A few weeks ago, I wondered why a number of posts on my blog which had been quiet for a while saw some renewed interest – the series on regional peering suddenly saw a significant growth in readership – when I received word that there was group forming in Manchester to discuss the subject, instigated by Manchester co-lo operator m247 and involving (my former employer) the largest UK IXP, LINX.
Now it started to make sense…
Continue reading “A new regional peering initiative for the UK?”
I attended by all accounts a very successful first open meeting for the IXLeeds exchange point yesterday – with around 120 attendees, including many faces that are not regulars on the peering circuit making for brilliant networking opportunities and great talks from the likes of the Government super-fast broadband initiative, BDUK, and energy efficient processor giants ARM (behind the technology at the heart of most of the World’s smartphones), as well as more familiar faces such as RIPE NCC and LINX, among others.
Definitely impressed with the frank discussion that followed the talk by the DCMS’ Robert Ling on BDUK funding and framework, but still sceptical that it’s going to be any easier for smaller businesses to successfully get access to the public purse.
Andy Davidson, IXLeeds Director, was able to proudly announce that IXLeeds now provides support for jumbo frames via a seperate vlan overlaid on their switch, which is probably the only IXP in the UK which officially offers and promotes this service – at least for the time being. Of course, they are supporting a 9k frame size…
Well done to my friends and colleagues of IXLeeds for making it to this major milestone, and doing it in great style. It seems a long, long way from a discussion over some pizza in 2008.
The only thing I didn’t manage to do while in Leeds is take a look at the progress on the next phase of aql’s Salem Church data centre, but I’m sure I’ll just have to ask nicely and drop by aql at some point in the future. 🙂
When I was travelling internationally very frequently, I was a big fan of the UK’s IRIS recognition deployed at some of the busier UK airports. I probably still am, actually.
The system used high defintion photography of your irises, as unique as a fingerprint, as a replacement for showing your passport to an Immigration Officer. It allowed you to cut out a lot of the queueing, and most users were frequent travellers, everyone tended to know what they were doing!
It also didn’t depend on presenting a passport. All it used was the iris photography.
However, it looks like the system’s days are numbered – the IRIS booths in Manchester and Birmingham have been switched off. The booths at London airports (Heathrow and Gatwick) will be operating until at least after the Summer Olympics.
The UK Border Control say they are “reviewing their biometric technology”, which means switching off this really useful system.
I guess I’ll be back to queueing for a booth, waiting for ages, looking at posters containing “tougher checks take more time” hectoring by the authorities.
Some of you may be aware of the Google Fibre project which is an experimental project to build a high-speed FTTH network to the communities in Kansas City. They chose Kansas City from a number of different communities who responded to Google’s “beauty contest” for this pilot, because they had to pick just one and felt that it would have the greatest effect and be the best community to work with.
Like many other Community Broadband projects, Google point out that what the large incumbent telcos sell as “high speed internet” is seldom “high speed” at all, and is commonly sub 4Mb/sec. Google estimate that during the pilot, the cost of works for lighting up each subscriber premises may be as much as $8000 – though this is cheaper than the £10000 that it’s rumoured to cost to deploy high speed broadband to a rural subscriber in the UK.
So, this got me thinking, what could Google potentially bring to the UK with a similar sort of project?
It strikes me that one of the ways that Google could help the most is by facilitating the existing community benefit-based FTTC/FTTH groups to build networks in their communities, which right now can be frustrated by lack of access to public money from the super-fast broadband deployment fund (aka BDUK).
A significant amount of BDUK money is going to BT as the incumbent, or needs complex joint-venture constructs (such as Digital Region – though that was not a BDUK-funded project), because these organisations firstly have whole departments dedicated to handling the paperwork required to bid for the public funding, and secondly because they have a sufficiently high turnover to bid for a sufficient amount of public money to deliver the project. These are hurdles to community led companies, who will most likely just drown in the paperwork to bid for the funding, may not have all the necessary expertise either on staff or under contract, and likely don’t have the necessary turnover to support the application for the funding.
Meanwhile, the House of Lords Communications Select Commitee have issued this request for evidence (.pdf) in respect of an inquiry into whether the Government’s Super-fast Broadband strategy (and the BDUK funding) is going to be able to repair “digital divides” (and prevent new ones), deliver enough bandwidth where it’s needed, provide enough of a competitive market place in broadband delivery (such as a competitive wholesale fibre market), and generally “do enough”.
