Tag: United Kingdom

Article

“Full Fibre” ISPs Call on ASA to Stop Misleading UK “Fibre Broadband” Adverts | ISP Review

My Comments

While the NBN are taking things slowly to roll out next-generation broadband Internet in to Australian communities and providing most with a fibre-copper service, the UK are facing a similar problem.

Most of urban Britain are being provisioned with similar fibre-copper next-generation broadband service, typically “fibre-to-the-cabinet” with a copper VDSL2 link between the street cabinet and the customer’s door. This is while a handful of ISPs and infrastructure providers like Gigaclear, Cityfibre and Hyperoptic are running fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband infrastructure, whether to country properties or large urban developments.

But a lot of telcos and ISPs are using the word “fibre” as part of hawking their next-generation broadband Internet product, while it is seen as a keyword by the marketers to say that the service will provide higher bandwidth to the customer than what was normally expected. This is although they are running a fibre-copper Internet service in most of their territories.

What is being raised is how should a broadband service be qualified in relationship to its infrastructure when the service is advertised to the public. It isn’t just about whether a service implements fibre to the premises or not, but how much of the run between the exchange or head-end and the customer’s premises is being covered by a fibre link.

There has to be distinct keywords to say that a service is being provided “fibre-to-the-premises”, a “majority-fibre” service like fibre-to-the-building or fibre-to-the-distribution-point, or a “minority-fibre” service like fibre-to-the-cabinet. Other issues that need to be raised is whether a service is being delivered with symmetrical (upload / download) bandwidth or is an “exclusive bandwidth” service like active fibre where each customer gets the full contracted bandwidth rather than facing bandwidth contention.

What Gigaclear and co are raising is that customers need to know what they are able to get when they sign up for a next-generation broadband Internet service or other advanced telecommunications service.

Previous HomeNetworking01.info coverage on this topic 

Silicon Valley Starts A War Against Fake News

Fact Checking Now Part Of The Online Media Aggregation Function

Useful UK-focused resources

FullFact.org (UK independent factchecking charity)

BBC Reality Check

Channel 4 News FactCheck

Political Parties

A few of the main political parties to watch in the UK

Conservatives (Tories)

Labour

Liberal Democrats

Green Party

UK Independence Party

Scottish National Party

Plaid Cymru (Party Of Wales)

Ulster Unionist Party

Sinn Fein

My Comments and advice

A key issue that is affecting how newsworthy events are covered and what people should become aware of in the news is the rise of propaganda, satire and similar information disguised as news. This situation is being described as “fake news”, “post-truth” and “alternative facts” and a significant number of academics have described it as a reason why Donald Trump became President of the USA or why the British citizens wanted the UK to leave the European Union.

I am giving some space in HomeNetworking01.info to the fake-news topic because an increasing number of people are obtaining their daily news from online sources using a smartphone, tablet or computer. This may be in addition to the traditional papers or the radio or TV newscasts and current-affairs shows or in lieu of these resources.

There have been many factors that have led to a fertile ground for fake news to spread. One of these is that most of us are using online search / aggregation services and social media as our news sources. Similarly, due to reduced circulation or ratings, various well-known news publishers and broadcasters are cutting back on their news budgets which then reduce the number of journalists in the newsroom or reduce news coverage to a quality not dissimilar to a news bulletin offered by a music-focused radio station.

Add to this the fact that it is relatively cheap and easy to set up a Website that looks very enticing thanks to low-cost “no-questions-asked” Web-host services and easy-to-use content management systems. It has led to the rise of Websites that carry propaganda or other material dressed up as news with this material being of questionable accuracy or value. Let’s not forget that it is easy to use Twitter or Facebook to share articles with our friends or followers especially if these articles support our beliefs.

It is also made worse by the cross-border nature of the Internet where one can set up a Website or social-media presence in one country to target citizens in another country with questionable messages. This makes it easier to run the propaganda but avoid being caught out by a broadcast-standards or election-oversight authority or the judicial system in the target jurisdiction.

