Category: Internet Access And Service

Sky reduces prices on fibre broadband in York

Article

York UK aerial view courtesy of DACP [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Sky offering cut-price next-generation broadband in York

Sky Broadband Cuts Ultra Fibre Optic FTTH Pilot Service Price in York UK | ISPReview.co.uk

My Comments

Sky are increasing their fibre-to-the-premises foothold in York, North Yorkshire but also are reducing the price of these services for households along with marketing the services as “Ultra Fibre Optic” services. This is based on infrastructure being rolled out by them, TalkTalk and CityFibre across that city/

They were asked about whether they have a plan to build out their own FTTP infrastructure across the UK but had denied having that kind of ambition. But they are running separate FTTP pilot deployments across Basingstoke and Derbyshire with the same kind of technology, products and tariff charts.

Sky’s cut-price plans offer in common unlimited data use along with a router being supplied although customers have to fork out GBP£6.95 for delivery.

The plans are listed below:

  • 50Mbps for GBP£5 per month for 12 months, GBP£10 per month therafter
  • 100Mbps for GBP£10 per month for 6 months, GBP£20 per month thereafter
  • 940Mbps for GBP£20 per month for 6 months, GBP£30 per month thereafter

The customers are still charged the GBP£17.40 line rental, which has raised questions for an FTTH/P service run by Sky, TalkTalk and CityFibre. Here the question that may be raised is that if BT Openreach had anything to do with this, they may have had Sky put this in their tariff charts.

If Sky is a TV-content supplier, they could be in a position to run a single-pipe multiple-play service with their pay-TV content delivered via the fibre-optic infrastructure which could allow for the satellite dishes to go from the balconies. As well, it can become a foothold for Sky to roll out 4K UHDTV services to their customers as television is heading down that path.

The issue of the line-rental charge is still a thorny issue for a lot of UK providers because there isn’t a way to allow ISPs to provide a “naked” or “dry-loop” service where you don’t have to pay BT line-rental charges. On the other hand, Sky could start offering telephony over the fibre services for those of us who value the landline telephone service.

But what is happening is that some providers are reducing the price of fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband so as to allow users to justify taking advantage of the high speeds that it offers.

Raising the bar for triple-play Internet in France

Articles – French language / Langue Française Flag of France

SFR lancera une nouvelle box en septembre… pour contrer Free ? | O1net.com

SFR : une nouvelle box fibre pour septembre ? | ZDNet.fr

SFR annonce une nouvelle box ! | Ere Numérique

From the horse’s mouth

SFR

Product Page (French language / Langue Française)

My Comments

It looks like there will be a tight showdown between two of the French telcos when it comes to the multiple-play “n-box” services.

Freebox Révolution - courtesy Iliad.fr

The Freebox Révolution to be replaced with better-performing equipment soon

Free.fr did a bit of initial murmuring this month (July) about the Freebox v7 that will be surfacing on the French market in September. This is a powerful unit that can handle 4K UHDTV and is intended to replace the Freebox Révolution which was known to set the standard for carrier-supplied routers and set-top boxes.

Now SFR have made mention about a triple-play “n-box” service with hardware that is said to be on a par with, if not better than, Free’s setup. Here, this will be about improved Wi-Fi technology of the 802.11ac order, a new design and, like the Freebox, support for 4K UHDTV. This is in conjunction with more sports content and VoD content being made available to their subscriber base on 4K UHDTV.

It will be released in September, concurrently to when Free will put their new Freebox on the market. SFR want to also allow their existing subscriber base to upgrade to this new service for EUR€49 with a 12 month contract.

In the UK, British Telecom had raised the bar for Wi-Fi performance offered by a carrier-supplied wireless modem router. Could this also mean that the French telcos could join in and offer highly-powerful carrier-supplied wireless modem routers for their services as a way to compete against each other.

What is now happening is that the calibre offered for carrier-supplied home-network equipment could be another way where telcos and ISPs in a highly-competitive market could compete against each other. This is in addition to what you could get for your landline or mobile telephony service, your pay-TV service’s channel lineup or your Internet bandwidth and included services for the monthly charge that you stump up.

