Not quite Russia vs Ukraine - but rather like those poor freezing souls out in Bulgaria, Tiscali's disagreement over payments and legals, has resulted in a load of innocents disappearing off the Network again with zero notice, and yes that includes us at BackChannel.
186k has a long and troubled relation ship with Tiscali and they have issued this public notice saying that they are migrating to a BT based infrastructure. About time!!!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Nortel Networks Files For Chapter 11
More bad new as yet another major telco supplier bites the fiscal dust. Infrastructure equipment vendor Nortel Networks has today moved for Chapter 11 Protection.
Nortel Networks, which faces a $107 million bond interest payment this week, filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. liquidation Court in Wilmington, Del., dragged down by a sudden drop in demand for its formerly lucrative voice-only telecom network.
In 2000 Nortel was worth an estimated $250bn.
What more can you say, with Alcatel-Lucent in the deep sticky,. Nokia selling off non-core businesses, and as I type this rumours have just that Chinese "Cisco alike" Huawei may be intersted in buying Nortel , whilst Nortel is a nominally a Canadian company I can't see the American Government smiling on that one. Expect Cisco to enter the fray...
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
As Baltimore goes live, Sprint's Head of 4G talks WiMAX Strategy
Today Sprint's new subsidiary Clearwire went live with their first commercial WiMAX service in the US city of Baltimore, MD. As you know we're big fans of WiMAX here at BackChannel, so it is great to see the technology being rolled out in large metropolitan.Sprint is the telco part of a consortium which includes Intel and Google that is making a total $12bn invest in WiMAX pioneers Clearwire.
In this podcast Sprint's Vice President of 4G / WiMAX Todd Rowley says that they expect the new service to cover most of the US by the end of 2010. It's a bit cheesy, but once you get past that there is some worthwhile news and views on a technology that will really impact the lives of mobile Internet users.
At the end of December Sprint launched the first Dual 3G/4G modem which will allow mobile users to flip to the new 4G services as they move into areas that are covered by the Clearwire Network. Should I wait a while before getting BT to send me that wireless broadband dongle?
Friday, December 19, 2008
Phorm Management leave sinking ship
Debate continues to rage about spyware vendor Phorm.
This week sees there management team run for the door with their hair on fire... Phorms indominatable CEO Hugo Drayton and CFO Lynne Millar both resigned this week, saying that it had all been very rewarding - I hope they meant in terms of pay, because I doubt it's done their careers any good.
Just last week Hugo Drayton recently put up this spirited defence of Phorm and it's business model. While talking to the folks at TelecomTV
It's about time for BT, Virgin, EasyNet et al, to follow Hugo and Lynne over the side of the boat; So folks, if you're listening, . Stop it now! It poisons everyone who goes near it. It's a PR disaster, even the people who work their know it
Also, stop trying to steal each others marketshares by cutting the prices it just leads to churn which is incredibly expensive let the little guys have the small price sensitive customers like my mum who uses it to shop at Tesco online and email recipes to her friends in the WI, and get back to selling people a good product that homeworkers, businesses and people who want streaming media; they will be prepared to pay a fair monthly fee.
This week sees there management team run for the door with their hair on fire... Phorms indominatable CEO Hugo Drayton and CFO Lynne Millar both resigned this week, saying that it had all been very rewarding - I hope they meant in terms of pay, because I doubt it's done their careers any good.
Just last week Hugo Drayton recently put up this spirited defence of Phorm and it's business model. While talking to the folks at TelecomTV
It's about time for BT, Virgin, EasyNet et al, to follow Hugo and Lynne over the side of the boat; So folks, if you're listening, . Stop it now! It poisons everyone who goes near it. It's a PR disaster, even the people who work their know it
Also, stop trying to steal each others marketshares by cutting the prices it just leads to churn which is incredibly expensive let the little guys have the small price sensitive customers like my mum who uses it to shop at Tesco online and email recipes to her friends in the WI, and get back to selling people a good product that homeworkers, businesses and people who want streaming media; they will be prepared to pay a fair monthly fee.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Obamafication of the Internet: We will renew Information SuperHighway
In his weekly address to the US President Elect Barack Obama staed that it was unacceptable for the US to be ranked 15th out of 30 developed nations in the adoption of Broadband.
