Networking

City of London Gets Blanket WiFi
The City of London is to get blanket Wi-Fi, with city slickers able to access the Web anywhere within London’s famous financial district, the Square Mile.
The scheme, run in partnership with London-based WiFi vendor The Cloud, is set to go live in the next few months and provide Wi-Fi access on streets and in open spaces throughout the City.
The Cloud’s unique open network concept lets different service providers offer WiFi services to its customers and supports high speed internet access, rich email access, music, video and other entertainment services, as well as the all-important VoIP services
The City network will comprise around 150 WiFi network “nodes” lurking inside lampposts, closed-circuit TV poles and street signs, offering connectivity to an estimated 350,000 Londoners as well as the hordes of tourists who regularly tramp through the area.
“This will allow people to have continuous online access, whether in a taxi or an open area, across the financial centre,” said Peter Bennett, a spokesman for the Corporation of London.
Unfortunately, unlike the free Wi-Fi service a few miles away in Islington, north London, the service won’t be free, with online access rates dependent on the rates charged by service providers.
Roaming Wi-Fi enabled punters without a provider will have to fork out a fairly hefty £5 ($8.70 US) per hour to use the service.
Michael Snyder, the chairman of the City of London’s Policy Committee, said that the network would help the City maintain its position as the world’s leading financial centre, letting city workers and visitors to stay in touch with their office via handheld devices while on the move.
“The City is a fast moving environment and we are responding to the increasing time pressures faced by workers by providing the technology for them to stay up to date, wherever they are in the Square Mile,” he added.
The move follows an announcement that The Cloud would be installing network hubs and rolling out WiFi in nine cities across Britain, including Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Liverpool.
Three other London boroughs are also scheduled to go wireless in the next few months, which should help the UK keep its number two world ranking for wireless hotspot locations
According to figures from the Wi-Fi Alliance, the UK – along with the WiFi-tastic US – accounts for nearly half of the planet’s 10,800 wireless locations.
The Cloud
City Of London
21 February, 2006
LEA Universal NetPlug Review (92%) – Home Networking Without The Wires
Introduction
There’s a growing reliance and expectance of networks in the home to handle all of this digitised media that we want to chuck around our homes, from room to room.
Many houses that were constructed recently, or depending on the country you live in, within the last three years, are network cabled with Cat5+. The majority of us who live in houses over three years old find they have a problem.
WiFi has helped many, but many houses in Europe have walls of considerable thickness, and without regular repeaters, WiFi can struggle to provide complete coverage.
Usually beyond that there the idea of retro fitting of Cat5 cabling to a house. Given the level of mess created, this usually doesn’t go down too well with the neater partner in a relationship.
Power Line Communication (PLC) has been designed to fill this gap in the market. PLC uses an adaptors that plugs into the houses main circuit and the network, using the house’s power cabling and the network cabling.
You may think that plugging your computer into the mains power by unconventional means is just asking for trouble. People used to think that electric washing machines were a bad idea as ‘electrics and water do not mix’. However, PLC has been around for some time now in the form of narrow band, and since the year 2000 a broadband communication channel has been available.
LEA Universal NetPlug
We’ve had our hands on the LEA Universal NetPlug for a while and ran it on trial for a while.
I installed two LEA NetPlug devices, one on my work computer upstairs and the other on my entertainment computer downstairs. The work computer is running Ubuntu Linux and the other, Microsoft Windows.
What’s involved in getting the network setup? Basically nothing. Take the power lead, plug it into one end of the NetPlug. The Ethernet (RJ45) goes in the other end.
With the second computer connected with the same 2-minute setup, you’re able to communicated between them, if they’re network software is setup.
If you’re OK running without encryption, then that’s all you need to do – no software required.
The only time you need to resort to using software is configuring the encryption. This uses 56 bit-DES encryption, which provides reasonable protection from those who aren’t paranoid about been snooped on.
Up to 16 NetPlug’s can be used on the same network.
The NetPlug is based on HomePlug v1.0.1 standard and they report a raw data speed of upto 14Mbps. These speeds are fine for most home computing needs including Web-browsing activity (your DSL connection is likely to be considerably slower than this anyway).
Testing
I checked to see if both computers had Internet access and could share files. They did and could, without any set-up programs or reconfiguration. They just worked.
