Posts by Dave Moffatt

Ex-competition watchdog and TalkTalk adviser calls for Openreach split from BT

Re: Not 50%

@John Miles 1 That isn't far-off how the fuel markets operate in the UK. Distribution is very regional - a fuel depot will usually only have a couple of companies providing product for the five or six forecourt operators. Kingsbury, near Birmingham, is a fairly typical example; all of the major fuel brands are represented but they all draw fuel from either BP or Valero (Texaco). This situation is pretty commonplace because fuel companies want to avoid the huge infrastructure costs involved in building and operating their own refineries and terminals and would rather use the market to buy and sell to/from their competitors.

BT thinks EE customers will FLEE from enlarged four-play mobe biz

Re: O2 @neil

If you were responding to me, I was referring to their call centres which are/were operated BT Wholesale/MSL in Coventry and Liverpool

Re: O2

EE isn't an LLU provider, its home phone and broadband offerings are BT Wholesale products and the customer service is, or at least was last year, provided by BT.

Deutsche Telecom's BRATTY OFFSPRING earns parent €38m fine

Probably never

Network access prices are very low in the UK

In defence of defenestration: Microsoft MUST hurl Gates from the Windows

Re: To paraphrase The Matrix

You mean, like, "experience, experience, experience, experience..."

America abandoning DSL in favour of faster cable

Please google 'GPON' - Gigabit Passive Optical Network.

Ofcom moves: Rural broadband price war on the cards?

DSL != utility

Your local electricity distributor will turn up PDQ in the event of a failure due to the following:

- The DNOs have enough manpower slack

- Service failures normally affect numerous users

- Service failures are normally easy to locate

Fixing broadband problems isn't (very often) as simple as digging up roads and replacing cables. Normally there are no fault conditions present (earth contact, short/open circuit (loop/dis), high resistance) and finding the problem is very much trial and error.

And as an aside, I DO fix xDSL faults for a living, including one this week that has, so far, taken around 100 man hours to resolve. It is not straightforward, service can be affected by radio interference, faulty appliances, poor wiring (usually in the house), knackered phones and lack of customer understanding.

Exchange and cable faults happen but they're not the norm.

Dev's iPhone cable melts after iOS 5 upgrade

Pound shop cable

I think it is a pound shop cable, definitely not apple kit - it has push tabs on the white part of the plug.

BT earmarks 66 more exchanges for fibre-to-the-cabinet upgrade

title

Guys, BT is a business. It doesn't HAVE to give you anything but it does have a responsibility to its shareholders. If BT doesn't get this right there is the potential to repeat what happened when they bought their 3G licences in the 90s - virtual bankruptcy. Why not ask yourself why the 'amazing' Virgin or any of the others haven't cabled your area - it's usually because it's not economically viable and would be a terrible business decision. As long as the average punter sees £25 per month as a high price for broadband, you can kiss goodbye to major investment.

Dear Mr Beefy ex-soldier: Your BT needs you

I doubt it

Sky don't have any cable in the ground.

BT has always been a big ex-forces employer due to the similar corporate cultures (less shooting but still with crap stackers).

Alan Sugar's 'cockup braindead in call centre clueless' BT row

This...

"I would have one bollock of a fat arse internet pipe"

...made my day. Love it.

Startup promises money for fanbois

Really? Escorted out?

I take photos in shops all of the time and I use redlaser to compare prices on the shelf and I've yet to find someone who gives a crap. Photography is not a crime. These are large supermarkets, not a secure premises or a politically sensitive area.

Virgin Media begins 100Mb upgrades

Don't hold out for cable network expansion

Virgin are BT's bitch.

BT Wholesale manage the POTS ('phone) part of the network

Openreach maintain the POTS part of the network

BT Wholesale provide all of the backhaul

and now

Virgin are installing DSLAMs in BT exchanges to take advantage of BT's cheap and available unbundled access network.

Forget about expanded DOCSIS service.

BT quotes pensioner £150,000 to get broadband

Right

1. 21CN is a core network project, not access network. It has no bearing on BB access and it is still being actively rolled out.

2. BT is a business, owned by shareholders who are mostly BT employees. The network BT inherited is very different to today's network. The core network has changed completely at vast cost and is being upgraded again at the moment. Buildings cost a fortune to run and exchanges are not consolidated (occasionally moved but extremely rarely closed).

3. Replacing copper with fibre is expensive. Terminations and switches cost a fortune, manpower costs yet more. Selling the copper cable barely pays for the shipping cost. Also, unlike copper, every node and termination has to be externally powered. Cost.

4. £150k is pretty reasonable. For this to work, she'd need a DSLAM installed near to her home, hence the high price ( £50k for a DSLAM in a cabinet plus £100k for installation, fibre blowing + splicing, power etc).

BT has an obligation to provide service but not where it is unfeasably expensive.

OFT won't block BBC's über set top box

Canvas is...

an IPTV project. The key partners are BT, BBC, Arquiva and a few others.

BT expands fibre rollout

@ Mr Webber

This isn't Openreach fibre, it is owned by Media and Broadcast (Operate) purely for the use of multi-gigabit media backhaul. It just isn't useful as an access product - it will be going from OB van to exchange to BT Tower as directly as possible.

BT Granite slimline DECT cordless phone

@ Joe Harrison

It's called BT Fusion and no-one wanted it. It's a shame really because with the right handset it was a good product that worked well. It's been superceeded by broadband anywhere which is also quite good but not really, er, 'broadband' (the handset has only GPRS and 'interesting' WiFi).

New mobe operator slash Wi-Fi hotspotter launches in UK

Phoneboxes?

Yes, phone boxes do have phone lines installed, but usually only the one. Who's boxes do they intend to use? I can't see BT being too welcoming owing to their tie-in with Vodafone (BT Mobile is an MVNO on Voda's network) and many competing services are only available in a few areas.

I like the tenacity of this new venture, but I think the chances of success are limited at best.

Daily Mail cites video game as proof of terrorist doomsday plot

Daily Mail or STR?

I can't tell the difference between

www.dailymail.co.uk

and

www.shelleytherepublican.com

US teen cuffed for disposable camera 'Taser'

Rings a bell...

Working as a telephone engineer you get a lot of shocks working in exchanges, usually only 50 volts (exchange battery) but if you're unlucky it's an ISDN or a DACS (95v) or at the worst - ring current. It's not pleasant but it feels about the same as discharging a camera flash into your arm.

Paris - because she's just bloody shocking.

Punters call for laptops with built-in mobiles

Toughbook?

My Win 98 toughbook from work has GSM built in. It can't be that hard 9 years later.

E-borders kills off UK-Ireland passport free travel

Oh for christ's sake

Just join Schengen already! We are supposed to be one europe lets get our shit together and fucking act like one!

Dell's Linux sleight of hand

Re: Linux

I use Linux day to day as an alternative to Windows purely because it's what works best for me. I don't work in IT, I work in telecoms and I use Windows at work but at home, Ubuntu is what I like to use and is what I have used for about 6 months.

BSkyB buys Amstrad

The best use for an old Amstrad Sky+ box

Is a mini-ITX project. A great case to use because no one would suspect anything.

At least my old Amstrad Sky+ box is more reliable than my BT Home Hub...