In his regular Saturday broadcast, Obama has promised that he would make the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. A high-tech new deal if you like, though he does suggest that his administration will move to bring all schools and hospitals on line so that they can communicate and share data across the Internet; I can hear Richard Granger and his NHS National Program for IT team dusting off their CV's as I type. But seriously in a month when over 1/2 a million Americans were released form their jobs and a further 1/4 million contractors sent home the proposals to revitalise the economy by investing tax $ in infrastructure and training is a lead that other countries should be following, giving people who have been laid off the opportunity to earn, learn and contribute to the future of their nation, perhaps for a short while it might remind people that creation of real things is what carries civilisation forward; not, pretend trading in made up things that benefit the very few.
In his regular Saturday broadcast, Obama has promised that he would make the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. A high-tech new deal if you like, though he does suggest that his administration will move to bring all schools and hospitals on line so that they can communicate and share data across the Internet; I can hear Richard Granger and his NHS National Program for IT team dusting off their CV's as I type. But seriously in a month when over 1/2 a million Americans were released form their jobs and a further 1/4 million contractors sent home the proposals to revitalise the economy by investing tax $ in infrastructure and training is a lead that other countries should be following, giving people who have been laid off the opportunity to earn, learn and contribute to the future of their nation, perhaps for a short while it might remind people that creation of real things is what carries civilisation forward; not, pretend trading in made up things that benefit the very few.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Sprint and Google show Wimax has legs with $3.2Bn Clearwire investment
Google, Comcast, Time Warner, Intel & Bright House have coughed up $3.2bn (about £2.1bn) and Sprint has 'donated' their country wide Wimax license to a new company Clearwire.As a connectivity nut I've been waiting for this since I first saw Wimax demo'ed at Intel back in 2003, it was low powered and pretty ropey but it worked. How things have changed take a look at this Clearwire Demo 7mb up 3mb down when your driving around, ok it's a demo: then again a $3.2Bn investment in the middle of the worst recession in 70+ yrs, tells me that they're sure it's going to work.
The reality of a truely mobile wireless high speed "broadband" internet is interesting (exciting) enough, but when it finally becomes ubiquitous as it will, forget personal Internet access for a moment think of the huge array options for in car entertainment, roadsafety, traffic management; streaming audio, video, headup displays, location based services and advertsing etc... I for one can't wait to see what opportunities this will eventually deliver.
In the realm of personal communications you can shove a lot down 7mbs; most of us will no longer need land-lines for home broadband, or telephony; most former PTTs can wave goodbye to their cash cows. You can see why the mobile service providers who have been poo-poo'ing Wimax for years, and who spent all those billions in overhyped auctions are certain to keep the Andrex puppy in dog biscuits for the next few years.
Remember as late as 2000 BT and Co were denying DSL Broadband would ever be widely available and that ISDN, X-25 and Dial-up was here to stay.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
AT&T Cut even more staff
After cutting 7,000 staff in October, Randall Stephenson CEO of AT&T (pictured) announced that another 12,000 are to go in 2009. The cuts represent 4% of the total workforce and is the largest single staff cut since the 1998 when it axed 15,000 in a bid to cut costs.What is interesting is the difference in the cuts as a percentage of the overall headcount. In '98 AT&T had 130,000 staff and the redundancies in that round made up 12% of headcount. With the US economic situation far worse AT&T's current headcount at over 300,000 is likely to carry on shrinking.
Let's hope they don;t make the same mistake as BT did, and allow their top IP engineers to take the very generous redundancy option; leaving Global Services short handed and costing the CEO is job.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Don;t pay for 0870 to contact Government helplines: Robbed by the DVLA
I've come over all Martin Lewis today! I've just spent £3.50 on a 20 second conversation with the DVLA, @49p/min.
I wasn't aware that public service help lines had become a government profit centre; but apparently they are.
According to Hansard: The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has received the following amounts from its use of revenue sharing phone numbers for each of the last five years.
What a great scam! Apparently premium rate numbers were introduced in 1999 to "Not there to raise money but to flatten out discrepancies in the amount paid to call Swansea from different parts of the UK"
Well as a reader of On the BackChannel I'd like to introduce you to SayNoto0870 and if you ever need to phone DVLA here is the number you should call to get around the rip off 01792 782341.
I wasn't aware that public service help lines had become a government profit centre; but apparently they are.