There are some who say that vacuum cleaners interfere with PLC signal, so I did some cleaning in the vicinity of both computers, I even plugged the vacuum cleaner next to the PLC device. There was no notable lose in connection speeds.
Benefits
It is a lot faster to plug a device into a wall than it is to lay a single cable. It creates an instant network at the flick of a mains switch. The real benefit will come to people who use mobile networks such as LAN (Local Area Network) party goers. These people have to build a multi-computer network before the party even starts. Bring a PLC device and abolish trailing cables.
Comparison
There are different ways of creating a computer network. A traditional wired network is the cheapest but takes the longest time to set-up, unless you do not mind trailing cables. PLC devices cost more but are the quickest to set-up, and do not require any new cables. Wireless networks are the most expensive but can take less time to set-up than a traditional wired network, and offer out of doors networking.
Conclusion
The LEA Universal NetPlug device is firmly positioned between traditional wired networking and wireless networking – in the cost and ease of set-up stakes. If you want a quick and easy way to set-up a network and do not need out of doors networking, the LEA Universal NetPlug device will do the job.
The styling isn’t going to get you excited, but over time, we’d imagine that PLC devices are going to become more ‘home friendly’, probably incorporated into the plug. In January 2006, LEA released a home-focued version of this – it’s smaller and looks a lot better.
Score 92%
+ve: Anyone can use it. Setup near instant. No problems running.
-ve: Styling could be slicker. Encryption setup only on Windows.
LEA Universal NetPlug
17 February, 2006
NTL And BitTorrent Announce P2P File-Sharing Trial
Major UK consumer broadband providers NTL are teaming up with BitTorrent, the developers of the world’s most popular peer-to-peer (P2P) application.
The download service will offer a large variety of licensed video content for purchase in the UK, including popular films, music videos and TV programmes.
BitTorrent’s enormous bandwidth-hogging qualities has proved expensive for some Internet providers, but NTL are looking to speed delivery and reduce network costs by using CacheLogic’s caching technology which stores frequently downloaded files within the NTL network.
NTL believes that this combination will provide ultra-fast download speeds of broadcast quality content – or, as Kevin Baughan, their director of network strategy liked to call it, a “transformational video downloading experience.”
BitTorrent is already firmly established as the de facto tool of choice for connoisseurs of pirated TV and movie files, with BitTorrent traffic estimated to hog around a third of all internet bandwidth, and an even higher ratio on NTL’s network.
Naturally, rights holders and movie heavyweights weren’t too chuffed to see their content whizzing around the Internet for gratis, and quickly hired in squadrons of lawyers to apply pressure on BitTorrent.
Late last year, a deal was struck with the Motion Picture Association of America to remove copyrighted material from the BitTorrent.com search engine, and the company has since been in talks with movie moguls and Internet service providers to find ways to use the software for the distribution of legal, paid-for downloads.
“NTL has seen a huge percentage of their traffic in the BitTorrent protocol,” said BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin. “But in the past, neither rights holders, ISPs nor BitTorrent derived any economic benefit from it.”
NTL’s trial is expected to start next month and run through the summer, with a small initial sample group of around 100 homes.
BitTorrent
ntl
13 February, 2006
BBC TV Plus – The Apprentice Comes To Broadband
‘The Apprentice’ TV show has been a smash hit in the UK, much the same as it was in the US. The BBC now plan to use it as the ‘first extensive broadband experience,’ as part of the BBC TV Plus project.
While the series is being shown on TV , the episodes from that series will be viewable on demand via broadband, as will ‘must see clips’, ie promo clips from forthcoming episodes. Sorry non-UK readers, all of this is only viewable in the UK.
This broadband-video advance will be supplemented by the now-to-be-expected blog, this time by a fiery (other would say mouthy) contestant from the last series.
BBC Two Web site – Now Broadband-enabled
All of this is accessible via the heavily reworked BBC Two Web site. The Beeb have taken a big step forward with the new site, really embracing the concept of what a broadcasters Web site can be in a broadband age.
Arriving at the page brings you a quick-to-start video of the latest show they want to promo, leaving the rest of the page is uncluttered. When video previews are clicked on, a new window is launched showing the preview with a very neat feature – moving the mouse pointer off the window, dulls supporting text, so the focus is on the video – as it should be.
Why’s it taken the BBC so long?
