Ofcom: the chocolate fireguard starts to crack

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

More than half of Britons haven’t got the first clue whether their broadband connection is dawdling along at dial-up pace or delivering data to their door at warp speed, according to Ofcom’s newly-published (and ironically titled) Consumer Satisfaction report. “The proportion of broadband customers unaware of their connection speeds has continued to grow – 55% were unaware of their connection speed (actual speed),” the report claimed.

Who’s to blame for this widespread ignorance? The ISPs, who continue to advertise “up to” speeds that are often so detached from reality they make the X-Files look like a documentary? Ofcom and its equally toothless cohorts at the Advertising Standards Authority who’ve allowed the ISPs to get away with marketing these fantasy speeds? No, apparently it’s us meddling journalists.

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Is BT boss losing his bottle?

Friday, November 14th, 2008

“This is a bold step by BT and we need others to be just as bold,” – BT chief Ian Livingston, announcing the company’s £1.5bn fibre broadband rollout in July.

“I have to tell you there are some shareholders who say ‘you know something, don’t do that, don’t do a whole lot of other things. That leaves you with a lot more cash and cash today is worth a lot more than cash in a few years’ time. I personally believe if it is the right thing to do as a 20-year decision it is the right thing to do. But we need to have the environment in which our shareholders feel there is a good chance of us making a return. If we cannot have that environment this is not the time to be taking on sure-fire losses.” – BT chief Ian Livingston quoted in The Guardian today.

Not looking quite so bold now, is he? 

Government-commissioned review says Government shouldn’t spend money shocker

Friday, September 12th, 2008

With the Chancellor perfecting his Private Frazer impression (”we’re doomed”), the chances of the Government handing over a fiver, let alone the £5 billion needed to bring fibre to the country’s cabinets, were remote. 

So it will surprise absolutely no-one that a Government-commissioned report into so-called “next-generation access” has reached the heady conclusion that the Government would be best advised to do chuff all. 

“There is little evidence that, in the short term, UK consumers will experience a detriment due to the lack of an extensive NGA network,” concludes the report’s author, former Cable and Wireless boss, Francesco Caio. Perhaps he should try getting out a bit more, because if he ventured even 50 miles outside of his comfy London office and started talking to people on the edges of BT’s rural exchanges, he would have found plenty of homes and businesses that are struggling on sub 1Mb/sec connections.

This very morning, in fact, Cisco released a report that claimed only Japan has the broadband quality to cope with next-generation web apps. The UK fell below the threshhold required for today’s apps, let alone the ones coming round the corner. 

 The case for public funding is debatable; the fact that Britain’s broadband network remains woefully inadequate is indisputable. 

iPlate boosts broadband connections by 60%

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

BT was quietly confident earlier this year when it told me that a £10 device would significantly increase the speed of many people’s broadband connections – and judging by our tests, it’s absolutely right.

The iPlate (or interstitial plate, as its mother would call it) has boosted the speed of my home ADSL connection by a staggering 63%. Before I connected the easy-to-install device over the weekend, the actual throughput of my ADSL Max connection was averaging around 1.9Mb/sec, according to repeated tests at Speedtest.net. Now, that same speed test is reporting an average download speed of 3.1Mb/sec. All for doing nothing more than spending 10 minutes undoing a couple of screws and popping the plate in my master phone socket.

I should explain, for those that now rush to Broadbandbuyer.co.uk (who supplied our iPlates) and order an iPlate for themselves, that the speed increase didn’t happen instantly. In fact, straight after I’d installed the iPlate I rushed on to Speedtest.net and was crestfallen to find it had made absolutely bugger all difference to my download speed. However, I did notice whilst rifling my router’s settings that my modem’s synch speed – the maximum theoretical speed your physical connection can achieve – had risen from a paltry 2Mb/sec to a far healthier 3.6Mb/sec.

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Comedian solves BT’s broadband problems

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Dave Gorman is a very funny man. However, he’s lost his sense of humour over his faltering BT broadband connection, which disappeared down a black hole three days ago.

“I’m not a violent man but right now I would cheerfully hurt someone from BT,” Gorman writes on his blog. “In fact my sense of proportion has diminished to the point where I can’t work out if it would be in particularly bad taste to suggest that running Kris Marshall over again would be, well, satisfying. Probably.
Still, if he will advertise BT’s services…”

However, what piqued my interest was his superb suggestion of ISPs providing mobile broadband dongles to people whose landlines have given up the ghost: a courtesy connection in the same way garages provide a courtesy car when your runaround is being repaired.

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WiMAX less popular than powered exoskeletons

Monday, July 28th, 2008

WiMAX wireless, as we were discussing in the office just the other day, has so far proved as popular in the UK as a Gary Glitter comeback tour.

