Your definition of broadband is wrong.

A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending a Deloitte paper launch and the guest speaker was Peter Cochrane. I’d not heard of Peter before but he eloquently (and authoritatively) put forward an argument that I have tried to explain to stakeholders across the province. While it’s hard to get the full effect … Continue reading “Your definition of broadband is wrong.”

A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending a Deloitte paper launch and the guest speaker was Peter Cochrane. I’d not heard of Peter before but he eloquently (and authoritatively) put forward an argument that I have tried to explain to stakeholders across the province. While it’s hard to get the full effect of his persuasive speech, you can view his FTTH @ Last slides at the link above.

His core argument was:

Your definition of broadband is wrong.

© Peter Cochrane http://www.cochrane.org.uk/

During the talk, he said that if an internet link is not 100 Mbps up and down then it’s not broadband. Many people scoff but they fail to realise several things about the demand for broadband. The demand is there, it’s entirely in the supply that we see the issue.

In 2003, it was exciting to download a 3 Megabyte music file from the newly opened iTunes Store. My broadband was 512 Kbps down, 256Kbps up and it had a reported 20:1 contention. In 2013, my bandwidth demands have increased a thousandfold. I want to download 3.2 Gigabyte movie files from the iTunes Store. But my broadband speeds have increased only by a factor of 10 in a decade. I’m imminently to order BT Infinity but that only can provide 24-80 Mbps (“SuperFast broadband”) and not the 80 Mbps+ (“UltraFast broadband”) that the modern media consumer demands. And that’s just the download speed because idiots have, over the last few years, decreed that download speed is the only important metric.

There are four metrics I measure broadband by:

  • Upload
  • Download
  • Latency
  • Contention

Upload speeds are just as important (and more important for the media industry) and they tend to still be sub-10 Mbps. Contention on BT Infinity is 50:1 – the opposite of contention is a term called “non-blocking” where everyone paying for access gets the access they are paying for. When Telcos promise a certain bandwidth, they’re actually selling that same object fifty times to their customers and you’re all supposed to share. (The logic being that not everyone will be downloading at the same time). Latency is, for most people in our industry, immaterial though you can feel the effect in online games, video-conferencing calls and other time-senstiive operations. In many cases, the latency is not caused at the “broadband” end but due to the series of interactions between you and your content across the Internet. The delicious irony being that if your upload speed is limited, your latency jumps considerably as your “content requests” are competing with your uploads.

One of Peter’s slides regarding the island of Jersey:

© Peter Cochrane http://www.cochrane.org.uk/

(He goes on to clarify that 3G runs at 14 Mbits, WiFi at 50 Mbps.)

Sweden:

100Mbit for 299kr (£25) a month is the slowest broadband in Sweden. And it goes up to a Gig for £75 a month

Keep this in mind when talking about our “digital platform”. Our broadband needs to improve by a factor of 100 for our consumer markets and for our business markets, probably 100 times that.

Upset the Apple cart

André Torrez writes why he will buy an iPad this weekend: “If VHS home recording is made legal then our industry is ruined.” “If CD quality music is allowed to be sold then our industry is ruined.” “If DAT is made legal then our industry is ruined.” “If the Rio PMP3000 is allowed to be … Continue reading “Upset the Apple cart”

André Torrez writes why he will buy an iPad this weekend:

“If VHS home recording is made legal then our industry is ruined.”
“If CD quality music is allowed to be sold then our industry is ruined.”
“If DAT is made legal then our industry is ruined.”
“If the Rio PMP3000 is allowed to be sold then our industry is ruined.”
“If file sharing is permitted then our industry is ruined.”

The tactic is as old as the hills and used by some pretty dishonest people in the last few years to combat technology they feared would upset the nice apple cart they’d set up.

