Distribution

BT are trumpeting the news that they now have over one million ADSL customers in the UK. It is important to recognise that these aren’t all customer who have bought directly from BT but include all of the ADSL customer who have bought an ADSL product from ISP’s who resell BT’s wholesale product. With this knowledge it makes this quote from their press released slightly misleading

“The UK is the most competitive broadband market in the world. There are more than 100 ADSL providers – and cable companies have more than 50 per cent market share”

The UK is competitive to a point, but only as far as the resellers fighting for tiny margins on top of BT’s fixed wholesale prices.

Sixteen months ago BT pledged to have half a million customers connected to its own product, BT Broadband, by this summer but it noticeable that this isn’t mentioned and it is believed they will fall significantly short of this.

Lufthansa are going to be Lufthansa deal in December 2001.

Oftel, the UK telecom regulator has announced the UK now has two million broadband subscribers, which is encouraging. Sadly they’re currently including connections as slow as 128k in their calculation — not commonly thought of as broadband. At least the numbers are moving in the right direction and the take-up is accelerating.

UK Cable provider Telewest launched a 2Mb Internet service today, in addition to their current blueyonder 1/2Mb and 1Mb services. The pricing is very competitive at £50.

This comes on the back of the recent news that the UK now has one million broadband cable customers.

A significant milestone in broadband gaming today as Microsoft Xbox Live goes live over most of Europe, and enters the shops in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.

I’ve been really impressed with the multi-player concept during the UK beta, as have the hardcore gamers I’ve shown it to. I have major reservations about the system poor ability to put together players of a similar skill level, and as a result many people find they get slaughtered, leading to a less than for-filling experience. I’m sure this will be cured in later software titles and the publishers learn lessons from the early trials. Broadband gaming is only going to get better, more immerse and more rewarding.

[Purchase Xbox Live from Amazon UK]

The Register covers a story based on the most recent Oftel (UK teleco regulator) research. Now eight in ten UK Internet users know about broadband, which is encouraging as last year it was about 50/50.

From the Oftel report, we see that about two-thirds of all SMEs have Internet access, but only 13% use DSL/cable and around 4% are on leased lines.

BUT here’s the scary piece – about 1/4 of them currently use ISDN. BT has made very little effort, if any, to convert ISDN users to DSL – the reason is simple – they would lose income – doesn’t matter that it’s better for customer.

This is a typical BT – backward looking, squeeze every last penny you can from the customer, then when you absolutely have to, begrudgingly upgrade them. Deutsche Telekoms approach has always been more modern, when the advantages of ISDN over phone lines became obvious, they installed ISDN _instead_ of analogue phone lines, for no extra charge. They have also really pushed ADSL, by making it really attractive to upgrade.

I called BT “sales” to try and get details of the costings and was shocked to find that they flatly refused to give me _any_ information without my phone number – all I wanted was a price. I think an attitude like this says it all – the customers needs and interests are secondary to BT’s – one of the reasons that the number of UK broadband users is so pitiful.

UK cable provider, Telewest, has announced a self-install kit enabling their current digital TV customers to get a broadband via their STB. The kit, £12.50, connects the STB to a computer via USB and gives access to their 1/2 and 1 Mbs service within 30 minutes, they estimate. They are also planning to release a wireless version.

News reaches us that the US military is, all of a sudden, worried about the use of wireless networking technologies, as they think it will interfere with their new passive radar systems.

This story has been widely misread or taken the wrong way, thinking it affects radar generally and all wireless networking. I don’t think it’s about the already widely used 802.11b/WiFi/2.4GHz, but the 802.11a equipment that operates in the 5GHz range.

In the UK the Radiocommunications Agency (RA) sets UK policy and issues licences for the non-military radio spectrum. UK people are currently free to use the 2.4GHz frequency (that 802.11b uses) without a licence but a £50/month licence is currently required for 5GHz equipment.

I called Annette Henley, who is responsible for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz at the RA to ask her what would be happening about the 5GHz range. She tells me it is hoped that the 5Ghz range will become unlicensed by the end of January 2003, but it will be with the restrictions that it is only for indoor use and only for the equipment set to its lowest power setting.