Detroit now benefits from 10Gb competitive Internet service

Article

US Flag By Dbenbenn, Zscout370, Jacobolus, Indolences, Technion. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

More it’s about access to real competitive broadband in the USA

Detroit Rock(et Fiber) City: Startup brings 10Gb service to Motown | The Register

My Comments

Another US city is now to benefit from high-speed competitive Internet service. This time, it is Detroit, Michigan which excelled through the automotive boom, carrying along the Motown funk, soul and disco music with it, but went seriously downhill thanks to the recent financial turmoil.

But two former Quicken Loans employees built the Rocket Fiber startup to provide 10Gb FTTP fibre-optic broadband in to Detroit’s central business (downtown) district. This had been pitched at both householders and businesses and became a way for Detroit to regenerate itself by attracting newer startup businesses in to that city. But there are plans to take this further to Detroit’s Midtown district and then further out to the rest of Detroit which I would say places the cable-TV company and the Baby Bell telco operating in that area “on notice”.

At the moment, the called price for these services is US$69 per month for a 1Gb service and US$299 per month for a 10Gb service. Rocket Fiber are also investigating an IPTV service that will work on these lines. Rocket Fiber also want to raise the bar for support by providing exact appointment times for service calls along with phone support with “walk-through” troubleshooting.

Personally, could this be about raising the bar for Internet service in Detroit especially as a way to reinvigorate that city and bring it out of the doldrums? If so, this could be an example for towns and cities which suffered financially but want to get back to prosperity.

ISPs another vector for tech-support scams

Article

Tech support scams target victims via their ISP | BBC News

Fraudsters impersonate victims’ ISPs in new tech support scam | Graham Cluley Blog

My Comments

Previously, as I have known from close friends’ experiences, there have been the fake tech-support phone calls claiming to be from Microsoft or another major software vendor. This was with me congratulating a person who wasn’t computer-literate immediately hanging up on one of these calls along with someone else asking another of these scammers for their Australian Business Number (equivalent to a VAT number in Europe).

These scams have evolved to a pop-up message pretending to be from one of the major software firms but asking them to call a number listed on that message. Typically this comes in the form of a virus or pirated-software alert as the message and some of these messages even appear on the lock screen that you normally enter your password.

Now the messages are appearing to come from ISPs, typically the ones who have most of the Internet business in the US, UK and Canada. But this is about the ISP detecting malware on the customer’s system with a requirement to call a fake customer-support number.

In this case, they identify a customer’s ISP based on a “spy pixel” ad on a site infected with malware or a “malvertisement”. The ads are typically served through large ad networks offering low-risk advertising products. This is used to identify the customer’s “outside” or WAN IP address which effectively is the same for all computers accessing the Internet from the same router.

Here, most residential and small-business Internet services have this IP address automatically determined upon login or at regular intervals and is obtained from a pool of known IP addresses that were assigned to that ISP to give to their customers. There is logic in the malware used to identify which ISP a customer is with based which IP address pool the IP address is a member of.

In these cases, call the ISP using the number they have provided you for technical support: typically written on their own Website which you should type in the URL for; written on any documents that you receive from them like accounts or brochures, as part of doing business with them; or by looking them up in the phone book. As well, don’t give any account numbers or personally-identifiable information to unsolicited approaches for technical support that you are not sure about.

But in all cases, you are most likely to initiate the call for personal or business tech support yourself when you need this support because you know your computer and network and how these systems perform. Typically you will approach one of the computer experts in your community, your workplace’s IT department if they have one, or your computer supplier for knowledge or assistance.

Cable One pushes towards a Gigabit Arizona city

Article

Cable One Launches Gigabit Speeds in Arizona | Broadband News & DSL Reports

From the horse’s mouth

Cable One

Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

In some areas, a small firm focuses on providing next-generation broadband to those areas, whether be FTTC fibre-copper (VDSL2), FTTP fibre-optic or HFC fibre-coaxial. This allows them to concentrate on enriching those areas’ Internet service and has been taking place mainly in rural UK.

Now this practice is taking place in some parts of the USA, especially Arizona, thanks to Cable One. Here they have rolled out in to Cottonwood and Clarkdale a DOCSIS 3.0 HFC service which can yield 1Gigabit/second downstream and 50 Megabit/second upstream. The cost of this service, known as Gigabit One, will be US$175/month with a 500Gb data plan, but will make sure it is able to be delivered across all of both towns. There are other plans being put up for this service including one that has a 2000Gb allowance.