I don’t think this is justification enough to buy an iPad but it is justification for citizens of the United Kingdom to oppose the Digital Economy Bill. I support copyright, of course I do, but copyright is a human invention and the acceleration of human innovation is now hidebound by laws enacted when technology was in its infancy. Corporate interests now keep our writers’ works bound in law for 75 years after their death even when they have no descendants (I have a personal bet that copyright laws will be extended again in the UK before the end of 2012 – mark my words!). Wake up people – we’re being robbed of our heritage. In the olden days, we were DRM-free. We easily copied materials between us and making a living as an artist was fraught with peril. Copyright was introduced to help that and it helps artists make a living even when their creations are copied. But there has to be a sensible limit – it’s not meant to be in perpetuity. When you create something, when you have a performance, it’s not meant to secure an income for the entire length of your life and the length of life of your descendants. Let them create something too! Copyright, designed to protect the incomes of artists, ends up stifling artists because they lose one of their incentives to create, put simply: hunger

Here in the UK, we’re going to be paying 50 pence a month additional tax to fund an initiative which will put 2 Mbps broadband into every home in the nation. While I applaud the plan, I have grave concerns over how it has been thought through. Supplying broadband is part of the puzzle – what about the hardware to run it on? What about the electricity to power it? Will this empower or destroy smaller internet service providers?

But more importantly – what are the social implications of this. Just as there are naysayers who don’t think the iPad is a viable (let alone well executed) device and cannot see past their blinkers on what their definition of a mobile computing device is, there are similar limitations on what is possible with broadband for all. Will this broadband be delivered by a provider who gives set-top boxes to everyone which run a cut down thin client? Will the browser included be standards compliant? (I was present at a recent presentation to Belfast City Council where a solution was being offered for set-top boxes which would put everyone’s browser a version behind the current, control access to Facebook and Youtube, force Council-related advertising and was prepared to offer “Secure by Design, because it’s Ethernet”. Now, as a once-techie I have no fucking idea what that last bullet point was meant to mean but to be honest I’d already switched off from the presentation long before that porky-pie and considered it a very bad idea.

There is no way that the UK is ready for a 100% broadband uptake either in terms of social capability or technical ability. We need more than just lines into houses – we need social reform, we need the government to take charge and not be so lily-livered about “new” media. We need them to open their doors and allow complete transparency. Then, after all of that, maybe then we’ll be ready for everyone to be online.

Do not go gentle into that good night

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas I’m not talking about ‘death’ of course, but the notion that ‘going dark’ is desirable. I recall someone accusing me of being addicted to the Internet which, despite being true, is also utterly preposterous. I pointed … Continue reading “Do not go gentle into that good night”

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

– Dylan Thomas

I’m not talking about ‘death’ of course, but the notion that ‘going dark’ is desirable. I recall someone accusing me of being addicted to the Internet which, despite being true, is also utterly preposterous. I pointed out that this person is never found without a watch, and in fact, owns half a dozen of the accursed things which is as ridiculous as anything. (I would prefer a wall clock and watch that use nothing but ‘fuzzy time’ (like this one. It’s evidently just as possible to be addicted to knowing the time, another completely artificial construct.

Darryl has mentioned ‘go dark’ a couple of times to Gareth and Andy because they were on vacation (in Dublin and Prague). My other half has balked at my attempts to find good internet coverage while we go on a cruise (visiting 6 countries) in August because it shows my addiction. She will, on the other hand, be taking her MacBook Air with her (to download photos to) and will be disgusted if she can’t get her email.

I think that for my ‘watch bearing friend’ and others who cannot leave the house without watches, reading materials, makeup, umbrellas, chewing gum, tobacco products and other serious but potentially more socially acceptable addictions, they should work on their own issues. Being internet connected 24×7 isn’t something I strive for. But it being present when I want or need it is.

That’s the difference between ‘always on’ and ‘always available’. I want internet to be ubiquitous because I don’t know if I need it ‘now’ or ‘later’ and unlike tobacco and makeup it’s not something I can just ‘buy’.

Anyone know the state of free WiFi in Stockholm? St Petersberg? Talinn?