Category: Internet Access And Service

Article – French language

Les prix de l’accès à Internet suscitent la grogne à la Réunion – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

La Réunion is one of France’s “outre-mer” départements, best understood as a colony of that country. It is an island located in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar. But like most of these French colonies, there are a handful of telecommunications operators who are offering Internet service to the people and businesses on that island.

A major gripe that is currently being raised here is the cost of broadband Internet service on that island which is more expensive than equivalent service provided in France’s mainland. The common ask is €39.90 – €49.90 per month for 20Mb/s Internet service along with EUR€10 for regular telephone service. These services would also encompass 20-34 TV channels and inclusive calling to 50-100 destinations.

Other issues that were raised included poor service quality. But there is activity in Paris to encourage the operators in La Réunion and the other “Outre-Mer” territories to improve those services and price in a more keen manner.

Personally, I would like to see these areas increasingly become on-ramps to more of the communications links that are part of the Internet like the satellite uplinks or submarine / inland cable links. These can allow themselves and neighbouring countries to gain access to improved Internet bandwidth and give the neighbouring countries access to competing communications links.

This kind of work could then lift these “DOM” countries to a position where they can economically prosper and can expose their citizenry to good education.

Article – French language

La fibre optique se déploie en Côte d’Ivoire – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

Most of us would think that it’s a noble effort to help the “poor starving Africans” out, usually by working alongside a charity or church mission that works in various African countries providing health, education and welfare to these communities. This is although most of these communities work in an agricultural economy.

But in the Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), there are steps to distribute real next-generation broadband to this country using fibre-optic technology. The main drivers for this effort include education and telemedicine to the various communities.

The main infrastructure would be built around a 1400km fibre-optic backbone between San Pedro, Tabou, Man, Odienné, Korhogo and Ferkessedougou;  and another 549km backbone between Abidjan, Bondoukou and Bouna. There will be a network covering the Cote D’Ivoire which uses 6700km of fibre optic cabling and touching the various medical and educational precincts. It will achieve a 100Mbps bandwidth and support digital television and increased-capacity telephony for the telecommunications providers there.

This will be co-ordinated by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications of that country, Bruno Koné as part of a nationwide “rural telecommunications project” known as the “Projet National de Téléphonie Rurale (PNTR)”.

Issues that can be raised is whether this could allow the creation of a data axis through Africa and whether efforts could be underway to provide competitive telecommunications through this continent. In some cases, this could allow Cote D’Ivoire to become more than an agricultural country by opening up research and commerce in to that area and neigbouring African countries. Of course, the real issue is to have the government work efforts to enrich the nation for all and yield prosperity and health using this technology.

Article

Netherlands makes net neutrality mandatory | DigitalProductionME.com

My Comments

The issue of Net Neutrality and access to competing telecommunications services is still a thorny issue in the USA and some other countries where telephony and cable-TV monopolies still exist and have extensive clout.

But the Netherlands government have used their telecommunications laws to make Net Neutrality a mandatory requirement through that country. This also encompasses the requirement of ISPs and mobile carriers to allow customers to gain access to “over-the-top” telecommunications services in that country. It was driven by the KPN incumbent telecommunications company wanting to slug customers for use of these services and this practice that KPN did was working against the European goal of competitive trade.

How I see this effort in the Netherlands is that it is another step in the right direction to encourage competition for value with telecommunications, something which is being required in the European Union. The more countries that mandate Net Neutrality and similar requirements, the better it would be for a competitive telecommunications and broadcasting environment.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Full fibre on its way to 9,000 premises in and around Chipping Norton

From the horse’s mouth

Cotswolds Broadband – Web site

My Comments

The action is now in the Cotswolds for a full fibre-optic rollout in the UK. The effort is organised by Cotswolds Broadband to provide and manage this kind of broadband infrastructure to Chipping Norton and its neighbourhood.

It will be done on an infrastructure basis where customers will be dealing with retail internet providers like what is happening with ADSL services in the UK. The technology will be a full fibre-to-the-premises service with the cabling carried overhead rather than buried underground. But one of the main efficiencies that is promoted with the infrastructure project is that the infrastructure company is locally owned, this allowing the money to go back in to the community.

A question that needs to be raised is whether the service will be effectively transparent for the retail customers? This includes quality-of-service for multimedia services as well as the ability to provide IP-based telephony at the necessary standard for useability.

What I would see is that the more country areas that become enabled for next-generation broadband, the better. This is to place these areas on the map not just in an agricultural way but to satisfy newer “tree-change” realities.

Article

NBN Co – National Broadband Network – Australia | Will the NBN fix my TV reception?

My comments

The question that was often raised in this article was the feasibility for the National Broadband Network to be used as a conduit to providing a reliable high-quality TV viewing experience. This is more so in areas around Australia where TV reception quality is next to hopeless and is something regularly encountered in rural areas.