Could this be where Google enters stage left? As opposed to running the project in it’s entirety, they partner up – managing things such as the funding bid process on behalf of the communities, possibly acting as some sort of guarantor in place of turnover, as well as providing technical knowhow and leveraging their buying power and contacts?
This would at least give an alternative route to super-fast broadband. Right now, BT are winning a lot of the County Council led regional/rural fast broadband deployment projects, sometimes because they are the only organisation able to submit a compliant bid.
It remains to be seen if the money will benefit the real not-spots, or just prop-up otherwise marginal BT FTTC roll outs. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no axe to grind with BT, but is the current situation, with little or no competition, ultimately beneficial to the communities that the awarded funding is purporting to benefit?
This is certainly one of the questions the House of Lords enquiry is looking to answer.
They say life imitates art, and one area I think this is true is in the growing number of speakers blasting out banal “information” tannoys. If you think of any fiction set in the future with some controlling regime (1984, Brave New World, Blakes 7), there are droning announcements blighting the lives of the citizens as they try to go about their daily business.
Anyone who uses public transport in the UK should be able to relate to this – the never-ending torrent of automated announcements that seem to bury useful information (like which station is next) in a stream of verbose drivel (to mind the gap, take our stuff with us, and remember to breathe).
Is “tannoy” really a portmanteau of “to annoy”?
Continue reading “Torrential Tannoys – can’t we just have a quiet life?”
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not single, but still call today “Hallmark day” and despair of the basic concept of vomit-inducing cards, overpriced rose bouquets, and lamb cutlets and other foodstuffs arranged in a schmaltzy heart shape.
Morrisons seem to have taken vomit-inducing food to new depths with a “cupid seasoning” that they are slathering on their steaks today. What sort of marketing desperado signed that load of arse off? (Oh, one earning more money than me, probably. Bugger.)
More to the point, what’s in it? My money is on an anti-emetic.
Interesting BBC News article on the Bristol Pound today.
The Bristol Pound is a localised currency intended to stop the net outflow of cash from Bristol – the idea being that if you paid for a product or service with a Bristol Pound as opposed to a normal Pound Sterling, the trader is required to spend that money as a Bristol Pound themselves – either to pay a local employee, or a local supplier, you get the general idea.
The thinking is that in a recession and in the face of rising globalisation, when a normal Pound is spent in Bristol, a large percentage of it (or even worse, all of it) is exported from Bristol, going into the pockets of people outside of the region. By keeping the money local, it’s an attempt to create a virtuous effect of doing business in the local area, benefitting local businesses and people.
I make no secret I’m a big fan of local reinvestment – I’ve touched on this when writing about localised fast broadband projects such as co-operative ones like B4RN (which might actually achieve this) and large gold-plated schemes like DigitalRegion (which isn’t doing too well at the moment, as a locally-based South Yorkshire DR reseller – Ripwire – has gone bump over the weekend).
Early days for the Bristol Pound yet – they are still inviting suggestions for who should be on their money – obviously the legendary engineer Brunel, who had such an influence on the city, should feature, but what about one of Bristol’s famous fictional sons, like Casualty’s Charlie Fairhead? Or is the irony of the BBC moving the Casualty production from Bristol to Cardiff a bit too much?
I see that the @NetworkRail, @LondonMidland and @VirginTrains twitter folks are having a tough day today.
To use railway speak the “job is stopped” (i.e. no trains can run) through the Bletchley area because of this locomotive coming off the rails in the middle of the night last night. Apparently, the driver had to be taken to hospital.
This has had the effect of meaning no services out of London Euston getting further North than Tring, and services heading from the North to Euston getting beyond Milton Keynes.
If you can avoid travelling today, it’s probably a good idea to put off making your trip. It’s going to take a long time to get the line re-opened. You can see that it’s derailed across two tracks, plus the overhead wires which supply electricity to the trains have reportedly been damaged too.
Services are going to be disrupted all day, and most likely into the weekend as well.
There are a lot of folk asking on social media how they can work around this if they need to make the journey. There’s lots of redundancy in the rail network, but the alternatives aren’t always the most obvious.
