Broadband

Anything that uses or touches broadband

High Altitude Platform (HAP): Broadband For All?
Broadband is taking off everywhere, speeds are increasing and everybody’s happy. Well almost. Broadband isn’t available to all, especially those in more rural areas.
Unfortunately cable companies don’t have the financial resources to lay fibre everywhere (especially in today’s economic climate) and even BT, who are radically changing the old telephone network so that every exchange in the UK is wired up for Internet, still won’t be able to reach rural customers. It isn’t because they don’t want to, but (in BT’s case) the DSL (digital subscriber line) technology just doesn’t work at long distances.
This will leave large percentages of the population without broadband and currently their only option will be expensive satellite systems.
There’s a chance that some kind of fixed wireless access (FWA) solution will become available, but currently the technology is expensive and again requires a massive investment in radio masts and connecting them all together. Unfortunately FWA is likely to be used for backhaul in more urban areas where the population density justifies the upfront investment.
HAPpy HAPpy, Joy Joy
Luckily it looks like there is an answer, and it’s call HAP (High Altitude Platform). There have already been trials of HAP using tethered balloons, and these have been reasonably successful, but there are problems. They are relatively low altitude, so may interfere with other air traffic. However being tethered means they can use the tether cable to connect to the infrastructure on the ground (i.e. say the Internet), but it limits them to being tethered in suitably connected areas.
Utilising a real HAP solution means sending what could be called airships up 20Km or so, these would freely roam the sky. Being so high they wouldn’t interfere with commercial air traffic – of course would still need to get approval from the international aviation authorities, especially for launching them and what happens when something goes wrong or they falls back to earth.
Other approaches to HAP involve lightweight aircraft, such as the European-funded Capanina project.
Both balloon and fixed-wing platforms would use radio systems (similar to satellite) to transmit to end-users, who would use a steer able dish that tracks the HAP. Current thoughts are that the HAPs will use both radio and optical transmissions between HAPs (since optical interference is very low at 20Km altitude).
The HAP end-user connection may use existing WiFi-type solutions to actually connect people, so a small village may have a central HAP system which then people connect to using traditional systems.
Where HAP can offer significant benefits, is to moving objects such as trains. They would use a sophisticated electronically steer able aerial to track the HAPs and would allow continuous reception of signals – even between HAPs.
Since the bandwidth between a ground receiver and the HAP would be about 120Mb/s, rural (and moving) users might actually get a better service than traditional broadband users.
Unfortunately it’s going to take a while for this to be a commercial reality, but at least people are thinking about it, trials are commencing now and it’s got European funding.
Capanina
10 May, 2005
WiMAX Cuddle Between Sprint And Intel
With a manly backslap, Intel and Sprint have announced that they will work together to advance development of the 802.16e WiMAX standard.
WiMAX is an acronym for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (snappy, eh?) and the technology aims to provide wireless broadband connectivity to fixed, portable and mobile devices without the need for line-of-sight to a base station.
The two companies will share technical specifications and equipment trials, and run interoperability tests to examine possible wireless broadband devices and services.
In case that sounded too simple, here’s Oliver Valente, CTO and VP of technology development for Sprint, to baffle you with a buzzword remix: “Our relationship with Intel will help validate requirements, drive key ecosystem development needs, formulate network strategies and define the potential for advanced wireless services adoption”.
Intel has been bigging up WiMAX with an eye to repeating their successful experience as the leading provider of Wi-Fi chipsets.
Although doubters of WiMAX maintain that competition with the 3G cell-phone service will render the technology redundant, both Intel and Sprint view portability as a winning approach to the technology, insisted that WiMAX “can provide high-capacity wireless broadband coverage and services throughout metro areas and an enriched multimedia user experience.”
Sean Maloney, another executive with an impossibly long job description (“executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Mobility Group”) added: “WiMAX technology has the promise to deliver new broadband services to consumers globally.”
The partnership hopes to draw on Sprint/Nextel’s substantial holdings in 2.5GHz spectrum band, although it’s been described as a “messy complex band” by wireless specialist Joe Nordgaard of Spectral Advantage, who added, “It’s going to be very difficult to come out with a common worldwide solution similar to Wi-Fi.”