Initially looking at these advances it’s easy to get excited, but when looked in context of how long it’s taken, a frustrations come to the surface.
Ashley Highfield, BBC New Media & Technology uber-miester, has been banging-on about the potential of broadband for years, but has taken ages to get from talk to action, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent between him joining and now.
There have been blips of excitement. Back in April 2003 we gave a strong thumbs up to the first strong use of broadband we’d seen by the BBC, under bbc.co.uk/broadband. The site has changed considerably since then – thank goodness, it was nearly three years ago – so our comments from then won’t bear direct relevance. What was really impressive then was the synchronisation of text and graphics with the video’s timeline, something that’s not supported by this project.
(Funnily enough, after reading that article the person responsible for the project contacted us and it turned out to be someone whose previous work outside the BBC we’d been very impressed with.)
The talent behind these type of advances don’t often get name checks, so it’s great to be bale to correct this
The development of BBC TWO’s new-look site has been led by Kate Bradshaw (Executive Editor) and Dominic Vallely (Channel Executive Broadband), project managed by Zillah Myers, with design by Julie Dodd, Tim Bleasdale and Audrey Rapier.
The website and player have been produced by New Media Production & Development, led by Victoria Felton (Executive Producer, Editorial).
New look BBC Two site
The Apprentice
bbc.co.uk/broadband
9 February, 2006
BSkyB Moves Execs, To Enter ‘Adjacent Areas Of Business’
Sky has announced three of its top Exec will be altering roles, we suspect, as they prepare to become more than just a satellite TV company.
Using its best management speak, the UK Satellite-overlord is “aligning its organisational structure to support sustained growth towards its target of 10 million direct-to-home customers in 2010.”
The favoured three will be stepping it up a gear, and far beyond having the key for the executive toilet, we suspect they’ll be getting a whole suite of bathroom facilities.
- Dawn Airey, who has been Managing Director of Sky Networks since 2003, becomes Managing Director, Channels and Services with overall responsibility for Sky’s multi-platform content strategy. The existing Sky Networks structure will be joined in the Channels and Services group by an enlarged interactive team that brings together all of Sky’s new media content on interactive TV, online and mobile platforms. She’ll assume additional responsibility for Sky’s joint ventures, wholesale distribution arrangements with cable companies and commercial relationships with third-party channels on the satellite platform.
- Mike Darcey, who joined Sky in 1998 and is currently Group Strategy Director, becomes Group Commercial and Strategy Director with extended responsibility for a new group that combines Sky’s Strategy, Future Technology, R&D and Business Development teams. In addition, he’ll take on a further responsibility to manage and develop Sky’s major commercial relationships in support of the company’s strategic goals
- Jon Florsheim, who joined Sky in 1994, becomes Managing Director, Customer Group in addition to his existing title of Chief Marketing Officer. The Customer Group brings together all of Sky’s expertise in sales, marketing and customer operations to create a seamless brand, product and service experience for customers. This team will lead the continued development and implementation of Sky’s multi-product strategy, including the launch of the company’s broadband offering in the second half of calendar 2006.
We think Mike Darcey sounds like he’s going to have the most fun, and certainly the most toys to play with.
James Murdoch, Sky’s Chief Executive, touches on where BSkyB is planning on going, as they “exploit content on multiple platforms and expand into adjacent areas of business.”
With the strength of BSkyB’s relationships with their customers, fear will be struck into the heart of many execs in many industries by the words “adjacent areas of business.”
8 February, 2006
UK Satellite-Delivered Broadband Switched Off
Several thousand rural surfers across Europe suddenly found themselves sans le Internet after European-based satellite broadband provider Aramiska unexpectedly slammed shut its operations with just five hours’ notice.
The sudden announcement left thousands of customers – including small businesses and numerous community broadband operations – without any access.
Using the Eutelsat Atlantic Bird satellite, Aramiska was able to offer services across five countries (the UK, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Spain), with the majority being in the UK.
A message posted on the Website of the UK-based Internet company Ehotspot, which used Aramiska to provide satellite links, confirmed that the Netherlands-based firm had gone into liquidation.
