Posts by bwrl

Ofcom must tackle 'monopolistic' provider BT, says shadow digital minister Chi Onwurah

FTTC is not just a poor alternative to FTTH in technical terms. It's also a fantastic way to kill competition. It's difficult to believe this was not part of BT's rationale for pursuing that route.

Why? Because by introducing FTTC, you kill LLU from the exchange, without introducing a suitable alternative.

To remain fully competitive, competitors would need to move from the exchange to the cabinet where they would take Sub-Loop Unbundling (SLU). From the competitors' point of view, the economics of exchange access and cabinet access are vastly different. Moving into an exchange gives you access to around 10,000 lines, whereas a cabinet only gives you access to a few hundred at the most.

On the other hand, if FTTH were introduced from the start, you would have a ready-made replacement to LLU with roughly similar economics: you just replace copper unbundling with fibre unbundling. FTTC on the other hand ensures there is no direct replacement for LLU.

So it's not only a strategy that holds this country back, it's one that affirmatively kills competition and begins the long, dark route back to the days of the Post Office. Ofcom really need to get a handle on what's happening.

Virgin Media hikes broadband, phone prices by five per cent

If it helps them fix their network reliability issues then fine. Worst I have ever seen.

Virgin Media goes TITSUP, RUINS Tuesday evening

Ironically, this happened the very same day that Virgin warned against moves by Ofcom that would reduce network reliability:

http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?C=0&ID=489545

Apple Store staff outnumber queues as new iPad goes on sale

Total mess

Well I'm far from being a fanboi but I found myself in Regent street yesterday and decided to get one.

Two things struck me, both making the whole experience pretty painful. Firstly, they had a ticket and queuing system in place but none of the staff could tell me where the queue was. There were no signs, nothing. One member of staff told me to go upstairs, someone else told me to go straight back down again. Geez. This was nearing 5pm and they were acting like they'd not sold a single ipad that day.

Secondly, the chirpy, cheeky and over familiar behaviour of the salesman that sold me the unit. Sorry. I don't know you, I don't want to be treated like a child and no, we are not on first name terms. Just give the ipad, take my payment and send me on my way.

Prisoner of iTunes - the iPad file transfer horror

You are right but there's a solution

Apple's walled garden approach could hardly be better designed to kill the iPad as a productivity device if it tried. However, there is a solution.

The solution is in the form of three facilities. Two of them are iPad apps, the other is a generic service.

1. Dropbox. (Not the ipad app, the service). Use this instead of iTunes to transfer documents.

2. Goodreader. Use this as your file manager. Organise and rename files at will. Use it to open your files in your productivity app of your choice.

3. Documents 2 Go. This is your productivity app of choice. Forget about iWork. It is irrevocably broken - one hardly knows where to begin to describe its flaws, but they range from stripping out content, thru failing to display documents properly to countless others. D2G fixes all of this plus, and here is the killer feature, you can save back to dropbox at will.

So there you are, document reading, writing, organising and editing all in 3 applications. Clumsy, yes, but it works. The fact that it's taken this amount of trial and error to find a way of doing what I need on the ipad points to either of two things. 1. Apple didn't properly think through how to make the ipad a productivity device. 2. they don't really want it to be one. On the first point, this is understandable. Foisting "real" computing onto a device based on the iphone/ipod lineage is challenging and may involve slaying sacred cows. If it's the second, it's just plain wrong. Competition will soon commoditise the consumption features of the ipad. Unless they can make it into an all-round "do everything" device - and quickly - others will get there first. The "i" phenomenon will be dead quicker than you can say knife and so, therefore, will apple.