Comments for Optical Reflection

Comment on 7 things I learned in Lisbon by Highlights from Lisbon

Highlights from Lisbon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:49:44 +0000

[...] Pauline, Carlos and Benoit have already put up their reviews about the event so I could only complement their views with a couple of new things. So, here’s my take-aways from the conference: [...]

Comment on Backhaul bottlenecks by Lindsey Annison

Lindsey Annison — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:16:59 +0000

And why is backhaul so expensive? Because it is market-driven, pricing apparently. Currently, as you all heard today and as many have been saying for years, there are a reduced number of customers because none of us can afford it! How is that letting the market decide?? It’s a market with only one or two stalls, and very few punters wandering around.

This Govt has focused very tightly on competitive markets etc in broadband, and yet, as we have seen, when the competition is so limited that the majority of ISPs are reselling a single company’s “product” – BT’s ADSL – what happens is that everyone is held below the glass ceiling (hmm, fibre – glass- etc) a private company has set.

Worse, we are still operating to a legacy model – charging by distance etc. This is no more relevant today than the idea of a phone call being charged by distance. This model immediately discriminates against those in rural areas for starters.

There is little to no access to affordable backhaul and longhaul for many of the networks currently planned. There is no logical reason for that, except corporate greed. For far too long, the telcos have got away with over-priced products. When the customers looking to purchase it were blue chip and Fortune 500 companies, all well and good, but the world has moved on.

Now, the people who want access to the fat pipes are you and me. Normal families, small businesses, rural primary schools, remote pubs, farms – pick a constituency, they all want a fat pipe. Though some may not know it yet!

This is a problem that needs solving nationally. It is exactly the same as FRIACO and should be dealt with in the same way. That campaign was started by a group of concerned individuals who managed to get FRIACO adopted across Europe. It looks like this one has started with the noise coming first from grassroots, and there is now a need to co-ordinate the action, just like FRIACO, and sit the telcos round a table and explain why, in words of one syllable if necessary, it IS IN THEIR INTERESTS to do precisely the same as with FRIACO.

Comment on When was the last time you read the newspaper in the loo? by cyberdoyle

cyberdoyle — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:40:47 +0000

we get a paper every day. the old fella reads it but I never bother any more. I know the news the day before because I am online. Yep, times they are a changing… wonder when everyone will catch up? suppose half the country still relies on dead trees for news because they can’t get internet access, maybe that is why innovation is slow in the UK? Wonder when govt will wake up and realise they are being held to ransome by a copper cabal? The biggest shock will come when the olympiads arrive expecting ’superfast next gen broadband’ as Gordon brown said digitalbritain was gonna get in his TED speech. ROFL. Bet there are some red faces around when all the other countries start laughing at our obsolete comms running on copper. We need fibre to the home. oops
started another rant on your blog. soz.
you always start me off thinking…
…backhanded sorta compliment.
chris

Comment on FTTH global rankings – H1 2009 by cyberdoyle

cyberdoyle — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:21:31 +0000

I think it is lack of awareness! Half the country has what passes for broadband, so they don’t think about it. The other half can’t imagine something they can’t get, and what you have never had you don’t miss. The Politicians don’t get IT at all, their PAs and Secretaries do all the ‘tehchie’ stuff.
The Uk needs fibre to keep up with the rest of the world. When will government wake up?

Comment on When things are quiet on the blog… by Roy Rubenstein

Roy Rubenstein — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:48:09 +0000

Looks a perfectly good flat surface on which to file copy or, at worse, tweet from. Not sure about the radio coverage though.

Great photo.

Comment on The lowdown on Highams Park by cyberdoyle

cyberdoyle — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:19:40 +0000

Great article, fantastic to know next gen is starting to roll out, even if its in the easy places,at least it starts and once it gets rolling everyone will see the difference and what is possible. They will see the future. I wonder if the people there know just how lucky they are to be trialing this service? What exactly does it mean on page 5 (your link above) where it says it is 20meg down and 10 meg up prioritised? does that mean they only get the 100 meg when nobody else is using the pipe? Even so, it is a vast improvement on what is available elsewhere.

Comment on When things are quiet on the blog… by cyberdoyle

cyberdoyle — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:53:16 +0000

wow, that looks like some holiday!

I like cables too, especially fibre optic ones that deliver next gen broadband access as opposed to copper delivering dial up to rural digitalbritain!

Glad you got to the top of your mountain, we still have a hard climb ahead.

Comment on BT replacing fibre with copper by Simon

Simon — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:33:29 +0000

Amazing! Never heard of this before, thanks for sharing.

Comment on The 40G market embarks upon a 'golden age' by Internetthought

Internetthought — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Good luck, added you to my feed reader

Comment on Pauline 2.0 by cyberdoyle

cyberdoyle — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:15:37 +0000

I think the main thing we have to do is educate government, so any posts you could make which they might read would be great! They seem to think that a 2meg USC is enough for the UK to compete with the rest of the world in the digital revolution. I was reading today that over £30 billion would be generated if fibre was ubiquitous in the UK, and that was just a small portion of the ROI of the estimated £27billion required to upgrade to fibre to the home.
Have you any figures for providing ftth for the UK? I don’t think it will cost as much as they say, because every home already has a wire for a phone, it is just a case of replacing an expensive copper one with a cheap fibre one. The ducts, access, poles and wayleaves are already there…
…but any info would be great.