The fact that the UK are going to the polls for a general election this year means that Britons will become more vulnerable to the fake-news phenomenon. This is a situation that is also affecting France and Germany, two of continental Europe’s major economic, political and population centres who either are in the throes of completing a general election.

The Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Damian Collins (Conservatives), has raised this issue concerning Facebook and urging them to filter out fake news. This is although Silicon Valley have been taking steps to combat this problem through the following actions:

• “turn off the money-supply tap” by refusing to partner their ad networks with fake-news sites or apps
• engage with fact-checking organisations and departments that are either part of established newsrooms or universities to simplify the ability for their users to check the veracity of a claim
• implementing a feedback loop to allow users to report auto-complete search suggestions, “snippets” answers, social-media posts and similar material shown in their sites, including the ability to report items as fake news
• maintaining stronger user-account management and system security including eliminating accounts used just to deliver fake news and propaganda
• modifying search-engine ranking algorithm or “trending-stories” listing algorithms to make it harder for fake news to surface.

What can you do?

Look for information that qualifies the kind of story if you are viewing a collection of headlines like a search or news-aggregation site or app. For example, Google has implemented tagging in their Google News aggregation site and apps such as “satire”.

Trust your gut reaction to that claim that is being offered in that Facebook post before you share it. If you find that the story sounds like exaggeration or is “off the beam”, it sounds like fake news. As well, the copy in many fake-news articles is written in a way to whip up anger or other immediate sentiment.

Check the host Website or use a search engine to see if trusted sources, especially the ones you trust, are covering the story. As well, if your browser offers a plug-in or extension that highlights fake-news and questionable content, it may be worth adding this feature.

Following news from one or more trusted news sources (including their online presence) may be the way to go to verify news being pushed around on the Internet.

For example, switching on the radio or the telly for the news may be a good idea so as to be sure of what really is going on with this election. In the case of the radio, you may find that BBC Radio 4, BBC Local Radio or a talk-focused independent station like LBC may be the better resource for deeper coverage of the election. Music stations who are part of the same family as a news or talk station such as the BBC stations or Capital, Heart and Classic FM who are part of the same family as LBC can also be of value if you use their short news bulletins as a news source. This is because their news bulletins are fed by the newsroom that serves the talk station.

As well, visit the online sites offered by trusted publishers and broadcasters to check the news in relationship to what the parties are saying. It also includes heading to Websites operated by the various parties or candidates so you can get the facts and policies “from the horse’s mouth”.

You also must take advantage of the feedback loop that Facebook, Google and other online services offer to call out questionable content that appears during the election period. Typically this will be options to report the content or autocomplete hit as something like being inappropriate.

Article 

West Sussex UK Moot County-Wide 1Gbps Fibre Optic Broadband Roll-out | ISP Review

My Comments

There are plans to make West Sussex a “Gigabit County” where there is ultrafast fibre-to-the-premises broadband in the order of 1Gbps or similar available to every premises across that county.

They initially want to start work on this in Adur & Worthing by deploying a “dark fibre” network in that area. The West Sussex county council and the Adur & Worthing local council are behind this effort as a way to see improved productivity for businesses and local government, with an inherent desire to invest in that county plus the volumetric increase in business rates. But this could also affect the value of residential property across the board due to fibre-optic broadband being considered a deciding factor for home purchasing.

But it is being seen as an aspirational idea especially if the whole of the county is to be covered. It is very similar to how some towns in the UK are seeing themselves as “Gigabit” towns due to availability of Gigabit-throughput next-generation broadbad; along with New Zealand seeing itself as a GigNation due to Chorus offering Gigabit next-generation broadband across most of the major urban areas who have their FTTP infrastructure. Here, you could be thinking of issues like covering West Sussex’s rural areas or even getting other local authorities on board in that county to establish similar infrastructure.