Getting the Virgin train in to Milton Keynes if you’re heading for London is probably the worst option, as you’re then looking at road transport from Milton Keynes to somewhere like Luton or Aylesbury to get around the disruption.
A number of train operators will be accepting tickets on alternative routes, including those that would normally only be valid on a Virgin train. Please look at the National Rail page to check for these. Virgin have also released some very clear maps of alternatives.
Here’s a basic rundown of my recommendations for alternatives:
London – Scotland: East Coast from/to London Kings Cross, changing at Edinburgh, is likely your best bet.
London – Carlisle: Probably best on Virgin to Birmingham New Street, and then proceed as for Birmingham, on Chiltern. Going across to Newcastle or over the S&C to Leeds is likely to be slow, but is also an alternative, and one of Virgin’s own recommendations.
London – Preston: Again possibly stick with Virgin to Birmingham, and change for Chiltern to Marylebone, as getting across to Leeds from Preston (via Halifax) while one of Virgin’s recommendations, may be slow.
London – Birmingham: Chiltern Trains – Snow Hill or Moor Street to/from Marylebone, direct train, at least 2 trains per hour, approx 1h45 journey time. Or, First Great Western Paddington-Reading, changing for Cross Country Reading-Birmingham.
London – Coventry: First Great Western Paddington-Reading, and change for Cross Country for Reading-Coventry, or Chiltern to/from Marylebone, change at Leamington Spa.
London – Nuneaton: East Midlands Trains to/from Leicester, changing for connections to Nuneaton. This may also work for Coventry.
London – Stoke-on-Trent/Crewe: East Midlands Trains to/from Derby, changing there for Stoke-on-Trent/Crewe, or Chiltern Marylebone to Leamington Spa, and Cross Country from Leamington Spa to Stoke.
London – Manchester: East Midlands Trains to/from Sheffield, or East Coast to/from Leeds, changing there for Manchester. This is probably a good alternative for Liverpool too, as there are direct trains to Liverpool from Sheffield and Leeds.
London – Liverpool: As for Manchester, or route via Birmingham and Chiltern to/from London.
If you’re travelling Virgin north of Milton Keynes (e.g Birmingham-Scotland or Preston-Scotland), the trains are running, but are subject to delay, short notice cancellation, and may make additional stops. Birmingham-Euston and Manchester-Euston services seem to be down to 2 trains per hour and terminate at Milton Keynes in any case.
London Midland Euston-Milton Keynes-Northampton line north of Tring, my advice is to put off your trip. It’s going to be a slow experience and likely involve road transport/buses.
This advice is being provided with no warranty that your specific ticket will be valid via the alternative route. Just trying some ideas to bail you out of the crap if you still feel the need to travel today. Please ask railway staff on the train(s) on which you intend to travel. I am not an employee of a National Rail operating company or Network Rail.
Remember the alternative trains will be busy and the staff will likely feel more than a touch mithered. Please be nice to your fellow humans today. Dunkirk spirit and all that.
Good luck!
Update: As of about 1600 today, they have got one line in each direction re-opened. This is normally a four track railway, there are two sets of lines in each direction – one carrying faster Virgin expresses, the other carrying the London Midland commuter trains, local stopping trains, and slower freight trains. It’s fair to say that there will still be some disruption over the weekend, simply because the timetabled service can’t really fit over the remaining two tracks and keep to time. Keep your eyes on the information that’s available.
I didn’t bother activating voicemail when I changed my phone.
When I did have voicemail, because it came activated and there was seemingly no way of switching it off, I never used to listen to it. I just occasionally went in and deleted all the messages without listening to them.
I had grown tired of the sorts of messages you normally find your voicemail:
That’s why I conclude that voicemail is a write-only medium.
Even if you’re a conscientious type who picks up their voicemail and returns the calls, you’re likely to end up wasting time playing voicemail tag.
So when I got the opportunity to not switch my voicemail on, the decision was easy.
I figure that people who need to get hold of me will:
The cynic in me also thinks that voicemail is a clever ploy by the phone companies to part us from yet more of our hard-earned wonga:
So, there you have it. Why voicemail is a write-only medium, and doesn’t really serve a purpose anymore.
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