The completed paperwork has been passed to the Minister and just needs to complete the 21-day process of sitting in the House of Commons before coming into affect.

Interestingly much of the 802.11a equipment that is for sale in the UK currently does not conform to these requirements.

It appears that the US has actually got a bit caught out with this and are probably going to be following the UK’s lead and indeed there are moves afoot to create an International standard for this.

If the US military does genuinely have a problem with 5GHz equipment, I can’t believe that they announcing it – at all. I guess that all of the 11a equipment that does not comply with the forthcoming UK standards will have a willing customer base with anyone who doesn’t want US radar to function.

BT managed to disconnect hundreds of their ADSL users, mostly 2Mb business customers. Amazingly the BT spokesman is quoted as saying that should have their services restored within five days. What sort of emergency reconfiguration takes five days to restore?

There are a growing number of networked devices, such as Xbox, Network receiver appearing in different rooms around the home contributing to digital lifestyles. There’s also a need to have them talking to the network that doesn’t involve re-cabling the house.

The current buzz is about using wireless networking such as WiFi. Unfortunately most network-enabled entertainment devices only have an Ethernet port on them, not PCMCIA. This could be solved with an adaptor with a RJ-45 (Ethernet) plug at one end and a PCMCIA sheath at the other, enabling WiFi access for any device that has an Ethernet port.

I’ve been running my wireless network around my house for while now and it’s been great having the liberty of not being restricted to only places where there is a cable. The reality of it is that I don’t get top speed connection all around the house, as I’ve found that WiFi doesn’t really like walls all that much. It does work everywhere (even the garden), but just not super fast.

Streaming music, video and playing broadband-enabled games need decent flows of data and low lag times.

There have been a number of standard to address networking in the home using existing, what I’m sure they would call, resident assets. HomePNA uses the phone wiring around your house. This might make sense in some newer countries where there houses where designed to have a phone point in every room, but that is never going to be popular in places like the UK.

The HomePlug Powerline Alliance method of distribution is the electrical mains circuit, you know the one with all of the outlets in every room in your house. BTW – the average US home has 45 power outlets.

Pretty much every entertainment device that will be used in a home, be it gaming console, DVR, network receiver, enhanced DVD, will be plugged into the mains, why not use it as the network connection. The benefits of HomePlug are graphic demonstrated here .

The headline speed is 14Mbps but reading further into it, the yield was actually 5Mbps+ in over 80% of 5000 test cases carried out in 500 homes in the US. That sounds pretty healthy to me – WiFi’s headline of 11Mbps is pretty unachievable anyway. They claim that older wiring does not seriously affect bandwidth loses.

There are quite a number of companies making products that are for sale now.

The kind of solution that Phonex Broadband offers in their NeverWire 14 makes a lot on sense. One area that they might win on is the apparent ease of installation and use of their product as their datasheet claims only their product needs no drivers installed on the device that you connect to the network. Pretty essential when you may be plugging and amplifier into it.

The big boys are also there. NetGear’s offering looking pretty sexy and LinkSys’s functional version.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying WiFi is no use – just that it will coexist.

I was thinking that you could actually use the HomePLUG to enhance the reach of your network, when I came across the Corinex Wireless 2 Powerline Access Point (AP) which will do exactly that, starting in February, 2003. Siemens do a more discreet version, the SpeedStream Powerline 802.11b Wireless Access Point, which is not much bigger than a plug. They also win for longest product name.

Corinex appear to be a forward looking company, blending their two strengths of Wireless and HomePlug to provide last mile solutions for service providers. For the distribution within the home they have coined a great phrase ‘last foot’, playing on the old telco ‘last mile’ phrase. They also look like the only company to have the foresight to manufacture UK compatible products.

I notice that Asoka have a SIP module mentioned – perfect thinking, enabling people to plug in VoIP phone handsets into the mains to make low cost calls.

The HomePlug Alliance has now started work on their next generation version, HomePlug AV with ten times the capacity, enabling the network to be used, they claim, for multi-stream entertainment including High Definition television (HDTV). They think it will take them 18-24 months to complete.