The major idea with this project would be to maintain the local councils, in this case Adur & Worthing, as an anchor tenant who would be the main user of this infrastructure. They use the reference to a shopping centre having a few large stores like supermarkets or department stores as their “anchor tenants” who catch most of the centre’s traffic and supply the lion’s share of the rental income. But they also want to have this infrastructure made available to businesses who need the high-throughput network and Internet connectivity to connect their premises. Another driver would be to have the public-service offers for the UK’s central government come on board for this infrastructure.

One idea that was achieved with a fibre rollout in York was to have a large ISP like Sky Broadband or TalkTalk providing Internet service to customers using this infrastructure, with this being viewed as a way to provide retail Internet service in this area. Personally, I would look towards having multiple ISPs have access to the infrastructure to sell their Internet service to their customers so as to allow for retail-level competition.

Here, you could also think of services like Hyperoptic or Gigaclear who are providing “focused” coverage in to particular areas like multiple-dwelling units in the case of Hyperoptic or rural villages in the case of Gigaclear.

The rollout could begin in UK Spring 2017, and take 12 months to complete for the local council’s sites. But, after this rollout, they also want to see a continual deployment over the whole of West Sussex.

These kind of rollouts will be needing to involve public money with an encouragement for them to benefit the public purse through efficiency improvements. But they will also be about providing affordable high-throughput Internet service for households and businesses as long as there is real sustainable competition.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Google Arts And Culture 

Blog Post

Virtual Tour – 10 Downing Street

My Comments

One of the most important halls of power in the world has been 10 Downing Street, where the British Prime Minister lives and the most important rooms of this place have been taken further with Google’s virtual-reality tour.

Here, Google had made this place, normally off-limits to the public, available in a manner that you can browse around the public rooms associated with Britain’s political life, especially where they were underscored by two key Prime Ministers – Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher.

It works just as well with your regular computer or a mobile device and you can enjoy this with the Google Cardboard virtual-reality viewer. If you use a regular computer that doesn’t implement a touch screen, you can get a similar benefit using a scrollwheel-enabled mouse or a multitouch-capable trackpad. Here you can zoom in on some of the pictures in the rooms or the Grand Staircase using that zoom gesture for the touchscreen or multitouch-capable trackpad or operate the scrollwheel on your mouse.

Anyone who is studying British history or the politics associated with countries that follow the Westminster system should have a look at this virtual-reality tour that underscores where one of the most important politicians has always lived.

Article

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.

Article 

UK ISP BT Launches New Smart Hub Wireless Broadband Router | ISP Review

My Comments

BT have offered new consumer-premises equipment that has raised the bar for Wi-Fi performance that has been said to be “beyond ordinary”.

Typically a carrier-supplied modem router has been designed as a low-cost item to provide to new customers who are taking on Internet service through that carrier. This typically had customers purchase modem routers with better specifications from anywhere that sold computer equipment with some of these devices having improved throughput or Wi-Fi reception.

But BT’s latest DSL modem router which is now known as the Smart Hub but could have been known as the Home Hub 6 has circuitry that places its Wi-Fi performance on a par with the better retail DSL modem routers. This circuitry is driven by some highly-strung up-to-date Broadcom processors (Broadcom 63137. 4366 and 43602). It also implements 7 antennas to set up a 3×3 802.11g/n MIMO Wi-Fi segment (up to 217Mbps) on the 2.4GHz band and a 4×4 802.11a/n/ac MIMO Wi-Fi segment (up to 1700Mbps) on the 5GHz band.

This modem router implements a “smart-tune” logic to set itself up for the optimum operating frequency for both the bands when it is set up along with other “smart-scan” logic to keep the Wi-Fi segment working in an optimum manner. There is also extra filtering circuitry added to the Wi-Fi circuitry to deal with overloading from radio activity on the neighbouring wavebands, which is said to happen with UK 4G mobile-broadband deployments.

