required. This would aim to reduce costs for scale retail service providers, for whom cost minimisation is a central concern. However, any standardisation and harmonisation should not inhibit the scope for grass roots innovation at the local level.



Government, regulator, industry and other stakeholders have all indicated that this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and similar activities are currently being undertaken in other markets.



The BSG is therefore proposing the COTS Project (Commercial, Operational and Technical Standards), an industry-led project to examine what needs to be done in order to ensure consumers have access to a full range of service providers, regardless of the underlying network ownership or technology.



In addressing this issue there is an opportunity to create a win-win-win situation where network operators are able to provide a choice of services to consumers and maximise wholesale revenue potential; retail service providers benefit from a larger addressable market; and consumers and small businesses benefit from a wider range of services.



Who will be speaking?

BSG will set out the proposed project and how we intend to take it forward, with the views of government, Ofcom, and industry stakeholders put forward in order to stimulate debate amongst participants. We aim to achieve an in-depth discussion amongst participants, capturing a variety of opinions and establishing a view on the key issues the project needs to address and how this might be achieved.



Who should attend?

The project is open to anyone with an interest who wishes to participate. BSG is keen that as many stakeholders as possible are represented at the meeting, and engaged with the work going forward.



The kick-off meeting will be of particular interest to: service providers; network operators; vendors; local authorities, RDAs, community projects, developers, and their partners.



If you wish to attend, or are interested in the project and would like further information, please contact: Peter Shearman, t: 020 7331 2163, e: peter.shearman@intellectuk.org


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Old boys' network and UK broadband

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Read more! Very interesting side of the debate succinctly delivered on PC Pro by Barry Collins. Read it for yourself and comment.

Several of us have discussed it here and think that some of the comments recently from various sources indicate one and the same thing - it is time for some honesty in the debate, and for consumers to be properly represented at all levels of the debate. (Which is what we have been trying to do for years, with varying degrees of success).

If it means putting some of the cards on the table about agendas - hidden and otherise - then so be it.

The consumers, the people in the HOMES that need to be connected, are already voicing their opinions in many different forums, on blogs, Twitter, and offline in the media, pubs, in offices, homes, and on street corners. It is time for those voices not just to be heard, but to actually be listened to, and their opinions and ideas to be acted upon for the greater good of UK Plc, not to further careers or satisfy shareholders.

Note: Soz, had a bimbo moment and put the wrong link to the article first time round and accredited it wrongly. Apologies, Barry! Read more!

BSG Report on fibre costs in the UK

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Read more! The BSG report on the costs of fibre deployment has been published.

More light reading for the weekend!
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Caio Review

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Read more! Unless you have been under a rock for the last week (or in the wilds of Scotland, as I was), you can hardly have failed to have caught the publication of Francesco Caio's review of Barriers to Investment in NGA, and the news and blogosphere commentary on it. There is too much to comment upon in a single post, but suffice to say, it bears reading. However, there are a couple of points that spring to mind as part of the 'rural lobby' that Caio mentions in the report.

Firstly, apparently no-one lives further than 5.1km from an exchange in the UK. Rot! Our whole village is situated more than that from the exchange, as are many, many others, who therefore have no chance of benefitting from ADSL2+, and who should have been more deeply considered in the report when dismiising the need for FTTH investment at this point in time. We are, it seems, now a minority group (the digitally excluded) and our problems must be addressed by government et al, with the same enthusiasm that other minority groups are.

Secondly, the lack of demand shown in some of the graphs for video etc fails entirely to take into account that many of us "just don't bother" with video/films because our connections are incapable of downloading films in under a couple of days. Upload the videos from the recent trip to Scotland once home? Not a chance, and as for trying to put the photos and videos onto Flickr over a wireless network in Oban...pah.

Third point: wireless has to be an integral part of the first phase (at least) of NGA, hence the adoption of the term FiWi showing the need for wireless. (See previous posts on the matter) However, the poverty of existing wireless infrastructure (mobile coverage in rural Scotland this last week was patchy to say the least) and even technologies such as HSDPA, 3G and so on, are not going to bring the bandwidth that consumers need now.

And, finally, that old bug bear again: consumers were not properly included, as ever, in the Caio review, judging by the list of organisations/individuals contacted. Ask us what we need true broadband for and we will tell you. (No sign of the Federation of Small Businesses, CLA, Teleworkers Association, CMA for instance in the list on pp 73-75 - only "Industry" - very telling).

As a small business owner, looking at present, for instance, to use developers in India for several purposes, I am unable to upload the training videos which will bring them up to speed fast enough to start offering additional products and services this year to clients. I cannot video conference with my next door neighbour, let alone India or London. This means unnecessary trips to meetings because I have no choice but to do that, and that has an environmental and economic impact - personally, for my business and for the country. I cannot pay tax on money that I have not earned because it has been spent on train tickets, flights, and so on, but that would have gone to the Treasury if I had been able to work more efficiently on a decent connection. This is so blindingly obvious that I wonder it is not mentioned more often.

As a family, my teenagers are unable to do many of the things their peers and friends can, be they in London or rural Jutland in Denmark. This is not just frustrating, but also affects their progress in school, which will inevitably affect their career choices and the contribution they are able to make in future to the economy. It is also highly likely that we will see a drain of talent to other nations where the standard of living, choices etc are higher, particularly from this generation of kids brought up in an ever smaller world, who see and hear about services and choices available to their friends in other countries.

And as an aside: BSG have also decided to almost double their figure for 100% UK FTTH, despite having been fairly adamant for years that the cost would be around the £15Bn mark. One feels somewhat aggrieved that this sudden doubling of the costs means that the telcos will now play the FTTC card over and over again, and sweat the copper asset for yet more years to come, thereby doing the population out of the chance to get a decent infrastructure. One can only ask if there is a hidden agenda about this sudden rise, and the answer is a tad worrying....more later when I have calmed down a little! Read more!

Property rating for fibre

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Read more! Back at the beginning of this century (!), I became very interested in the issue of property rating on fibre, and why it was cited as one of the issues surrounding non-investment in FTTH, particularly by new entrants.

I wrote an article on it, Treasury taxing new entrant fibre providers', and the issue has been taxing me ever since.

I am short of hard data about how much this property tax is at current rates since the new rates came into effect last year.

Nor do I know what effect it has on the 'up to £16bn' sum - is it included in the provision of FTTH that keeps being cited? Is it included whether or not there is full copper replacement?

How is it affecting the thinking of non-incumbent players?

When H20 do Bournemouth, do the council take the rates with one hand and pay them with the other? Does the money go direct to Treasury or stay with the council?

Under what circumstances can the rates be changed - viz in Korea where they scrapped them entirely to encourage FTTH deployment?

The BSG had a working group for this issue, does it still exist?? What/where is the latest document on the subject?

Questions, questions......any answers out there?
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