Tag: United Kingdom

Article

Naked fibre to the cabinet may be on the way from Openreach | ThinkBroadband

My Comments

I have written up an article about broadband Internet options available for those of us who use the mobile phone as the main voice telephone. Here, I was highlighting the kind of options that are available without you needing to pay line rental to an incumbent voice-telephony carrier and highlighted services like FTTP fibre-optic Internet or cable-modem broadband service which are hosted on separate infrastructure.

But I also highlighted the concept of “naked DSL” or “dry-loop DSL” which is a DSL service using your phone carrier’s wires but you don’t have a local voice telephone service a.k.a a “dial-tone” service. A lot of countries offer this as a service option for most DSL-service packages but the United Kingdom doesn’t offer that kind of service at all.

Things are to change for the UK with Openreach offering the “naked DSL” option for people who sign up to VDSL2-based “fibre-to-the-cabinet” next-generation broadband. They will maintain the subscriber’s circuit from the FTTC street cabinet to the exchange just for line testing or if a subsequent subscriber wants to sign up to a full service with the legacy voice telephone component.

But this is a service that is considered a proposal but should really be available for UK households who start out “mobile only” or want to use that second line that was created for the fax or for someone’s independent telephony needs for their fibre-copper next-generation broadband needs.

Articles

Fibre GarDen to Start Community FTTP Broadband “Big Dig” in Cumbria | ISPReview.co.uk

From the horse’s mouth

Digital Dales

Product Page

My Comments

Another independent rural-broadband campaign is taking place in England to provide fibre-to-the-premises broadband in to some rural communities. This time it is being facilitated by Digital Dales and is to serve Garsdale and Dentdale in Cumbria, just north of the Yorkshire Dales. It, along with Gigaclear’s efforts, seen to be the only two non-BT rural broadband project to be taking place in the UK.

Digital Dales, which is a community-owned cooperative, have raised enough money to commence construction of this infrastructure on the 5th October 2014. In the early days, this enablement project had a bumpy start and was riddled with uncertainty. The funds have been sourced from the Rural Community Broadband Fund which provides money to facilitate real broadband in the country areas, along with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Sustainable Development Fund.

They had achieved the go-ahead for landowners’ properties to have the fibre-optic cable pass through them and the operation will be described as a “Big Dig”.

Once the infrastructure is in place and the service is live, householders will expect to pay GBP£30 / month for 30Mbps or GBP£50 / month for 100Mbps bandwidth. These services will comes with free basic landline telephone service, but the householders can upgrade their phone service to the same standard as BT for GBP£2 – £3 per month extra.

Personally, I would see this as effectively “lighting up” the villages with real broadband which could benefit small businesses, professionals who work from home, the tourism industry amongst other users. It could even allow Garsdale and Dentdale to become more attractive to live in for “tree-changers” as the availability of next-generation broadband is being used to assess a community’s liveability.

Article

PM David Cameron Switches On Gigaclear’s 1Gbps Broadband in Northmoor | ISPReview.co.uk

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Press Release

Northmoor community page

My Comments

Another rural neighbourhood in West Oxfordshire has been enabled for Gigabit fibre broadhand courtesy of Gigaclear. This time, it is Northmoor where the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, officially switched on the new fibre-to-the-premises service which covers 500 premises in Northmoor, Moreton and Bablockhythe.

This is a non-BT scheme that is funded by DEFRA as part of a GBP£20m Rural Community Broadband Fund where there is financial assistance from the EU. This public-private project underwent a proper procurement procedure with Gigaclear being the winner of the contract.

Here, it was proven that the fibre-to-the-premises deal had a higher throughput and was more stable than the 80Mbps fibre-to-the-cabinet deal offered by BT.

But Gigaclear offers this service at GBP£37 per month for a 50Mbps to GBP£69 per month for a Gigabit connection, both with “clean feed” parental controls and a Gigabit hub. They also charge GBP£100 for installation. The users benefit form the connection being symmetric for both uploads and downloads along with not needing to pay for BT phone-line rental to have the Internet service.

The Gigaclear PR ran with a comment about a person who was working from home in the neighbourhood but having to go to London to transfer large multimedia files due to the woefully slow connection that existed before. But he is able to stay working in that area and transfer the multimedia very quickly. I also see this benefitting others who think of the country as a place to live or work because of the increase in online services that is taking place.

This is something that shows up that villages in some of the Home Counties could be appealing as places to move to for working from home or for that proverbial “tree-change” as they become wired up for real broadband, especially next-generation broadband.

Article

Google Considers Bringing Google Fiber to UK | Broadband News and DSL Reports

Google aimed to build ultrafast broadband in Britain | The Telegraph (UK)

My Comments

Google are putting their fibre-optic next-generation broadband paws in to the UK market while trying to provide competitive Internet service in some US communities. It is seen to be their first foray in to the European market.

This is being achieved with them working with CityFibre, which may not be seen as adding extra competition in that market. Firstly, this is to be seen as a threat to BSkyB’s partnership and place themselves at loggerheads with a BSkyB / TalkTalk fibre-optic rollout which is passing 20,000 households in York.

But it is set to put more pressure on BT to deploy more next-generation broadband, especially as the British Internet press is complaining about BT Openreach taking a long time to roll out this service across the biggest Internet-service market outside the US. Google will also see this as a platform to run an HD-capable IPTV service which is ready for 4K UHDTV.