Jon Sprank, eHotspot’s MD, explained: “eHotspot would firstly like to apologise to our customers for lack of service. This came as a bolt from the blue with no notice – we have suspended all billing to our customers. This has only truly been dropped on us and we are currently spending our time sourcing an alternative backhaul supplier
The disappearance of the Aramiska service is expected to have a serious knock-on effect for community broadband providers who provide “second mile” backhaul connectivity.
The Community Broadband Network (CBN) is organising efforts to help Aramiska customers find an alternative satellite broadband supplier, with their director, Adrian Wooster, commenting, “The Aramiska issue totally caught our members unaware, and is causing many problems for rural businesses beyond simple connectivity; the Aramiska service was also hosting many Websites and has been offering file storage capabilities for businesses.”
Although there’s no shortage of alternative satellite broadband providers in the market, smaller, shoestring operations may find it difficult to get their users back online quickly.
The closure reflects the fragility of some companies in the satellite-based broadband service market, which is coming under increase pressure in some areas from the increased availability of conventional wired broadband.
Despite this, large areas of Europe still remain on the wrong side of the digital divide, and reliable wireless and satellite services are needed across the European Union to ensure that all its citizens can keep up with technological change.
Community Broadband Network
Aramiska users scrabble to find supplier after Web blackout
31 January, 2006
First UK Filesharers Sued By BPI
News has broken that two men in the UK have been found liable for file sharing their music. The first ruling of its kind in the UK.
Both men who were ruled against are, as yet, unnamed. The details that are know are – one is a postman, father of two and living in Brighton; the other living in King’s Lynn.
King’s Lynn, as we shall call him, has been instructed to pay £5,000 ‘down-payment’ on costs and damages, Brighton must pay £1,500. Both have been instructed to stop filesharing.
Having been found liable, the two are now exposed to the BPI’s legal fees. Given the City law firms the BPI use, where it’s not unusual to pay £200/hours for their services, it’s going to be an expensive business. BPI have stated that “Total costs are estimated at £13,500 and damages are expected to take the bill even higher.”
Each defense used a different argument. The first, that the BPI had no direct evidence of infringement; the second on the grounds that he was unaware that what he was doing was illegal and did not seek to gain financially.
The second case was dismissed by Judge Justice Lawrence Collins declaring, “Ignorance is not a defence,” which we thought was known by one and all. Given the weakness of this defence, we imagine that this person must have defended themselves. Details of argument against the first were no disclosed.
The names of the people who were sued haven’t been released by the BPI. When we asked for their names, we were told they weren’t to be made available as, “we don’t want to put them through anymore stress.” A bit strange when the stress they’re under, which we imagine to be pretty considerable, would have been caused by the BPI’s actions.
This route, taking legal action against members of the public, has been well trod in the US. Reaction there has been varied from Hurrah! from the majority of the US music business – to Boo! from a large number of citizens, who in reaction have threatened not to buy music from the major music companies.
The BPI is obviously taking this opportunity to pressure the 51 file-sharers that they have in their sights, urging them settle. We suspect that many will take the hint.
27 January, 2006
Tesco VoIP: Further Pressure on BT
BT’s dominance of the UK home telephone is coming under fresh pressure as the phone call market becomes the most liberal in Europe. Previously, their pricing levels have had to be agreed in advance with the UK regulator Ofcom, but with it understood that this is going to be lifted soon, price cuts are expected.
In a sign that the gloves are well and truly off, Tesco has unleashed a price-busting Voice over IP (VoIP) package designed to lure customers from the incumbent operator.
It’s further proof (if any were needed) that VoIP continues to shake things up in the voice phone market.
The Tesco package will be marketed at just under £20 and will include a ‘normal’ phone handset that plugs in to a broadband-enabled PC’s USB port, and the software need to drive it. Calls will be made at a fraction of the current cost.
Many other companies continue to pressure BT. Talk-Talk, the landline phone service by The Carphone Warehouse, has already consolidated two of the traditional landline competitors and it’s likely that Sky would also welcome call revenue via its recent Easynet acquisition.
Pressure is also coming from outside the UK. US giant AOL has BT in its sights with a programme to exploit the Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) agreement BT made with Ofcom, which permits AOL and others to house high tech Voice over IP equipment at exchanges throughout the country.
Technical-savvy Skype callers have for a long time taken advantage of VoIP calling to obtain free or cheap calls.