Intel WiMAX
Sprint WiMAX
6 May, 2005
Pigeon Enabled Internet Faster Than ADSL
This has Friday Story written all over it. A few Israeli geeks set up a test to compare the speed of delivering data via pigeon (PEI – Pigeon Enabled Internet, as they’ve labelled it) compared with ADSL.
They’re building on Wi-Fly research carried out in Bergen, Norway a few years ago, when paper was used as the data medium. The latest version uses memory cards, 20-22 distributed over three pigeons, enabling much more data to be carried.
In total, 4Gb of data was transferred over 100Km – which, as they point out, is far superior to WiFi. Despite one of the pigeons being delayed, initially appearing to get lost on his journey (packet loss as they refer to it), they achieved a transfer rate of 2.27 Mbps, exceeding the commercially available ADSL rates in Israel of 0.75 – 1.5 Mbps.
As you know, the A in ADSL stands for Asynchronous, so the transferred rates listed equate to the speed that information is received. Upload rates are significantly lower. By their calculations, uploading 4Gb of data on ADSL would take around 96 hours – making the pigeon transfer significantly more efficient, equivalent to a T1 connection at 1.5Mbps.
As they point out, the pigeon gives pretty high latency (it takes quite a while for the first bit of data to arrive), but once it arrives, all of the 4Gb is delivered at once.
I’d often thought how price efficient the postal transfer of DVD’s was. 4.7Gb transferred overnight for around 50 pence – try buying bandwidth at that rate.
Chat around the office lead us to wonder what the next in the endless list of variation on creatures being used to transfer information would be. Nicolas Nova has provided the answer – Snail power.
PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL (via Nicolas Nova, through engadget)
Credit for images: Gil Pry-dvash, Gilad Reshef, Shai Vardi and Ami Ben Bassat
29 April, 2005
BT Rich Media And Sportfive To Stream WorldCup Qualifiers
BT Rich Media has cuddled up to Sportfive, a French sports marketing group, and announced a partnership to make 2006 Football World Cup qualifying and friendly games available to fans streamed over broadband on the Internet.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sportfive – owners of the largest portfolio of European qualifying games – will use the BT Rich Media platform for publishing and distributing the video content.
Football bonkers viewers will be able to choose between 250Kbps or 500Kbps quality streams for approximately £7 (~US$13 ~€10), or alternatively download the entire match to keep forever for around £5 (~US$9.50 ~€7). As a long suffering Wales fan, I have to admit that there’s several games which I never wish to see again!
Not every match will be available online though, with only untelevised games being available to stream/download.
The games will be served up on http://www.qualifiers2006.com and promoted to over 10 million users via a range of affiliate sites such as soccernet.com,.teamtalk.com, sportinglife.com and rivals.net .
BT Rich Media will also be using the same technology to stream the forthcoming Scottish BT Cup Final at ScottishRugby.org.
BT Rich Media
Sportfive
28 April, 2005
AbbiTalk: UK VoIP Operator Claims Challenge To BT
AbbiTalk, a West Sussex-based provider of Voice Over IP (VoIP) telephony services, is talking tough about its cut-rate broadband call packages, that offer customers extra telephone lines with discount local and UK call charges and no line rental.
Boldly claiming to be “giving BT a run for its money”, AbbiTalk claim that its customers will “generally” save £90 over the cost of using BT phone lines in year one and a further £110 in subsequent years (dependent on the package concerned).
Paul Perrin, director of AbbiTalk is – perhaps – getting a little carried away here: “Within 18 months, we believe most telephone calls in the UK will be free and the only rental payment will be for a broadband connection. Many international calls will also be free. BT is running scared, and we’re doing the chasing!”
Customers using AbbiTalk’s broadband service pay the installation charge for their chosen VoIP deal to gain access to competitive call rates: free calls to users of AbbiTalk and other UK and international SIP services, 1.2/min to UK BT phones and less than 2p/min for calls to the USA, Australia and China.
Prices start at £149 for “AbbiTalkBasicOne”, which provides one extra phone line, a unique number with Pre Pay phone account, an adaptor and a DECT digital cordless phone with digital answering machine.