And now, courtesy of a particularly peculiar piece of research from BT, we have the stats to prove it. When BT asked more than 2,000 adults which technology they would like to have access to by 2012, WiMAX came below H20-powered cars, powered exoskeletons, On-demand access to media on any device, and a robot cleaner, registering interest with only 13% of respondents.

Personally, I’m hoping for a broadband connection that gets even close to the up to 8Mb/sec promised on the tin. The powered exoskeleton is probably a more realistic proposition.

BT puts gun to Ofcom’s head

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

There have been plenty of times in the past where I’d have happily fired Ofcom. But it seems BT has cleverly put a gun to the regulator’s head with the announcement of its planned fibre network.

The company says it’s prepared to spend £1.5 billion to bring high-speed broadband to ten million homes by 2012, but that depends on “ “a supportive and enduring regulatory environment”. In other words, give us what we want or we’re taking our football home.

That puts Ofcom in a no-win situation: if the regulator puts it foot down, it will be accused of stalling Britain’s broadband network; if it gives BT carte blanche, the former monopoly’s rivals will be crying foul.

BT has already demanded access to Virgin’s cable network in an exclusive briefing with PC Pro. What else will it demand in its negotiations with Ofcom? Oh, to be a fly on the wall in those meetings…

How the net’s saved the PC Pro sickos

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

A nasty stomach bug has swept its away across the PC Pro office over the past week. Since last Friday, the malady has managed to wipe out nearly half the editorial team, with deputy editor David Fearon, reviews editor Jon Bray, laptops editor Sasha Muller and my not-so-good self all being forced to remain at home within touching distance of the porcelain throne since the start of the week.

And yet thanks to the modern marvel that is the interweb, our lack of presence has been barely felt in the office. On the days when one of us has been forced to mount a home guard, we’ve kept in touch with the office via instant messenger, email and the odd phone call. I’ve been able to update the website remotely from my office at home (putting up more stories than I would have if I’d been interrupted by my phone/meetings/colleagues playing Johnny Cash covers of Depeche Mode) today, and edit a feature. Jon Bray even managed to freak out the office yesterday, by remotely logging-in to his desktop and start jiggling around files and folders on his unmanned screen for the Labs he’s currently editing.

Our carry-on-regardless attitude will probably have the NUJ picketing Dennis Towers tomorrow, claiming our employer is remorselessly flogging us on our sickbeds. But whilst we’ve definitely been off-colour (Jon Bray looked distinctly Amy Winehouse on Monday), we’re well enough to carry on working.

Ten years ago, without broadband connections to ferry features and hi-res photos to the subs, update the website and maintain an always-on link to the office, we’d have been rushing back to work to make sure the magazine hit deadline, and no doubt have infected more of our colleagues. We might have lost the whole team, instead of only half.

Yes, the internet means I’m probably working on days where previously I’d have been tucked up on the sofa watching DVDs of The West Wing. But, frankly, I feel better for it.

Excuses, excuses…

Friday, June 13th, 2008

The litany of excuses IT companies conjure up to explain disappointing results never fail to amaze me.

Earlier this year, Canon blamed none other than hapless ex-England manager Steve McClaren for costing it millions of pounds of digital camera sales. Why? Because Canon was one of the official sponsors of Euro 2008 and thanks to the umbrella man’s incompetence, fewer footy fans would stop mid-game, turn to their mate and say: “Sod this penatly shootout, I’m popping down to Dixons and picking up an Ixus” every time the Canon logo appeared on screen.

Now the Carphone Warehouse’s Charles Dunstone is blaming his company’s sliding broadband sales on the property slump. “One of the key times people change broadband provider is when they move house,” he claims in today’s Times. “If you’re not moving house, the catalyst to make you think about changing provider does not exist.”

Hmmm… I’d say the main catalyst for switching broadband provider is shocking service from an ISP. And how did Carphone’s TalkTalk rank for customer service in the most recent PC Pro Awards? A mighty two stars out of six for customer support and one for reliability.

Perhaps Mr Dunstone should be looking a little bit closer to home?

Who do you think you’re kidding, Phorm?

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Can you hear that noise in the background? That’s the sound of our friends at controversial web-advertising firm, Phorm, scraping the barrel.

Having previously hailed Phorm as the solution to all our phishing nightmares, the company is now claiming it’s the answer to Britain’s rural broadband divide.

Phorm claims that a new survey showing London has broadband speeds that are twice as fast as regions such as Northern Ireland proves that “the model for funding the internet is broken.”

The answer? Allow ISPs to benefit from Phorm’s advertising revenue, of course. “Billions are needed for higher-speed networks yet currently ISPs only have income from broadband subscriptions,” Phorm’s CEO Kent Ertugrul claims.

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