There are some IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) services in place through Australia but these are offered by some ISPs as a way of delivering multichannel pay-TV service to their customers. Similarly, the regular free-to-air TV stations run Internet-based TV services typically in the form of on-demand TV content. This is where one typically can catch up on past episodes of a TV show or see “12-inch” (extended-length) versions of particular content like TV interviews.

But the National Broadband Network could be used as a platform for delivering an IPTV service similar to what has happened in France with their “n-box” triple-play services, and also what happens in some other European countries. There, one could use the set-top box which is connected to the Internet to tune in to regular free-to-air TV broadcasts. There is even the ability to gain access to extended content offered by the broadcasters like “catch-up” TV from the comfort of your couch.

This is also augmented by the main TV manufacturers rolling out “main-lounge-area” TV sets and video peripherals that have an extended-TV platform and can connect to the Internet. These sets, commonly marketed as “smart TVs”, have been pitched with apps that have access to various functions like broadcaster

Freeview, who represent the free-to-air digital TV platform in Australia, could extend their remit for this service beyond the classic terrestrial-based technology. Here, they could set up a “Freeview IP” environment which uses IPTV and the National Broadband Network to distribute regular “scheduled-broadcast” TV content via this infrastructure. This could be extended to a “couch-based” user interface for extended on-demand content such as catch-up TV.

Questions that may be raised concerning this would include negotiation with sports leagues and cultural bodies concerning using Internet infrastructure to broadcast their content. This may be seen as treading on “online rights” contracts and may break sports-code ideals like “delay-to-the-gate” blackouts (where a fixture can’t be shown live in a city unless a minimum number of seats are sold) or similar requirements. As I have covered before, if the intention is to broadcast in the regular manner on to the Internet as would be expected for a regular TV service i.e. verbatim broadcasting with own talent calling the event and use of regular commercial and continuity material specific to the area, there shouldn’t be a difference.

As the NBN gets rolled out around Australia, we need to take action on being able to deliver the free-to-air TV content through this infrastructure in a similar manner to how it has been enjoyed.

Articles

Ultrafast Broadband…It’s A Yes | Appleton With Eaton Parish Website

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Press Release

My Comments

After success with Hambleton in Rutland which has been previously covered on HomeNetworking01.info, Gigaclear are to set up and service two Oxfordshire villages with real next-generation broadband.

The neighbouring villages, Appleton & Eaton will be using a fibre-to-the-premises setup with buried fibre infrastructure which is to pass 400 homes and businesses in the community. At the time of writing, there were 120 subscribers committed to the service.

The service will yield 10Mbps switched bandwidth but provide access to shared bandwidth at 1000Mbps on a “burst” process. But this allows for a continuous path of improvement and a sense of future-proof design as these villages either become larger or take on a significant employer. The costs for this service would run at £37 per month, with a total startup cost of £185 (£100 connection fee + £85 installation), and the prices include VAT at the current rate.

The main access driver in these villages are the small businesses which operate from home and are driven by one or two people. One of these businesses that put Appleton on the map is White’s Of Appleton who hang the church bells in many of the churches in the UK. How I see this is a way of making it more cost-effective for these businesses to communicate across the country, Europe and the world, thus being able to nail more business or deal competitively.

The key organisations who are behind this include the Appleton Broadband Group and the Appleton & Eaton Parish Council, which is an example of local public money going behind a next-generation broadband effort. It was part of an 18-month improvement effort by the council to keep both the towns on track, along with keeping the local bus service alive and establishing a new children’s playground in these areas.

This is another example of a proactive effort taking place to make sure that small rural communities do have a chance at real broadband Internet, especially next-generation broadband in order to afford them what urban dwellers take for granted.

Article

DirecTV to offer broadband to the boonies, teams up with ViaSat and Hughes Satellite providers — Engadget

My Comments

Another effort is taking place in bringing real broadband to rural USA. This time, DirecTV, who are one of two major digital satellite TV players in that market are working with ViaSat and Hughes satellite-broadband providers to sell their services as a bundled retail package. This is in addition to teeing up with the main telcos in the US to provide multiple-pipe triple-play communications services to that market.

The Hughes satellite broadband partnership capitalises on pre-existing business partnerships that Hughes Satellite had with DirecTV, by extending this to broadband Internet service.

One of the main problems at the moment is acineving a price parity to what most wireline broadband service providers would charge for providing this service. This includes the bandwidth allowable through the satellite setup as well as equivalent quotas that match most Internet use.

Another problem that will also affect DirecTV’s satellite-broadband bundling efforts is whether there will be more than one satellite dish needed to provide both the pay-TV service as well as the broadband service. This can be of concern when it comes to the aesthetics and cost of these installations and whether people will buy a bundled satellite-TV / satellite-Internet package or not. Here, I would like to see these setups proven to work using one dish and multiple antennas.

Similarly, an “SMATV” setup which services multiple TV and Internet subscribers in a multi-tenancy location such as a ski resort should also be assessed so that proper Internet bandwidth and DirecTV multi-channel reception can occur in these locations.