Category: Internet Access And Service

Articles

Regional internet service to fore | The Australian

Broadband the hot issue in Australian election | FierceCable

My comments

I have been following the issue of rural broadband-Internet delivery and next-generation broadband in this site and have observed certain ways that this issue has been tackled. In Europe, especially the UK and France where service-provider competition is enforced by national governments, there has been plenty of locally-driven initiatives to get decent-level broadband in to rural and regional areas. Some of these initiatives have been instigated by independent private companies, sometimes with the help of local or regional governments. I have even cited some examples of Vtesse Broadhand who have instigated action to “wire-up” some UK villages like Birch Green, Broughton and Hatt to decent-standard broadband, even to next-generation setups with FTTC fibre-optic with VDSL2 copper run to the customer’s door. In Hautes-Pyrénées and Finistère, France, there is an example of local government being involved with providing broadband to a community.

In Australia, the Federal election had yielded a hung Parliament and provided room for three independent MPs who are based in rural areas alongside a Greens MP to determine the next Federal Government. The Australian Labor Party wanted to establish a National Broadband Network which would provide fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband to most areas and satellite broadband to a few rural and remote areas. On the other hand, the Liberal and National Party coalition wanted to run with a fibre-optic backhaul and a mix of cable-Internet, DSL and wireless technologies as a way of pushing out broadband Internet to more communities. The broadband blueprint will end up as a deal-maker as far as the rural independent MPs are concerned because of country people needing to gain real broadband speed in their areas.

If the low-cost copper-based technology is to be seen as the preferred solution, the deal-makers need to look at a few issues like handling decaying wiring infrastructure, the possibility of sub-loop DSL setups or “cluster-specific” DSL-enabled telephone exchanges and the the use of sub-loop VDSL2 for providing next-generation broadband speeds. As well, the plan will also have to support an environment that can change at any moment, whether due to an increased population density; or due to a high-value centre of employment appearing in the area.

What I hope for is that this election can be a real wake-up call to raising the standard of rural broadband access and the ability to put country areas on an equal footing with urban areas as I have said in this statement article.

News articles

thinkbroadband :: Faster broadband comes to Hatt and Higher Pill thanks to Vtesse

From the horse’s mouth

Vtesse Broadband

My comments

Vtesse Broadband have done it again by providing two small communities in Cornwall with next-generation broadband.  The two communities, Hatt and Higher Pill, have been provided with a level of Internet service that would be considered woeful by today’s standards but this could be rectified by the use of fibre-to-the-cabinet technology with a VDSL2 copper sub-loop link to the customer’s door.

One reservation I have always had about any DSL-based copper end-link used in a broadband setup in the country is that the telephone lines between the exchange and the customer would also have been playing a contributory role towards poor-quality service. This could be due to ageing copper infrastructure or wiring setups that aren’t particularly efficient especially if there are clusters of buildings.

What I was mainly pleased about is that a small private company had worked with a small community to provide that community with a real broadband Internet service, especially a next-generation service, rather than waiting for the major telcos to provide the service.

The same article had raised the issue of the UK government reneging on subsidising the fibre backhaul to these services and I would concur with this concept because if a government needs to put its resources where its mouth is when it comes to providing rural communities with decent-standard reliable broadband.

These small broadband setups that cover rural towns in the UK are something that needs to be watched by all of the major parties contesting the Australian Federal Election and by the party who wins the election and holds government because they can be an example of how rural communities have “gotten off their backside” to provide city-grade broadband Internet.

La montée en débit des réseaux ADSL se précise – DegroupNews.com (France – French language)

My comments on this article

From my understanding of this French-language article, there had been some reports that the performance of “regular” ADSL broadband service (including the triple-play services) in areas where FTTH next-generation broadband service had been rolled out.

But there are some main factors that could lead to this.

One is that the “early-adopter” technology enthusiasts who would make most use of the Internet would have shifted to next-generation broadband as soon as the technology is available. This would apparently “free-up” the load on the regular broadband services for most people who may be doubting the need to shift to next-generation broadband.

Another is that the backbones that bring the data to the broadband-service networks, both the next-generation variety and the regular variety would have to be upscaled to cater for increased data traffic caused by the next-generation networks. This would then lead to increased performance for the Internet services.

But the main reason is due to capital improvements on the existing telephone network that have been taking place in order to increase the possible bandwidth available at the customer’s door. This has mainly been through revising the telephony-system architecture and eliminating aging and derelict infrastructure in order to improve the performance of ADSL-based Internet services

As I have observed with the UK and France, once you have serious commercial and government interest in developing a nation’s telecommunications infrastructure, such as through implementing fibre-optic-based next-generation broadband, there is a strong likelihood that the quality of the nation’s Internet service will improve. This can only happen with real competition in the telecommunications sector and a government that is behind real telecommunications improvement.

 Coalition will ‘wind clock back’ with NBN axing – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

My comments

I have observed other countries like the UK and France push on with next-generation broadband Internet developments and they have taken various initiatives to achieve this goal.

In some cases, most notably in the UK, local communities had set up localised next-generation broadband deployment for villages and other areas which wouldn’t be serviced by this kind of broadband, let alone any broadband service. As well, a lot of European towns are “wiring up” with some form of fibre-based next-generation broadband and there has been efforts in place to assure competitive service to the customer’s door.