It is the first of the cable-based firms to offer a Gigabit service and has been seen as a way to call those small towns “Gigabit cities”. But the idea of smaller companies focusing on smaller neighbourhoods allows them to concentrate on making sure that these neighbourhoods can benefit from current technology and may even allow larger businesses to set up shop there especially when they want to encourage telecommuting.

Increased value for money affecting residential broadband in Germany

Article Flag of Germany

50 MBit/s und mehr: Verbraucher wollen immer schnelleres Internet | Computer Bild.de (German language | Deutsche Sprache)

My Comments`

Recently, German households are gaining better value for money when it comes to purchasing broadband Internet service. This is affecting the higher-speed 50Mbps service packages that are being preferred by the younger people.

AVM FRITZ!Box 3490 - Press photo courtesy AVM

German Internet customers preferring better value for money for their “50Mbps Talk and Surf” service

These plans are being underscored by their availability as part of multiple-play communications-service deals which include fixed or mobile voice telephony, broadband Internet along with other services. In Germany, the service package that is commonly preferred is the “double-play” service, marketed as a “Talk & Surf” service that encompasses a fixed-line telephone service and a broadband Internet service.

The article highlighted an increase in the preferred connection speed for the broadband services over 5 years with households showing strong interest in the 50Mbps services rather than the “economy” 16Mbps services. As well, the average cost of a fixed-line telephone + broadband service in that country had been dropping slightly from EUR€35.73 per month now to EUR€28.82 per month.

It is being underscored with the increased availability of better-value 50Mbps services in Germany’s larger cities but the 16Mbps “economy” packages are being found to have reduced value for money and this price drop is being described as being a slow one. As is often noted, this kind of value for money when it comes to Internet service doesn’t extend to rural areas which tend to find themselves at a disadvantage in this field.

Personally, I would attribute the increased ubiquity of VDSL-based Internet service in Germany’s urban areas being a factor leading to the improved value for money when it comes to the higher-speed packages.

But the questions to raise regarding the German broadband market is whether there is significant infrastructure-level competition in that country? Similarly, the availability of retail-level competition for residential and small-business telecommunications services has to exist at a sustainable level to assure customers best value for money.

At least something is happening for German households where they are gaining better value for money with their Internet services.

Certainty will arise regarding the cost of Internet service in Britain

Articles

AVM FRITZ!Box 3490 - Press photo courtesy AVM

You will be certain about the price quoted for that UK Internet offer that it does not contain hidden fees

ASA solves line rental crisis in broadband world | ThinkBroadband

We will end misleading broadband adverts, thunders ASA… | The Register

UK ad watchdog forces ISPs to simplify broadband pricing | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Advertising Standards Authority (UK)

Press Release

My Comments

A situation that has affected British Internet-service customers, especially those who purchase DSL-based Internet service has been the ability for telcos and ISPs to conceal the line rental associated with a voice telephone service. The line-rental issue won’t be an issue with customers who run a cable-modem service with Virgin Media or run an FTTP service with the likes of Hyperoptic, Gigaclear or B4RN. It also included issues like the minimum duration of a telecommunications-service contract and the upfront costs that a customer had to pay to get a service going.

Now the Advertising Standards Authority has laid down new guidelines that come in to effect regarding the advertising of Internet services in relationship to the prices, contract duration and other issues. These guidelines will take effect from 31 October 2016, also when BT Openreach are to offer a naked DSL service for the UK market.

The ASA along with Ofcom conducted customer research regarding the pricing of broadband and telecommunications services in the UK. From this research, they highlighted the confusion customers were facing with things like hidden line rentals, introductory offers and upfront costs, along with the contract duration.

Now the ads and tariff listings that ISPs and telcos publish have to provide better information for their current or potential customers. This includes:

  • the upfront and monthly costs for the service factoring, with the upfront costs to have greater prominence
  • the length of the contract for services based on minimum-length contracts
  • the prices that come in to effect after an introductory-offer period has lapsed

 

As far as minimum-length contract services are concerned, the industry and consumer-protection authorities need to work on a language that describes “month-by-month” services where a customer doesn’t face a long minimum contract period. This is more so with post-paid services where a customer can cease service at the end of the billing cycle which may benefit people who are in their location on a short-term basis like a long-term tourist or a person involved in project-based work. This is because of legal confusion about these services being marketed as “no-contract” services.