According to Hansard: The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has received the following amounts from its use of revenue sharing phone numbers for each of the last five years.
| £ | ||
| 2007-08 | 3,381,649 | |
| 2006-07 | 2,894,284 | |
| 2005-06 | 2,423,517 | |
| 2004-05 | 1,945,131 | |
| 2003-04 | 874,965 |
What a great scam! Apparently premium rate numbers were introduced in 1999 to "Not there to raise money but to flatten out discrepancies in the amount paid to call Swansea from different parts of the UK"
Well as a reader of On the BackChannel I'd like to introduce you to SayNoto0870 and if you ever need to phone DVLA here is the number you should call to get around the rip off 01792 782341.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
BSkyB to raise $600m bond to pay for Tiscali
That's about £240 per customer. To be honest it would be cheaper to run a decent TV marketing campaign and a special offer "First 3 months free to Tiscali customers". I wonder how much Tiscali's TV campaign cost them. Surely the Sky broadcast network could be employed.
I suspect BSkyB won;t be to bad a home for the poor users, but buying another companies unhappy customer base is a quick fix; and quick fixes always come back to bite you, as Tiscali has already found out.
I suspect BSkyB won;t be to bad a home for the poor users, but buying another companies unhappy customer base is a quick fix; and quick fixes always come back to bite you, as Tiscali has already found out.
Monday, November 17, 2008
The reality of consumer broadband; Only BT can win
Excellent week for consumer broadband again; Talktalk breaking apart, BSkyB to rescue Tiscali, and Virgin Media losing 15% of it's staff.
We don;t normally talk about Consumer Broadband; primarily because we believe that unless you own the network you will eventually go bust. But the last few days have gone so far to prove our theory, that we just had to cover the latest developments.
Back in 2006 the launch of a free Broadband service from everyone's favorite mobile phone store was hailed as the way forward. Despite losing Carphone warehouse £45m($70m) in the first 6 months, industry analysts claimed it was the future, and Ofcom said this was proof that they were taking a tough regulatory line: "Look at these 700 shiny, independent ISPs, we're doing a fine job". The elephant in the room was of course that virtually all of them relied on BTs infrastructure.
Since then a good number of these Standalone ISPs have failed; the prefered term I believe is "were acquired by Tiscali", and loads of little providers have been lost, failed to flourish, or just given up .
In the same period NTL was sold to Virgin Media for 4 pence, just before it went upside down, EasyNet was hoovered up by BSkyB. Now the same analysts who said Free Broadband was the future are urging Carphone Warehouse to split out (dump) Talktalk in the delusional hope that someone like Vodaphone might pay £1bn for its customer list, Virgin are cutting staff, and it looks like Tiscali is going to vanish.
BSkyB and NTL are only short term winners; yes they own network, but not enough to cover the country, they too rely on BT to reach their "off-network " customers and in the current economic climate there is no chance of finding the money needed to expand the networks; even these groups TV assets cannot be relied on to fund network coverage as people switch to freeview (you can get the BBC and Dave; what more do you need?!).
So it comes to this: Accelerated by the recession, the dream of a diverse, vibrant, multiplaying broadband led consumer teletopia has come down to three big players, none of which can deliver the whole convergence dream and eventually there will just be BT; just like back in the last big recession.
We don;t normally talk about Consumer Broadband; primarily because we believe that unless you own the network you will eventually go bust. But the last few days have gone so far to prove our theory, that we just had to cover the latest developments.
Back in 2006 the launch of a free Broadband service from everyone's favorite mobile phone store was hailed as the way forward. Despite losing Carphone warehouse £45m($70m) in the first 6 months, industry analysts claimed it was the future, and Ofcom said this was proof that they were taking a tough regulatory line: "Look at these 700 shiny, independent ISPs, we're doing a fine job". The elephant in the room was of course that virtually all of them relied on BTs infrastructure.
Since then a good number of these Standalone ISPs have failed; the prefered term I believe is "were acquired by Tiscali", and loads of little providers have been lost, failed to flourish, or just given up .
In the same period NTL was sold to Virgin Media for 4 pence, just before it went upside down, EasyNet was hoovered up by BSkyB. Now the same analysts who said Free Broadband was the future are urging Carphone Warehouse to split out (dump) Talktalk in the delusional hope that someone like Vodaphone might pay £1bn for its customer list, Virgin are cutting staff, and it looks like Tiscali is going to vanish.
BSkyB and NTL are only short term winners; yes they own network, but not enough to cover the country, they too rely on BT to reach their "off-network " customers and in the current economic climate there is no chance of finding the money needed to expand the networks; even these groups TV assets cannot be relied on to fund network coverage as people switch to freeview (you can get the BBC and Dave; what more do you need?!).