Similarly, Finland took the bold step of having broadband Internet with a minimum speed of 2Mbps declared as a universal service in the same manner as a home telephone or mains electricity.

At the moment, we have situations where people in the country cannot get proper broadband service either through issues like distance to the exchange or very old telephone infrastructure; and we have a common situation where people have to count bandwidth used because of ridiculously expensive Internet-access tariffs and quotas. In some cases, we have situations where multimedia Internet like Internet radio or YouTube streaming video cannot be enjoyed especially during the late afternoon in a metropolitan area due to poor bandwidth allocation.

Is the Coalition intending to provide us with a lesser-standard next-generation broadband service or why are they simply doing this? If there is an alternative solution being proposed for an improved-technology broadband infrastructure, it needs to be cheap to maintain, including low failure rate; cheap to adapt to changing demainds as well as being cheap to establish. It also must be able to provide robust always-live broadband-class Internet service to rural and remote households as well as more dense communities. Finally, the service must see a decent increase in value for the amount the customers are willing to pay.

Whoever gains power in the Australian Federal Government should look at what the UK, France and Scandinavia are doing to assure their citizens of proper value for money as far as broadband Internet service is concerned.

Electoral Disclaimer

This comment is based on my observation and research of other countries concerning their provision of Internet access and service and is a viewpoint expressed independently of any political candidate or party contesting the current Australian Federal Election.

News articles

thinkbroadband :: Vtesse Broadband bring next-generation broadband to Hertfordshire

From the horse’s mouth

Vtesse Broadband – press releases

My comments

The initiative has been taken again to establish full broadband service in the UK countryside. This time, two villages in Hertfordshire, north of London, are equipped with fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband with sub-loop unbundling. The villages, Birch Green and Hertingfordbury, are located too far from the local telephone exchange for guaranteed high-speed ADSL broadband Internet service, so Vtesse have established a fibre-optic backbone for both of the villages and set up the cabinets there.

Another step that has been taken is to have customer feedback to determine where the demand is and where there is poor coverage. The network has been made future-proof so that they can provide fibre-to-the-premises service when the time comes to provide that level of service.

I had a look at the Vtesse website and was impressed with the network-Internet “edge” router that customers would be supplied with as standard. It is a Comtrend ADSL2/VDSL2 wireless modem router that doesn’t just work with 802.11g like most provider-supplied equipment does. Instead, this unit can work with 802.11n Wi-Fi network segments

Again, what I am so pleased about is that this is an example of small companies in the UK have taken the initiative to provide full-ADSL-quality to “next-generation” broadband to the “backwaters” of that country. This then puts farmers and small businesses in those towns on a competitive level with those that have proper broadband Internet service and with the big business operators.

News Articles

Internet for all, declares Finland | The Age Technology (Australia)

Finland the first country in the world to make broadband access a legal right | Engadget

Is Broadband a Basic Right? Finland Says Yes! | GigaOM

My comments

Previously, I had written a post on this blog about Finland proposing to establish universal access to broadband Internet with a minimum speed of 1Mbps as a basic right. This was in response to the usual blogosphere comments about a legal right to download BitTorrents of movies and similar content in that country when this news was initially broken, and I was stating it as a preparation ground for IP-based video services, VoIP telephony and the ability to use the Internet to do business competitively.

Now this goal has become real with the Finnish government with them establishing certain Internet providers as “universal service providers” who have to provide the service for 30-40€ / month. Another issue that hasn’t been raised in the press coverage is how Finland will finance this universal-service obligation.

This is whether through:

• spending by the government out of the country’s annual budget
• a levy on telecommunications or Internet services (current practice in the US for the universal telephone service)
• annexing the TV-licence or similar audiovisual-service fee used to fund the public broadcast service (UK’s proposed solution) or
• simply letting the universal-service providers charge more for discretionary services (current practice in Australia with Telstra).

One of the articles was also looking at idea of the US adopting a similar “bill-of-rights” method for protecting the standard of Internet service in that country. This is even though there is a lawsuit filed by Comcast against the FCC that is currently in progress concerning Net neutrality and the right if the state to have their hand in the provision of Internet service.

What I see of this is that Finland has led the pack by being the first country to write in their law books that broadband Internet be provided as a universal service in a similar manner to mains electricity or the telephone service. It will be interesting to see who will be the next country to take tbis step seriously.

News article

BBC News – Plans to regenerate four Carmarthenshire towns

My comments

I had been reviewing this BBC News article about plans to regenerate some Carmartheshire towns but had found scant information about improvements to broadband Internet service in those towns.

If there are plans to regenerate a country town, these plans should also include improvements to infrastructure that provide broadband Internet access. This could range from reassessing the telephony infrastructure so that ADSL2 broadband is capable of 2Mbps “at every door”, through improvements in wireless broadband coverage to provision of next-generation broadband in that town.

It could then allow for the town to become competitive as far as technology-driven businesses, such as R&D or universities, are concerned. As well, the town can also allow other small businesses that operate therein to “come on to the map” and be competitive on the world stage. It will also benefit the outlying properties and neighbouring villages / hamlets by exposing them to proper broadband service rather than just horrible old dial-up Internet.