What is really meant to happen with the sale of fixed-line telephony in the UK is that customers can choose between different providers for this service and pay the line rental (typically between GBP£11-16) to the provider of their choice. This is thanks to the availability of the unbundled local loop setup available for their telephony services. It can be risky with smaller and boutique DSL operators who can’t bundle with particular line-rental provider but can be easier for larger ISPs who can bundle with a line-rental provider, typically their fixed-line telephony service.

The trends likely to come forth are quoted package prices increasing along with telcos and ISPs offering “first-few-months-free” offers or providing “gifts” or “rewards” like a tablet computer or a large number of points to a loyalty program rather than the “18 months free broadband” offers.

The Brits will also benefit from the arrival of a naked DSL service where you don’t have to pay line-rental for a voice telephony service. Such a service was offered by some ISPs in Australia and New Zealand; and over the Channel in France, Germany, Denmark and Portugal. These services will be described as an SOGEA naked VDSL service that is offered in FTTC service areas and will require a mobile telephone or VoIP telephony service to satisfy voice telephony service needs.

The questions that will always be raised is whether there is real infrastructure competition in the UK or whether BT Openreach needs to be fully separated from BT in order to provide increased value for money for competing retail ISPs and their customers.

At least this will mean that anyone who is considering Internet and telecommunications services or changing their Internet service in the UK can see how much the offer that is being advertised will hit them in the hip pocket.

FCC has now identified existence of reduced broadband service competition in the US

Article

The FCC aims to restore competition in the business broadband market, may help slash costs | PC World

My Comments

AT&T Touch-Tone phone - image courtesy of CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

Is the US telecommunications industry heading back to the days of these phones, where competition didn’t exist?

The US-based broadband and IT press are identifying that the country is slowly creeping back to days of “Ma Bell” where there wasn’t any lively competition occurring in the telecommunications and Internet-service sector. They see the recent behaviour exhibited by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and co as the undoing of the work by previous administrations to bring competition to this sector.

Examples of this include established “Baby Bell” telcos and cable-TV companies frustrating the provision of Internet service by private or public competitors such as Google Fiber or local governments. This is being facilitated through state governments passing model legislation to prohibit local governments from providing Internet service or communications-service infrastructure; or litigation taking place concerning the provision of infrastructure for competing communications services.

This is leading to situations where customers face poor customer service, price-gouging and onerous terms and conditions when they sign up for communications services like telephony, cable-TV or Internet service. But it isn’t only affecting households, rather the same situation also affects businesses who are after the essential communications services that “keep their axe sharp”.

For example, businesses are paying through the nose to set up any kind of leased-line or “middle-mile” telecommunications services that facilitate such things as ATMs or credit-card terminals. Even competitive wireless telecommunications providers are paying through the nose for the necessary backhaul from the mobile-antenna towers so their customers’ phones can work. Even if you just have an Internet service for your business like a DSL service, you will also end up paying dearly for this service to match your business’s needs and this can be a noose around your business’s neck especially if you are a small or medium-sized business.

One of the many consumer-activist groups, the Consumer Federation Of America, came forth with the results of a study on this topic. Here they identified that the incumbent carriers were overcharging businesses by US$71 billion for broadband services over last the 5 years.

The FCC are addressing this issue by focusing on how competitive the different communications and Internet-service markets really are and looking at ways to regulate to assure competition.

Here, according to FCC’s Chairman Tom Wheeler, the FCC would identify markets that aren’t competitive and make sure established players don’t harm consumers and businesses or kill innovation. This would be approached by creating a tailored regulatory framework to address non-competitive markets with the barometer for a non-competitive market being with two or less independent operators providing telecommunications and Internet service.

I would look at issues like the ability for a company to lease access to infrastructure whether as full copper or fibre infrastructure; or as access to the “poles, pits, pipes and towers” that the infrastructure runs through. This can also include the ability for a European style of operation where there is a “wholesale-retail” method of selling communications services, allowing for different retail operators to sell the same wholesale bandwidth.

Other issues that Uncle Sam would need to examine include continual surveillance of the market on an antitrust basis such as potential mergers or buyouts to assure competition. This would include dealing with the political influence that established operators are waging with state legislatures and the judiciary to prevent the existence of competitive markets.

To the same extent, the issue of broadband deployment in to the USA’s underserved areas like poorer communities or rural areas still needs to be tackled so as to prevent carrier “redlining”.

