BT unsuccessful in ASA complaint against Virgin - cable IS faster than VDSL

BT unsuccessful in ASA complaint against Virgin Media: "Virgin Media’s response pointed out that at least 10% of customers on their 'up to 30 Mbit/s' broadband service achieved the headline speed and that the average speed across a 24-hour period for customers on their 'up to 30 Mbit/s' service was 30.1 Mbit/s, according to an Ofcom report. In terms of exaggerating the difference between competitor services, Virgin highlighted that, according to the Ofcom report, the average speed achieved on Virgin's 'up to 30 Mbit/s' service was over 100% of the headline speed, whereas the average achieved on BT's 'up to 38 Mbit/s' service was less than 30 Mbit/s and only 79% of the headline speed.
The ASA stated that "the data submitted by Virgin was suitably robust to demonstrate that they consistently delivered a superfast service to their customers"." 'via Blog this'

Evidence-Based Policy Too Hard? "FCC's Net Neutrality report is a bust"

The Daily Dot - The FCC's Net Neutrality report is a bust: "As the report makes abundantly clear, today we are no closer to real answers on data caps today than we were in 2010, when the FCC released its Net Neutrality order; in 2011, when we asked the FCC to take a closer look at data caps; or 2012, when the FCC finally organized the Open Internet Advisory Committee. Over and over, the report’s findings indicate a lack of data, standards, evidence, and information."
The OIAC has virtually no travel money even for its leaders, and no research budget, so it's hardly a surprise that all it can do is re-tread the existing arguments. Regulators don't want answers 'via Blog this'

"103 years ago, he would have been a visionary" - Australian debate on NBN

Australians continue to debate wholesale monopoly local loop - copper or fibre? The elction is two weeks away, and this is a key policy difference between the social democrat and neocon parties. It still puts the British debate in the shade - as opposition shadow minister Turnbull supports our 'superfast' (sic) broadband...

No European net neutrality legislation after all?

No European net neutrality legislation after all | Internet Policy Review: "In Germany, where there had been some movement towards legislating net neutrality – at least if it still could make it after the Federal election (September 22, 2013) – liberal party member Jimmy Schulz called Kroes' move “irritating“ as it was contrary to statements from the Digital Agenda Commissioner. “According to that leaked draft, it would not be possible to ban network providers from offering special deals with selected service providers. That would be contrary to the net neutrality principle,” Schulz wrote.Such rules would harm innovation and create barriers for start-ups and newcomers in the market, Schulz argued. Yet, he was confident that there would be changes in the draft regulation, given that governments would intervene." 'via Blog this'

Crypto experts blast German e-mail providers’ “secure data storage” claim

Crypto experts blast German e-mail providers’ “secure data storage” claim | Ars Technica: "“No one of the ‘E-Mail made in Germany’ initiative would say if they encrypt the data on their servers so they don't have access to it, which they probably don't and thus the government could force them to let them access it.” The Chaos Computer Club practically laughed at this new announcement: “What competitors [have had] for years as standard—a forced encryption when accessing a personal e-mail account—is now sold promotionally as a new, effective technological advancement,” the group wrote. “The NSA scandal has shown that centralized services are to be regarded as not trustworthy when it comes to access by secret [agencies]." 'via Blog this'

Net Index by Ookla - current SpeedTest broadband speeds

Net Index by Ookla: "Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe. The value is the rolling mean throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles." EU 19.36Mbps G8 average 18.17 Mbps OECD average 17.82 Mbps APEC 14.17 Mbps (US 18Mbps, slower than UK, France, Germany, Japan (and industrialised Asia), smaller Netherlands, Baltics, Scandies + Nordics)

'via Blog this'

Turnbull defends Murdoch on Labor's NBN

Turnbull defends Murdoch on Labor's NBN | ZDNet: "Labor claims that Murdoch's media interests are hostile toward its NBN, because it could pose a commercial threat to News Corp's half-owned pay TV business, Foxtel. The argument is that consumers could opt to use fast NBN speeds to download their own visual entertainment, rather than paying for a Foxtel subscription.
Kevin Rudd said Murdoch has a "democratic right" to rail against Labor's policies through his publications, but wondered what was behind it. He's also said that there is a "strange coincidence of interests" between News Corp and the Coalition, after The Daily Telegraph newspaper printed an editorial under the headline "Kick this mob out" on day one of the election campaign."
Murdoch seek to influence electoral politics for his personal financial gain? What is he, a vulture capitalist? Oh, right...'via Blog this'