So it comes to this: Accelerated by the recession, the dream of a diverse, vibrant, multiplaying broadband led consumer teletopia has come down to three big players, none of which can deliver the whole convergence dream and eventually there will just be BT; just like back in the last big recession.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
BT to shed 10,000 jobs
Less than 24 hrs after Virgin Media announced they would be shedding a 2000+ jobs. BT have announced further 10,000 job cuts with contractors out the door first.
I say further because anyone who follows BT will be aware that they have already reduced their global workforce by 1/3rd, down from nearly 250,000 in 2006. In October 2007 a representative of the Now Connect Union, which represents BT middle management, suggested that only the generosity of the voluntary redundancy packages avoided a strike. Unfortunately the result of that generousity is that some highly experienced engineers and network designers took the deal and left BT Global Services, the division now pulling BTs numbers down.
A BT insider recently said to me "...it's like 2001 again, lots of people in the office looking busy; waiting for the storm to hit!"
I say further because anyone who follows BT will be aware that they have already reduced their global workforce by 1/3rd, down from nearly 250,000 in 2006. In October 2007 a representative of the Now Connect Union, which represents BT middle management, suggested that only the generosity of the voluntary redundancy packages avoided a strike. Unfortunately the result of that generousity is that some highly experienced engineers and network designers took the deal and left BT Global Services, the division now pulling BTs numbers down.
A BT insider recently said to me "...it's like 2001 again, lots of people in the office looking busy; waiting for the storm to hit!"
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
THUS it came to pass, that CW finally squared up to BT...
For a couple of years we've felt Cable & Wireless has been heading in 'sort of' the right direction; focusing on profitable customers, core product lines, win-able business, etc. along with some pretty radical structural and staffing changes.
However, patience seemed to be wearing a bit thin after a business update for City analysts back in March this year, comments were made along the lines of "... this is all good stuff; but on this business plan, we don;t think you can turn it around fast enough!" Here's the presentation, and what you won't see in there, is any reference to plans to grow the customer base in SMB, mid-market, business broadband, or increased infrastructure investment in the UK.
I guess the city feedback must have focused minds on shorter term revenue generation. For just 6 weeks later, in a stunning volte-face CW announced plans to acquire THUS Telecom; possibly the most successful mid-market ISP in the country, Bringing with it customers in each of those categories, as well as £450m in new revenues, some tasty data centres, a mass of IP services expertise and a country wide NextGen IP network.
The change in the market place is profound. BackChannels own research data shows that over the last two years the "re-Energised" C&W has turned the corner; increasingly good at serving the larger corporate market, with significant project wins and a marked decrease in customer churn, they are starting to give Verizon and Sprint a run for their money. In the UK market the merged company forms the only broad-spectrum competitor to BT.
The ability of C&Ws management to listen to its shareholders and then to turn the whole company on a dime, must be keeping a few people awake over at BT Centre.
Hmm... Wonder what they'll do with Demons broadband customers :0)
However, patience seemed to be wearing a bit thin after a business update for City analysts back in March this year, comments were made along the lines of "... this is all good stuff; but on this business plan, we don;t think you can turn it around fast enough!" Here's the presentation, and what you won't see in there, is any reference to plans to grow the customer base in SMB, mid-market, business broadband, or increased infrastructure investment in the UK.
I guess the city feedback must have focused minds on shorter term revenue generation. For just 6 weeks later, in a stunning volte-face CW announced plans to acquire THUS Telecom; possibly the most successful mid-market ISP in the country, Bringing with it customers in each of those categories, as well as £450m in new revenues, some tasty data centres, a mass of IP services expertise and a country wide NextGen IP network.
The change in the market place is profound. BackChannels own research data shows that over the last two years the "re-Energised" C&W has turned the corner; increasingly good at serving the larger corporate market, with significant project wins and a marked decrease in customer churn, they are starting to give Verizon and Sprint a run for their money. In the UK market the merged company forms the only broad-spectrum competitor to BT.
The ability of C&Ws management to listen to its shareholders and then to turn the whole company on a dime, must be keeping a few people awake over at BT Centre.
Hmm... Wonder what they'll do with Demons broadband customers :0)
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Bill Throttled
The Campaign to stop an amendment to the European Telecoms Bill appears to have been successful, although the European parliament has left the door open for President Sarkozy come back with a modified proposal.