The danger for BT is that the trickle of the public away from its traditional services over recent years could become a torrent, as more content, including broadband TV starts to be delivered by IP, BT could lose their in-built advantage as the default delivery gateway to UK homes.
Is all of this price cutting good news for British consumers? Well, certainly lower call prices will benefit the majority of UK call makers, but there is a question mark in the long run. It could bring mixed blessings for the UK’s telecoms infrastructure as BT tries to cut costs and investment to ensure that its institutional shareholders remain happy as they operate on slimmer margins.
23 January, 2006
AJAX Alert: Opera Browser With AJAX To Sigma CE Chip Range
Web browser company Opera today announce they’re bring their Web browser with AJAX support to chips for use in Consumer Electronics (CE) applications.
It’s not long back that Opera made the decision to give their Web browser away after a long period of charging for it. A very brave and noble act many though – not a bad way to raise your profile we thought.
They’ve been putting their browsers on different platforms for a while, like the mini-browser for mobile phones they brought out back in August 05.
The reasoning behind the give-away move becomes clearer today as they announce that they’ve been working with US chip company Sigma Designs to bring their browser software to embedded hardware via Sigma’s SMP8630 family of chipsets.
Clearly looking to tread on Intel’s toes, Sigma say the SMP8630 family of chipsets can be used in digital media adapters, IPTV set-top boxes and networked DVD players that OEM’s may want to build.
To get to use the browser and the oh-so-desirable AJAX, OEM’s will need to get in touch with Opera to license their Software Development Kit (SDK). Once familiar with it they should be able to create some snazzy application.
So what’s so exciting about embedded Web browsing software? Their supports the darling of the hour buzzword – AJAX.
We’re sure you, dear reader, know what AJAX is, but just incase – it stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. This translates to being able to use a Web browser more like a computer-based application.
The most notable difference from a ‘normal’ Web app is information and updates can be carried out without needing reload the Web page each time. It’s an intergral part of the Web 2.0 landscape.
The most often cited example is Google’s Gmail.
We at Digital-Lifestyles see the rise of AJAX as the event that broke Microsoft’s domination of computers. So pretty significant really.
Expect this news to generate great excitement in the Blog-world.
Opera
Sigma
Opera-related stories on Digital-Lifestyles
5 January, 2006
Pressure Builds – No Christmas Cheer For BT
BT has been hit by two further blows, bringing into stark relief the height of the mountain it must climb to achieve its TV ambitions. Secondarily, drawing into sharp focus the changing landscape for domestic phone calling, as the competition begins to consolidate.
The bad news for the BT TV proposition, is that BSkyb has got its 8th millionth customer. These customers are, by and large, the sort of customer BT badly needs for its triple play TV offering to be a success. They’re high-delivering ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) viewers that will delight the beleaguered BT finances.
Sky’s achievement of the 8 million target is also likely to be a blow to the ambitious NTL. Expect little let up from Sky as it battles to reach the 10 million mark by 2010 and continues to push its Sky+ and multi-room offerings.
Separately, a consolidating Carphone Warehouse has been on the acquisition trail and agreed the purchase of Tele2’s UK and Ireland operations, and separately, Onetel.
The deal with Tele2, the Swedish telecoms company, at a price of £8.5 million plus the £2 million cost of a planned restructure, will add around 188,000 customers in the UK and a further 36,000 in Ireland to Carphone Warehouse.
The deal appears to makes sense for Carphone Warehouse, and they expect the transaction to add to their earnings in the current financial year. They intend to migrate the purchased companies customers onto its own network, under the TalkTalk brand.
The purchase of Onetel from Centrica for £132 million includes £37.1 million, while will be delivered if Centrica deliver a targeted number of customers in the next three years via its British Gas operations. The Carphone Warehouse will also pay Centrica an additional £22.2 million if higher sign-up targets are met.
Onetel’s residential customer portfolio is made up of 1.1 million Carrier Pre-Select (CPS), 250,000 indirect access, 60,000 broadband, 40,000 mobile. There are also 50,000 CPS business customers. Carphone Warehouse are upbeat about this purchase too, saying the acquisition will “increase current year pre-tax profits by approximately £4m, and next year’s pre-tax profits by approximately £20m.”
Here at Digital Lifestyles, we expect competition to be even fiercer in 2006 as both BSkyb and the Telcos battle to capture high spending subscribers.
20 December, 2005