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

B4RN video which describes how they brought real broadband to the country

Article

VIDEO How B4RN’s Community 1Gbps FTTP Broadband Network Began | ISPReview.co.uk

From the horse’s mouth

B4RN

Promo video – Click / Tap to play

Digging For The Future video – Click / Tap to play

My Comments

If you are wanting to know what B4RN is all about, have a look at these two videos which underscore this effort.

Here, it is about the local community preparing a local fibre-optic infrastructure to bring in Gigabit-class real broadband in to their rural area in the North of England. This was more so where BT Openreach were showing very little attention to the rural areas, with them claiming they would offer 95% coverage of the UK and rural communities questioning which areas will represent the 5% that will miss out.

There is an emphasis on the community-focused effort where everyone pitches in to prepare and lay down the infrastructure for this fibre-optic service. The second video, “Digging For The Future”, even had a glimpse at a network-speed-test screenshot where the application’s needle hit the maximum, showing that there is real high-speed broadband available here.

I would see this and the Gigaclear efforts as a point of encouragement for country dwellers who fear they are being treated like second-class citizens when it comes to next-generation broadband.

AT&T litigate against broadband-infrastructure-preparation by US local government

Article

AT&T sues Louisville to stop Google Fiber from using its utility poles | ARS Technica

AT&T sues Louisville over utility pole law adopted for Google Fiber | WDRB-TV (41) Louisville

WDRB TV news segment video – Click to view
WDRB 41 Louisville News

 

From the horse’s mouth

Google Fiber

Blog Post

My Comments

A situation that is surfacing in the USA is that AT&T are litigating the City Of Louisville, Kentucky because this local government are implementing a “one-touch make-ready” policy concerning their power infrastructure being made ready for the provision of competing Internet service.

What is “dig-once” or “one-touch make-ready”?

An issue that always surfaces with the “pits, poles and pipes” infrastructure managed by utilities and telecommunications providers is being able to prepare this infrastructure at an early point including positioning the existing operator’s wiring and equipment in a manner that subsequent operators can use those pits, poles or pipes. The idea is to avoid the waiting time that an operator (and their potential customers) have to face along with the disturbance associated with long high-noise construction activity that is needed to prepare infrastructure for another operator’s use.

This policy is know as “dig once” for underground infrastructure or “one-touch make ready” for overhead infrastructure.

The USA situation

Most of the power-line infrastructure between the substations and the end-users in the USA is owned by a city’s or county’s local government or a utility company owned or managed by that local government. AT&T, Comcast and other established operators don’t like the idea of a local government facilitating competitive Internet and pay-TV service so they have had state governments write laws to frustrate the provision of Internet service by local governments such as municipal Wi-Fi hotzones.

The fact that a local government implements a “dig-once” or “one-touch make-ready” policy on the infrastructure it owns is considered a threat to the incumbent operator’s monopolistic behaviour because it is simply facilitating a competitor’s access to the pits, poles and pipes owned by the local government or its public utilities entity. AT&T reckons that what happens with “pits, poles and pipes” is under the control of the state government rather than a local government and that they see it as “seizing” their property if AT&T’s wiring is rearranged by a local government or other entities preparing poles for access by other operators.

Who can effectively provide and manage “pits, poles, pipes and towers” infrastructure?

What is surfacing is a courtroom debate about how a local government or utility company can manage their “pits, poles and pipes” infrastructure in the context of facilitating the use of this infrastructure by other operators. Louisville’s local government, Google FIber and other organisations intent on seeing real competition in the USA’s fixed-broadband market are defending or providing moral support for the defence of this policy.

In some ways, this case could affect how access rights, leases and easements on private land for utilities and telecommunications services are granted; along with how independently-owned “pits, poles, pipes and towers” infrastructure is operated. This can range from a fire brigade providing space on its radio tower or a building owner leasing the top of their tall building to radio-based communications providers; a property owner providing a “once-and-for-all” easement for multiple local telecommunications providers to use; or an apartment block or similar development being wired up for one or more broadband services alongside the established telephony and cable providers.

Here, the question that could be raised is the amount of power established operators can have over the same physical infrastructure when it comes to admitting other operators and whether the infrastructure’s owners can set standards concerning the operators “wires’, antennas and equipment”.

This is a case that is of interest to anyone like public or private entities who are in a position to provide infrastructure along with service providers who want to provide competing telecommunications service.