My question is whether Google could make further efforts in working as a competitive next-generation broadband provider for the British market, whether as a wholesale provider or as a retail provider. As well, could they be in a position to help with Scotland’s broadband goal if Scotland does go independent? Similarly, could they be able to put their claws in to other European areas like Spain, Germany and Italy with a goal to upset the applecart when it comes to competitive Internet service there.

Article

All New Berkeley UK Homes to be Fibre Optic Broadband Compatible | ISPReview.co.uk

From the horse’s mouth

Berkeley Group

Press Release

My Comments

Especially in the UK, accessibility to next-generation broadband is being considered a key feature for a property. This has been underscored with Rightmove using this as something to assess a property or neighbourhood with when it comes to its saleability and could easily put a positive impression on its value.

Now Berkeley Group, a developer of premium residential properties in the UK, have released their business plan with the supply of fibre broadband to be part of the feature set for these developments. It is in response to a European Union directive that is requiring new buildings to be ready for high-speed broadband by 2016. In Europe, people are seeing broadband Internet service on the same level as water, electricity, fixed telephoy service and other utilities.

The big question I would have about these developments is whether they would be “wired for Ethernet” and whether this would reach most rooms in these homes? Similarly, would there be the ability for an average home-network wireless router to cover all of the premises with Wi-Fi signal using its own antennas (aerials)?

It is also in addition to a Britain-first strategy for marketing policy, a significant increase in apprenticeships, improved on-site safety as well as a desire to have customer satisfaction that beats Apple’s standards.

Personally, I would see residential building developers implement next-generation broadband and the connected home as a key differentiator with customers and property investors.

Article

Shropshire UK Moots Ultrafast FTTH Broadband Alternative to BT FTTC | ISPReview UK

My Comments

There has already been some action in the Home Counties when it comes to providing rural communities with full-fibre broadband courtesy of Gigaclear. But a proposal has been put up for another provider to provide a whole county in the UK with fibre-to-the-premises broadband with involvement from its local government.

The Shropshire County Counccil previously warned that they could ’t cover Shropshire with next generation broadband if they went the BT Openreach fibre-to-the-cabinet way which was based on VDSL2 for the copper run. But they have approached a rival provider to provide a “fibre-to-the-premises” service at a cheaper rate than the BT FTTC solution.

This would be inherently a public-private project with private investors where they could prove that they could even cover Shropshire’s rural properties with full-fibre technology. Readers who are in the USA or Australia may find this fanciful but the UK have rural properties that are relatively smaller than what is seen as common in these countries with a lot of small villages scattered around the country being the norm for the UK.

It will be initially a two-stage effort with a fibre-wireless effort with fixed-wireless technology in some areas but will evolve to a full-fibre technology in all areas. There is also the ability for a local village to pitch their own funding to go fibre all the way rather than a fixed wireless solution in Phase 1.

A good issue to raise with these community-focused developments assisted by other companies is whether they will give BT Openreach a “kick in the pants” to provide next-generation broadband at a more cost-effective price point. It also relate this to other markets like Australia, it could raise the issue of having competing providers working alongside local government to achieve the same goal.

As well, could this allow for the start of a competitive market when it comes to the provision of next-generation broadband in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.

Articles

Nest thermostat arrives in the UK ahead of an ‘aggressive’ European expansion | The Verge

Nest’s Learning Thermostat lands in the UK for £179 | Engadget

Nest débarque au Royaume-Uni | 01Net.com (France – French language / Langue française)

From the horse’s mouth

Nest Labs

Product Page

My Comments

Nest Labs have been associated with a room thermostat that is described as the “iPhone of thermostats”. This unit, which was available in the USA for the last few years, connects to your home network and your central-heating system  This also allows for a continual “learning-mode” for its operation and your computer or mobile devices work as extra control surfaces whether through a Web front or a client-side app.

But the UK has a different central-heating-control need especially as most houses use a boiler which heats up water which is pumped to radiator panels located in each room of the house. These systems also heat up the household’s domestic-hot-water supply either through the boiler itself or a heat-exchange tank located upstairs in the house.

A lot of these systems are managed by a time switch located near the boiler as the main control surface and may not have a room thermostat, with the householder overriding or “playing around” with the time switch for the heat to satisfy their comfort requirement. This kind of system has become a challenge for anyone designing a smart thermostat that is intended to work with any residential heating system and I have previously wrote an article about a network-enabled thermostat system targeted specifically at these systems.

Nest have modified this network-capable thermostat to cater for the UK central-heating system by implementing a control module that is connected to the boiler. The thermostat uses a wireless link to control the boiler to provide heat as necessary. At the moment, it doesn’t have the ability to manage the domestic-hot-water function that these heating systems also provide.

It is released now with an installed price of GBP£249 or a “do-it-yourself” price of GBP£179. This has also been the chance for Nest to release their Nest Connect connected smoke/carbon-monoxide alarm which also implements a “dashboard” on your smartphone. As well, Nest releasing their online smart thermostat in to the UK market is the start of them “getting their claws” in to the rest of Europe where most countries their implement this kind of heating system.

Personally it is the sign of a trend where this year could be the availability of smart heating controls for the UK and European markets.