Other packages include “AbbiTalkTwo”, which provides two phone lines with a single, unique number shared across both, a router/hub, digital cordless phone with digital answering machine and an additional digital phone and “AbbiTalkTwoPlus” which offers two extra phone lines, two separate numbers and two DECT digital phones with digital answer machines.
The top package, forgettably entitled “AbbiTalkTwoWF”, adds WiFi networking of the customer’s computer.
New customers can use their existing broadband connection to adopt the service, or plump for AbbiTalk’s own broadband.
No line rental is charged and there’s no need to use a computer to make the calls as these are accomplished through the standard cordless handsets.
AbbiTek’s MD, Keith Gardner, got all historical in his statement: “VoIP is now widely recognised as the next ‘disruptive technology’. Historians claim that others were Bell’s original telephone, Marconi’s wireless, the internal combustion engine, etc., so big changes are on the way.”
“We have subscribed to this view for some time, hence our core business, Abbitek, focuses on VoIP services for enterprises. Through AbbiTalk, our customers can access the latest VoIP products. When configured, these enable us to deliver all the benefits of VoIP to domestic, small business and home workers: our simple and affordable packages have something for everyone. Initial reactions have been positive.”
AbbiTalk
27 April, 2005
UK Internet Subscriptions Growth Slows
The latest National Statistics monthly update to the survey of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) shows that there was a 1.9 per cent increase in the number of active subscriptions to the Internet in the past year (Feb 2004 – Feb 2005)
With broadband rolling into more homes around the UK, permanent connections now account for 43 per cent of all connections, compared to just 23.6 per cent a year earlier.
The amount of people struggling on Ye Olde Dial Up connections continued to decrease, with a year on year fall to February 2005 of 24 per cent (with a 2.8 per cent decrease from January to February 2005).
Permanent Internet connections rose to 43 per cent of all subscriptions in February 2005 (up 2 per cent from Jan 2005) with a year on year increase of 85.9 per cent for subscriptions for permanent connections.
Although the majority of UK subscribers (57 per cent) still connect via dial-up, the underlying trend reflects the continuing move from slower dial-up connections to the quicker broadband, cable and leased line technologies.
In February 2005, the percentage of active subscriptions using free access or billed access was 31 per cent, down from 38 per cent a year before, while the percentage of surfers paying a fixed rate for unmetered dial-up access decreased to 22 per cent compared with 33 per cent a year before.
The percentage of active subscriptions using a mixed subscription type (fixed rate plus calls) remained at 4 per cent.
National Statistics
PublicTechnology.net
20 April, 2005
World’s First MPEG-4/AVC Broadcast on HomeChoice
Video Networks Limited (VNL), who operate the HomeChoice VOD service around London, have added the children’s animation channel Toonami to their line up using the MPEG-4 / AVC format, making it the world’s first television channel to be encoded with advanced compression technology.
The company teamed up with Harmonic to launch an initial video-over-xDSL service in 2004 using DiviCom MV 100 encoders configured with MPEG-2.
Since then, VNL has been using the MPEG-2 compression efficiency and picture-quality of the MV 100 to continually enrich the channel line-up of its HomeChoice service.
The MV 100’s architecture enables the progressive migration of HomeChoice’s existing broadcast channels to MPEG-4.
Additionally, the technology allows further compression improvements to extend HomeChoice’s picture quality and reach and range of service, with the Star Trek sounding “field installable software CoDec module”.
VNL told Digital-Lifestyles that the quality of the MPEG-4 picture is noticably better that the MPEG-2 stream that is currently used. They hope that the move to MPEG-4 will save them around 50% of their current bandwidth needs in the coming years.
VNL’s migration to MPEG-4 for its remaining broadcast channels, including the Cartoon Network and Boomerang, is expected to be completed within the next two months. In time the VOD service will also be moved to the new CoDec.
Roger Lynch, Chairman & CEO, Video Networks Ltd was absolutely delighted about what he described as a key enhancement to its platform, adding, “We are not simply adding yet another quality channel from the Turner stable but are creating a world first with the first ever broadcast channel to switch to MPEG-4 / AVC encoding.
