My whole relationship started pretty badly with KC within a week of moving to Leven. I’d just moved from an incredibly reliable 2Mbps cable connection from Telewest (now Virgin Media) and was now on a 1Mbsp ADSL connection which was already proving unreliable. I then received a flyer through the post stating how KC was providing the fastest internet connection in the country. I promptly replied telling them this was in fact untrue, but I never heard anything back.

Since living in the KC area, I’ve watched other areas of the country improve their connection speeds whilst I’m seemed to be stuck around the 2Mbps connection mark. In the 10 years since I first signed up to my first ISP I’ve gone from 0.5Mbps to 2Mbps. Compared to the rate at which other changes occur within the computer industry this has been very painful. I’m certain many of you share these gripes, but recently things have changed. We’ve all been given some hope. Granted for some of you it’s probably not coming fast enough, but KC have an ageing network they have to upgrade and things like this don’t happen overnight, but the important thing is that the investment is happening.

As part of getting Lightstream I excitedly tweeted quite a bit about it. However I’m still getting asked quite a few questions, so this post hopefully explains things a bit more.

First contact

You probably all saw the first initial press release on Lightstream and checked availability in your area pretty quickly.  I certainly registered my interest.  After that press release my first contact from KC was via a letter stating that engineers would be working in my area and that they may well need access to the connection box on the side of my house.  Over the next few weeks I saw the odd few vans in the area but nothing more.

The excitement builds

After about another month or so I got another letter from KC stating that Lightstream was now available in my area and I should contact them to book an appointment. I did this as soon as humanly possible. I asked the lady on the phone about the best option for me, and I decided to go for the largest bundle. I figured I could always downgrade if it wasn’t proving value for money. For those of you asking about the price of the full bundle, which includes your phone calls etc, it is £48 per month. (It’s actually £38 per month for the first 3 months). This is the price for fibre to the home. For those who have fibre to the kerb there is a slightly reduced price as that can quite reach the 100Mbps, but only get 80Mbps.  It is my understanding that KC are pushing to have fibre to the home as much as possible, as this is better from a maintenance point of view.

The closest appointment I could get was about two weeks after my phone call. I was informed that engineers would be needing access the connection box outside of my house, but I wouldn’t need to be around for that.

One slight thing of note here, even though I registered interest and KC rang me to ask for a mobile number, they never actually called me about getting a Lightstream appointment. In fact I’m not certain how the registered interest data is being used.

So many vans and cables!

About a week and half before my installation the streets in my vicinity seemed to be filled with Vans (some KC and some were clearly contractors for KC). Every time we saw a van it was generally around a manhole and they were pushing cables in, lots of them!

The box of the side of my house was finally accessed around the same time.

The installation

The installation itself was pretty quick, as would be expected as the ground work had already been done.  The engineer drilled a whole into the house, pushed the fibre through, and then connected the optical network unit.  Quick point here, you’ll need two power sockets near by, one for the optical network unit and one for the wireless router.  These are installed as standard by KC, so you don’t need to worry about having the right equipment yourself. For those of you interested, the router installed was a Netgear N300 Gigabit router.

Giving it a whirl

Before leaving, the engineer did a speed test with his PC that was directly wired into the router and he was recording a connection of around 140Mbps.

The only speed tests I’ve run so far have been through a wireless device and I’ve been getting around 70Mbps. Never thought I’d see the day where the wireless aspect of the connection would be the bottleneck!

To give it a proper test, that evening I downloaded a 4.5GB VPC from Microsoft’s servers. It was very quick. Once of the 700MB sections came down in 7 minutes. Whilst doing this download I also decided to stream a 4oD programme. No buffering occurred at all. So there is definitely plenty of bandwidth to play with.

Other things I’ve tested including streaming a HD movie. Again the stream started instantly and I experienced no buffering. Looks like I can finally start to put away some of those old DVD’s that were taking up too much room in my house.

Happy Customer

I always said whoever got fibre to my home first would get my money. So KC did it and I’m a very happy customer. It’s doing exactly what I expect. It’s been stable, although granted I’ve only had it just over two weeks. It’s been fast and I can finally realistically stream content to my TV knowing I’m not going to be frustrated by buffering.

The biggest thing for me, as a business owner, who sometimes works from home, is that I’m getting around 17Mbps upstream. That’s probably a bigger deal than the 100Mbps. Uploading large files are no longer such a time consuming part of the day.

As for the 600GB monthly limit, I’m going to do my best to get close to it, but I suspect I’ll fall some way short.

Fingers crossed the KC Lightstream rollout happens for you all shortly.

It’s all static

One final point. It was asked at the last Hull Digital Developer group if the Fibre packages were static IP addresses or not.  I’ve since found out all the Fibre packages use a static IP address.

So, it’s arrived. KC Lightstream is here and being totally honest, it looks amazing. How about up to 100Mbps?!

Kevin Walsh, the Chief Executive from KC announced:

Our fibre deployment is the start of something special that local people can feel proud of. At its heart it’s an investment in the future of Hull and East Yorkshire, and, I believe, a catalyst for change that will help to transform the region’s fortunes and improve local lives.

The Government has recognised that superfast broadband will play an important role in the UK’s future economic success; helping to attract new businesses, stimulate the digital sector – a key driver of growth and wealth creation in regional economies – and helping councils and other public sector bodies to deliver services to residents more efficiently.

Kevin is a great ambassador for the region and passionately believes in the potential for the Lightstream service. Having talked to Kevin over the past three years or so, the Lightstream launch has been a firm focus for the company and the planning process has been a long and hard journey, culminating in the official launch today.