This kind of technology was causing BT to rate the Smart Hub as the UK’s strongest carrier-supplied Wi-Fi router and I personally see this as appealing to other carriers like Telstra who want to choose the kind of equipment to provide to their customers.

Of course, it has up-to-date Gigabit Ethernet LAN as a four-port switch along with ADSL2+ / VDSL2 modem on the WAN (Internet) side. From what I have read, I am not sure if this modem also offers an Ethernet WAN connection for FTTP or G.Fast (next-generation DSL used for some fibre-copper networks) broadband deployments that implement a separate modem. Similarly, if this modem router implemented a field-programmable “software modem” for its DSL modem, there could be the ability for it to be updated to work with G.Fast technology expected to be used with fibre-copper deployments.

There was also some reference to the BT Smart Hub being compact enough to fit through most of the letterbox slots installed in most UK front doors, with a view of the device being supplied to customers without them needing to be present. But my question about this is whether the size that is quoted is for the unit itself or the unit when it is packed in its box with all its accessories and cables.

BT does sell the Smart Hub for GBP£50 with VAT inclusive or you can have it for free if you choose to “roll over” your BT Infinity Internet service contract or start a new BT Infinity service. Stumping up that £50 for this modem router and setting it up as an access point for your existing wireless router could come a long way as something to extend Wi-Fi coverage or simply “ramp up” an existing home network’s Wi-Fi performance.

Article

B4RN Bring 1Gbps Broadband to 1,600 Rural Homes in North England | ISP Review

Previous Coverage

The soil has been turned for fibre-optic Internet in rural Yorkshire (14 January 2015)

A fibre network to cover Lancashire’s rural parishes (22 August 2011)

My Comments

In 2011, there was a valiant effort that started off to cover parts of the north of England with real broadband Internet service. This was in the form of B4RN (Broadband For Rural North) which is a community effort that is based on local contribution including the contribution of personal effort to deploy the service. The standard of this service is a pure-play symmetrical Gigabit fibre-to-the-premises broadband service but B4RN are facilitating VoIP telephony in conjunction with Vonage, an American pure-play VoIP provider who has set up presence in the UK.

This effort has encompassed Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria and there has been strong local interest and participation because of the fact that BT have been neglecting many rural areas. This state of affairs is something that a lot of people who dwell or work in rural areas sadly experience. The rollout has had the locals face many problems relating to its deployment and had them work out how to solve them.

Just lately, the B4RN effort has connected 1600 premises with 100 connected per month with the figure driven by the available effort. It has yielded a 65% service takeup with the price payable by end users being GBP£30 per month for the symmetrical Gigabit unlimited service and a GBP£150 connection fee.

As well, most of the original network, which encompasses 800km of core network, has been laid but the B4RN effort is expanding to more of rural North England. The same effort has been able to “pick up” areas where other projects have failed like Cumbria’s Fibre GarDen scheme.

I have read some accounts on the Yealands page where this network has enabled small businesses and community organisations. One of these is a small garage (Facebook link) who specialise in tuning cars for performance being able to exchange files with a partner based in Blackpool to modify engine-management units in order to performance-tune those cars. As well, the St. Johns Anglican church in Yealand which is one of those archetypal English village churches, ended up being connected to the B4RN broadband network and took advantage of this technology to “broadcast” a funeral service that they hosted to family members based in Sydney, Australia. They even want to take this further for sharing the wedding and funeral services that they host with participants who are separated by distance.

Like with Gigaclear, B4RN raised the issue of BT Openreach overbuilding their infrastructure but it may be seen as an effort to nawt because of a significant customer base who have invested in it. A question that may end up being raised is whether B4RN will end up becoming wholesale infrastructure for other retail ISPs rather than just an “end-to-end” provider. This would encompass the availability of multiple-play services via that infrastructure.

What B4RN is showing is that the rural areas have as much need for real broadband as urban areas and is highlighting that these areas can be about moving towards the country or starting a business there without losing the concept of real broadband.