Those of you who've have been following this will be aware that the Hollywood funded Digital Rights (Anti-Piracy) lobby has been pushing for ISPs in the EU to be made responsible for infringing EU Citizens civil rights i.e. freedom of speech, association and communications by cutting them off from the Internet permanently if they believe (don;t have to prove) that they or a member of their family has downloaded copyrighted material from the web.
The first self regulated attempts have been a fiasco with errors in billing records leaving ISPs open to legal action, and we've seen ambulance chasing companies tracking down suspected miscreants and selling their details to the DR folks - what ISPs legal team is going to stand for that?
Those of you who've have been following this will be aware that the Hollywood funded Digital Rights (Anti-Piracy) lobby has been pushing for ISPs in the EU to be made responsible for infringing EU Citizens civil rights i.e. freedom of speech, association and communications by cutting them off from the Internet permanently if they believe (don;t have to prove) that they or a member of their family has downloaded copyrighted material from the web.
The first self regulated attempts have been a fiasco with errors in billing records leaving ISPs open to legal action, and we've seen ambulance chasing companies tracking down suspected miscreants and selling their details to the DR folks - what ISPs legal team is going to stand for that?
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Things you might find in an O2 Shop
In response to my ravings, so common of a new iPhone owner, a friend sent me this today.
The Chrysler Peapod.
Is it the ultimate iPhone accessory? Will we be seeing it in the O2 shop in Cambridge any time soon? I hope not, it's pug ugly.
Integrating a mobile 3G device directly into the vehicles onboard systems, is going to add a whole new dimension and opportunity in mobile content. You thought SatNav was big... mix it with location based services and maybe even guide books.
Thanks to our friends at The Register for the original post.
The Chrysler Peapod.
Is it the ultimate iPhone accessory? Will we be seeing it in the O2 shop in Cambridge any time soon? I hope not, it's pug ugly.
Integrating a mobile 3G device directly into the vehicles onboard systems, is going to add a whole new dimension and opportunity in mobile content. You thought SatNav was big... mix it with location based services and maybe even guide books.
Thanks to our friends at The Register for the original post.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Wall Street Crash: Upcoming Telco Chaos
With the sudden and forced mergers of some of the worlds largest financial institutions, Telco and ISP major accounts teams will be preparing themselves for several months of travel, client meetings and late nights as they try to make sense of their position in the combined entities.
As overnight bags are stuffed and expense forms dusted off; here are some highlights of the fun to come.
Lloyds TSB has strong links to both C&W and BT.
However, the major accounts team at C&W will be less than pleased to find that BT's position has been enhanced by virtue of BT being IP Services provider of choice at HBOS.
On the voice & legacy data side, things are likely to be more complicated, as with 3yrs still to run on Lloyds $1Bn outsource agreement with IBM, you can be sure that the IBM account team will be lobbying hard to get access to HBOS' branch network; currently supplied by "...strategic partner, BT"
As overnight bags are stuffed and expense forms dusted off; here are some highlights of the fun to come.
Lloyds TSB has strong links to both C&W and BT.
However, the major accounts team at C&W will be less than pleased to find that BT's position has been enhanced by virtue of BT being IP Services provider of choice at HBOS.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Tiscali brands innocent customer criminal
Two articles caught my eye this week on the proposed EU Telecoms's package, a law that if passed, will effectively mean that ISPs will become unwilling Enforcers for the Digital Rights lobby.
The first is the surprise involvement of the European Data Protection Agency, whose Supervisor has come out against the act, stating that parts of it relating to the tracing of IP addresses, breaks existing EU data protection legislation, enabling the mass surveillance of Internet users. If true the ISPs will be spending a lot of money on legal fees.
The second proves that there will be trouble ahead for ISPs. It appear that Tiscali wrote to a chap accusing him of illegally downloading a TV show. OK, but this chap isn't a customer of theirs; he had left them a year before and his old IP address had been dropped back into the pool. The cause "Computer error" Nothing to worry about then, that hardly ever happens.
Imagine the damage to Tiscali's Brand, had it gone all the way to the guy being permanently expelled from the Internetit would have made national/international news; it's the modern equivalent of having your eyes put out...
The first is the surprise involvement of the European Data Protection Agency, whose Supervisor has come out against the act, stating that parts of it relating to the tracing of IP addresses, breaks existing EU data protection legislation, enabling the mass surveillance of Internet users. If true the ISPs will be spending a lot of money on legal fees.