The move to MPEG-4 allows us to provide superior picture quality, while reducing the bandwidth required to transmit our broadcast channels.”
Once VNL has made the switch to MPEG-4, the saving on bandwidth for them should be substantial. This brings the advantages of VNL having to push less bandwidth out and therefore less of the distribution network is taken up. These reductions in demands bring an opportunity for more TV channels, increased Internet delivery speeds, but most interestingly the chances to carry High Definition (HD) programmes.
We understand that VNL have been testing HD within their labs, but would not be draw on the possibility of its introduction. To us it would appear an obvious step, and given BSkyB’s very public launch of HD in the UK later this year, it would be a considerably marketing coup to launch in advance of Sky.
Dr. Yaron Simler – President of the Convergent Systems Division of Harmonic Inc and no stranger to the odd acronym or ten – had this to say:
“While much of the industry is still in a planning, evaluation or trial phase, Video Networks Limited is forging ahead with an advanced technology and pay-TV service platform.”
“The first commercially available encoding platform to support MPEG-2, MPEG-4/AVC and SMPTE VC-1, Harmonic’s DiviCom MV 100 enabled VNL to provision a compelling video-over-DSL service while in parallel developing the elements of an MPEG-4 environment.
It is rewarding to see that we are moving toward the world’s first broadcast TV service based entirely on an advanced codec. This has established both VNL and the DiviCom MV 100 as significant forces in shaping the future of the television market.”
Video Networks Limited
Harmonic Inc
20 April, 2005
UK Online Broadband Now From £9.99
UK Online is hoping to bring broadband to the masses by smashing the price point for “entry-level” home broadband down to a wallet-untroubling £10 a month.
The Broadband 500 service will offer unlimited 512K broadband (yes, unlimited!) from just £9.99 ($18.95,/€14.55) per month to UK customers lucky enough to be in their catchment area.
The company has also reduced the price of its unlimited Broadband 2000 (2Mb) service, to £19.99 ($37.75/ €29.13) per month, with its Broadband 8000 (8Mb) service – the fastest home broadband service available in the UK – crashing down to an affordable £29.99 ($56.64/ €43.70) per month.
UK Online will be utilising Easynet’s Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) investment, to offer the new price points for 512K, 2Mb, and 8Mb broadband to users on its network of unbundled exchanges – adding up to over 4.4 million homes nationwide.
Chris Stening, General Manager of UK Online, said, “LLU enables us to offer more innovative products than our competitors. Our unique 8Mb service has led the way on speed and now we are leading the way on price.”
Surfers not used to this level of generosity may be wondering where the catch is, but we haven’t found it yet: we wrote to UK Online and they confirmed that both the Broadband 500 and Broadband 2000 are unlimited services with the Broadband 8000 offering an enormous 500GB monthly download allowance.
The spokeswoman also added that none of their current customers currently signed up to the package have come anywhere near that limit yet.
Suitably tempted, we headed off to their site faster than a crack-fuelled ferret up a drainpipe, only to discover that we weren’t in an “enabled” area.
This meant that the service would have to be delivered via BT’s network, pushing the prices up to £19.99 per month for the Broadband 500 per month and £29.99 per month for the Broadband 2000 – with no Broadband 8000 option.
UK Online
11 April, 2005
Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five
Channel Five yesterday became the first UK broadcaster to launch a legal video download store, offering DVD-quality downloads of some of the most popular features of its flagship car show, Fifth Gear, from its Web site.
Fifth Gear, produced by North One Television, is selling downloadable high-resolution videos of 12 supercar reviews, including the Porsche 911, Ferrari F430 and Mercedes McLaren SLR, all for £1.50.
Payment can be made by debit or credit card with a provision for ‘younger car enthusiasts’ to pay by mobile phone.
To get the ball rolling, the company is offering four free videos available from their Web site.
Car fans will also have access to a selection of Fifth Gear shoot-outs – one of the programmes most popular features, whereby two similarly priced or similarly powered vehicles race around a track to find out which one is fastest.
Powering the UK’s first legal video downloads store is a system developed by 7 Digital, the company behind download stores for a raft of leading music companies including Universal and EMI.