Evidence Base for NBN - Australian election furore

Turnbull is right - we need to have a Press Club debate about the NBN - TechGeek: "Why? Despite my personal feeling that the Coalition’s proposal is technologically inferior, it would be nice to have all the facts and figures from both proposals out there in the public forum and a discussion about the future of broadband in Australia. It would also be nice to question Albanese and Turnbull about their plans. For instance, I’ve got many questions for Turnbull about his implementation like how much do you anticipate the cost of replacing the copper to achieve fast broadband (since it is a Fibre-to-the-Node policy). Likewise to Albanese, but in relation to the construction and implementation – what are you going to do to ensure that NBN Co meets deadlines and targets for a 2021 completion date?"
Note that this debate is light years ahead of what passes for political debate in Europe...see this analysis of the copper network legacy for instance - and this is actually being read by the geek electorate thanks to their public service broadcaster! 'via Blog this'

Telephone History... Antique Telephone & Collector's Items

Telephone History... Antique Telephone & Collector's Items: Great photos of the various devices that made US telecom deregulation history... "After the Carterfone Decision, up until the FCC started allowing connection of FCC registered equipment in 1976 (that you could buy in a local store), subscribers had to rent a protective coupler from the phone company (maybe $10 a month per line), which supposedly protected the public telephone network from any harm caused by the customer's phone equipment (CPE)." 'via Blog this'

UK net neutrality? Perish the thought...

The UK Communications 'consultation paper' which is the centrepiece of the Coalition's communications policy strategy limped into view last week. It's got some porno-nasty blocking, decent ideas on switching bundled services and the very necessary hard cash elements of spectrum reform (which is why it's needed in the first place).
Here are the parts confirming that they have no interest in solving consumer issues with net neutrality except via the old Ofcom saw that transparency and switching can answer the problem:
"Internet traffic management: Cisco predicts that internet traffic will reach 1.4zettabytes (a zettabyte is equal to a trillion gigabytes) a year in 2017 [Ed: gee whizz, these numbers are confusing, is there a data explosion? Errr, no].
As the amount of data exchanged increases we want to ensure that consumers are aware at the point of sale of the internet traffic management policies that their internet service provider or mobile network operator has in place. For example, some mobile network operators block the use of apps like ‘Skype’, although this may be reflected in cheaper contracts [Ed: really? No].
We think it should be for consumers to decide what best meets their needs, so, in the first instance, we have asked Ofcom to work with internet service providers to encourage them to make their traffic management policies more transparent on a voluntary basis [Ed: abuse of the term 'self-regulation'] – the challenge for industry will be to do this in a way that is clear and understandable to consumers. [Ed: this was meant to happen 4 years ago, for gawd's sake...]
Where there is evidence of consumers not being made sufficiently aware, Ofcom will act to require operators to make their traffic management policies more transparent. We believe in the principle of an open internet [Ed: no, you don't, as Tim Berners Lee established clearly] and will keep this area under review." (pp13-14)
It's not very edifying - and there's a longer regurgitated Ofcom policy line at  p41 which astonishingly suggests that traffic management could prioritise Skype services - when presumably every incentive exists to do the opposite, discriminate to prioritise voice over IP that is NOT a competitor to the ISP? Someone worked too late on that line..."firms may prioritise time-sensitive services like video streaming or voice calls over the internet – such as the type of services offered by Skype – over other content which is not as sensitive to time delay" - shurely shome mishtake?

Comcast Starts Tinkering With 5 GB Usage Caps

Comcast Starts Tinkering With 5 GB Usage Caps | DSLreports, ISP Information: "Time Warner Cable and Comcast's voluntary options come after attempts at forcing users on to 5 GB capped plans didn't go over very well, Time Warner Cable's 2009 effort in particular seeing unprecedented public backlash and even public protest. So like the slowly boiled frog analogy, the cable operators hope they can slowly but surely get metered billing implemented if they just move glacially enough. The problem is that the option is so pathetic, very few are signing up for it.
Cable operators have repeatedly and sometimes hysterically insisted they're simply looking to tinker with "creative" usage-based pricing, yet their best minds keep pushing forth metered plans that offer little to no value. That's because contrary to their claims, they're not actually interested in true usage-based plans, because tens of millions of their customers (like your grandma) would pay very little for the miniscule bandwidth they use." 'via Blog this'