The second proves that there will be trouble ahead for ISPs. It appear that Tiscali wrote to a chap accusing him of illegally downloading a TV show. OK, but this chap isn't a customer of theirs; he had left them a year before and his old IP address had been dropped back into the pool. The cause "Computer error" Nothing to worry about then, that hardly ever happens.
Imagine the damage to Tiscali's Brand, had it gone all the way to the guy being permanently expelled from the Internetit would have made national/international news; it's the modern equivalent of having your eyes put out...
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
New Heatmap feature shows installed services
Following customer feedback we have added a new Heatmap feature to the BackChannel Account Manager. This makes it possible to see not just where your customers offices are located, but where they have services installed.
This screen shot from within the application shows where HBOS have their primary IP services installed.
This screen shot from within the application shows where HBOS have their primary IP services installed.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Google polishes up Chrome to support GoogleApps
Whilst it has been slow to take off in Europe and the rest of the World, GoogleApps for Business have been as huge success in the US. In Mid 2007 we electronically surveyed 550k US companies to see who was using GoogleApps mail services and it hardly hit the Radar.
Re-running the Survey in Mid 2008 the results couldn't have been more different. GoogleApps had arrived, and the demographic is right in the heart of the US business, companies with between 20-250 employees.
You're probably all Google Chrome'd out by now but a significant part of the Chrome announcement is that it has an application development kit called Gears that allows Web App Developers; like ourselves, Salesforce, etal, to build Off-line features into our products, making them portable.
For Google, this means that users of GoogleApps for Business will soon be able to compose a Gmail that includes a GoogleApps Spreadsheet sitting on a plane, and have it sync up and send as soon as they are connected to the Internet again.
Re-running the Survey in Mid 2008 the results couldn't have been more different. GoogleApps had arrived, and the demographic is right in the heart of the US business, companies with between 20-250 employees.
You're probably all Google Chrome'd out by now but a significant part of the Chrome announcement is that it has an application development kit called Gears that allows Web App Developers; like ourselves, Salesforce, etal, to build Off-line features into our products, making them portable.
For Google, this means that users of GoogleApps for Business will soon be able to compose a Gmail that includes a GoogleApps Spreadsheet sitting on a plane, and have it sync up and send as soon as they are connected to the Internet again.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Protect the European Internet industry from Copyright Hawks
BackChannel strongly supports Telcom TVs "Throttle the Package" campaign, we ask that you do too and that you sign the petition to get it stopped.
Check it out; because if EU legislation proposed for passage into law in September goes through; your kids could get you and your family 'permanently' removed from the Internet.
With three aged between 6 and 15, the chance that they will stupidly download a song or watch a copyrighted clip on Youtube which could result in me permanently losing access to the Internet, and changing my life, is a real issue.
Having bamboozeled the French government, and the lunch time o'boozers in Brussels, the US copyright hawks are finally winning the war to end the principle of network as a conduit; a principle that has previously protected the personal privacy and human rights of the individual, and ensured that ISPs are not forced to act as on-line content police for the media industry.
If you're an ISP think what it would do to your business if you're forced to monitor the traffic on your networks and maybe hand over your customers details in order that they can be permanently remove from the online world.
Check it out; because if EU legislation proposed for passage into law in September goes through; your kids could get you and your family 'permanently' removed from the Internet.
With three aged between 6 and 15, the chance that they will stupidly download a song or watch a copyrighted clip on Youtube which could result in me permanently losing access to the Internet, and changing my life, is a real issue.
Having bamboozeled the French government, and the lunch time o'boozers in Brussels, the US copyright hawks are finally winning the war to end the principle of network as a conduit; a principle that has previously protected the personal privacy and human rights of the individual, and ensured that ISPs are not forced to act as on-line content police for the media industry.
If you're an ISP think what it would do to your business if you're forced to monitor the traffic on your networks and maybe hand over your customers details in order that they can be permanently remove from the online world.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sub-sea Cabling Map
I spent an hour sorting out various service providers network maps this afternoon, and found this one that is rather good.
Global Submarine Cable Map 2007
In a world that is becoming more IT dependent it highlights the lack of redundancy in the global network of sub-sea cabling.
Global Submarine Cable Map 2007
In a world that is becoming more IT dependent it highlights the lack of redundancy in the global network of sub-sea cabling.
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