7 Digital’s Managing Director, Ben Drury said: “Broadcasters have seen the revenues attainable from music downloads and are eager to do the same with their own content. TV footage can work so much harder for broadcasters, with the Internet now a commercially sound distribution channel.”
Richard Pearson, Executive Producer of Fifth Gear said, “Ever since Fifth Gear launched in 2002 viewers have regularly asked whether it’s possible to purchase content. It’s great that we can expand the Fifth Gear brand in this way and give people an affordable opportunity to acquire high quality downloads of their favourite moments from the archive.”
Legal music download sites have become hugely popular in recent years, but TV companies have so far not used the same technology to put programmes online – despite British viewers being the biggest downloaders of copied TV shows.
The BBC has already run trials with what it calls its Interactive Media Player (iMP), which allows surfers to use the Internet to download and watch programmes from BBC TV and Radio
Channel 5
7Digital
Fifth Gear
24 March, 2005
Interview With JD Lasica, Co-Founder, Ourmedia.org
During our preparation of our news piece on the launch of OurMedia today, we had a quick chat with JD Lasica, that we thought you might like to see. It gives a glimpse of the future for Ourmedia.
DL: Is the site entirely bankrolled by Brewster Kahle (The Internet Archive) or are there plans to raise revenue through advertising/affiliate programs etc?
JD Lasica: The Internet Archive is providing free storage and bandwidth, and that won’t change. We’re also getting subsidized hosting from Bryght (a Drupal site), and Marc Canter’s Broadband Mechanics has kicked in some dough to pay for some programmers in New Delhi to get us across the finish line. Other than that, it’s been an entirely open source effort.
We plan to meet soon with some foundations. An infusion of grant monies would go a long way toward taking us to the next level. We have a very long road map of features and improvements we’re planning.
Marc and I are still discussing revenue models. We won’t clutter up the site with banner ads. But we are open to the prospect of corporate sponsors in addition to foundation underwriters. It certainly seems that the kinds of digital creativity we’re helping to enable would attract a wide swath of companies involved with helping consumers create personal media.
DL: Sadly, I imagine that scammers, spammers, porn merchants and ne’er do wells will be attracted to this venture like a moth to a flame. What measures have you in place to keep these undesirables at bay – or will the site remain a free-for-all with no censorship (past legal necessities)?
JD Lasica: It won’t be a free for all. We have a good-sized team of moderators around the world (including Britain) who will be watching everything that’s published on the site. The two big rules are: no porn and no copyrighted material (unless it falls within the scope of what we Yanks call fair use).
We won’t be the censorship police, so we expect a wide range of media that won’t be to everyone’s tastes. For those who violate our site rules, we’ll be relying on our team of volunteer moderators to shut them down, much as Wikipedia does.
DL: What measures have you taken in case of copyright disputes?
JD Lasica: Our site rules spell out the steps a copyright owner should take if he or she believes their copyright has been infringed. We respect U.S. copyright laws, so you won’t see Metallica mp3s winding up here — unless Lars himself uploads them.
DL: Is there a long term plan as such, or are you going to ‘go with flow’ and see where the venture takes you?
JD Lasica: We have a long road map of immediate features, functionalities and fixes that need addressing, and a longer-term plan for versions 2 and 3, which will incorporate more social networking functions, ratings, improved search, and so on.
DL: You mention that you will be getting involved with P2P – are there any other technologies up your sleeve?
JD Lasica: We’ll be looking at BitTorrent right away. I’m attaching a press release about some of the other things we’re doing.
One interesting item that will be rolling out soon: We’ll be working with Jon Udell and Doug Kaye to devise a standard for what we’re calling a media clipping service. Users will be able to cite a particular portion of a video or audio clip (a 2-minute dialogue that falls in the middle) rather than just point to the entire clip.
Here’s our version 2 roadmap as of this moment: http://www.socialtext.net/ourmedia/
DL: Thanks for sparing us time when you must be busy.
JD Lasica is co-founder of Ourmedia.org, author of “Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation” (May 2005) and Senior editor of the Online Journalism Review.
He also writes the following blogs:
http://newmediamusings.com
http://darknet.com
http://socialmedia.biz/
22 March, 2005