The headline figures are pretty amazing – upstream speeds up to 10Mbps and downstream up to 100Mbps. More than enough to satisfy speed freaks across the region. KC have looked at both the consumer and business areas, with various packages available.

For business, the packages start as £25.00 per month and go up to £100 per month, with the speed ramping up and also the usage allowance.

One big question I had was around the difference between the Business service and the Consumer one… from what I gather this download speeds are the same but the services for businesses include bigger usage allowances and faster upload speeds which is fair enough. I’m sure there will be some overlap though…

There is a very thorough FAQ for the new business service here.

Certainly, something like the homeworker option looks terrific and a really good price too. For many of the Hull Digital community who are freelancers, developers and work from home, this kind of speed is going to be very welcome. Upload speeds of 5-10Mbps depending on package will be even more warmly received!

Moving onto the consumer offering, there are a number of different options. Bundles and stand alone packages, with the bundles being the best value. You need to pop in your postcode first of all to see if you will be able to get the Lightstream service in the coming weeks… If you are in the right area, the website shows the packages available. See below:

The 100Mbps package is available for some areas which have FTTH (Fibre To The Home). Some postcodes show the 80Mbps package as this won’t be available and will be FTTC (Fibre To The Curb).

I’ve seen a few comments about the fact that it’s not unlimited download, but anyone who is giving that as a negative, is in my opinion, looking to find something to complain about. A 500 GB monthly allowance is HUGE. I use the web daily. A lot. Now I’m not certain of my data usage, but it’s no way near that. 500GB is very fair.

The big question – who can get Lightstream and when?

The people of the Grovehill area of Beverley will be the first to receive KC’s lightning fast broadband service this year, with customer installations starting in two weeks’ time on Monday 6thFebruary. Other installations in Beverley will include the Grange Way, Lockwood Road, Butt Lane, Old Manor Lawns, Lincoln Way, Poplars Way and Norwood areas.

Further fibre installations in 2012 are planned for the following areas (subject to detailed engineering surveys):

Priory Park business park in Hessle
Barnsley Street, Belmont Street and Buckingham Street off Holderness Road
A number of East Yorkshire villages including Skidby
Flats and apartments in areas including Hull city centre
Kingswood in the north of Hull
Parts of Greatfield estate in east Hull, as well as other areas of east Hull
Victoria Dock
Parts of Sutton-on-Hull
Parts of west Hull around Pickering Park

Overall, I am seriously impressed with Lightstream. They needed to do this, no question, but from the looks of things, we are going to have an amazing service in Hull, and at a very reasonable price. I’ve seen very few negative reactions from people, with the vast majority being very positive. The only thing to have really ticked me off is that I cannot have it yet! Now where’s Kevin’s number…

Main press release can be found here.

FAQ page is here.

There has been a huge amount of coverage around broadband in the UK, and also on our region over the past months, and there seems to be a real groundswell of interest, change and opinion. So, onto the news….

“Plug pulled on suspected pirates”

Tim Johns, the Breakfast Show Producer from BBC Humberside broke the story on the morning of Friday 24th July, on his show, and they even had Rory-Cellan Jones, the BBC’s Technology Correspondent on the show commenting on the story. The story was widely reported on across many websites and blogs, and also featured on the BBC Look North programme.

Now file sharing is illegal (in some cases when copyright is involved), and continues to get headlines this week (see story about US file-sharer getting fined $700,000). There was also this story about  a fake DVD factory operation being busted here – and yes, there is no surprise to see that they got a lot of their pirated material from the web.

The story was all about the fact that Karoo, immediately cut off users when there is an accusation from a copywrite holder, that there has been some illegal file-sharing. This goes against the general ISP policy where there are “3 strikes and you are out”, i.e. you get 3 warnings and then cut off.

Personally, here at the Hull Digital command bunker, we would be royally brassed off if we were cut off without warning, and for people who make their living using the web, or rely on it for certain services, it would be hugely frustrating. The bottom line is that many people use file sharing / torrents to get material which they shouldn’t. However, there are many legitimate reasons for file sharing, and so there can be a real difficulty identifying which is which.

Due to the outcry that this story created, within 24 hours, Karoo actually changed their policy:

Karoo’s piracy policy featured on Look North Friday 24th July 2009 from Hull Digital on Vimeo.

The about face was made following a BBC story outlining the firm’s practice.

Karoo issued a statement on Friday, saying that it has been “exceeding the expectations of copyright owners”.

The firm will now adopt a “three strikes” rule, in which suspected file-sharers will receive three written warnings before action is taken.

“We have always taken a firm line on the alleged abuse of our internet connections,” said Nick Thompson, director of consumer and publishing services, in the statement.

This to us makes a lot of sense, and seems to follow the trend that the once brick walled enclosure of the company, is coming down, and critically they are listening to customers and consumers. Make no mistake, they realise the importance of this, and we see there is an appetite to improve. To get warnings and then being cut off is very fair, and we have no issue with this whatsoever.

Whatever the fallout is from this story, it has certainly brought our local ISP to the attention of many more people across the UK.

In other news…

As well as this story, there was also a Look North report on Thursday evening this week about a “new” option for Hull residents wanting phone and broadband services. From our knowledge this is something that is actually not new, and is related to KCom selling some of their lines to resellers. We will get some clarification shortly.

Fibrestream announce the “Daddy of all broadband”

Other options for broadband / telecommunications are starting to appear in the city, and the local company Fibrestream have announced “the Daddy of all Broadband” coming to Great Thornton Street Estate in Hull in the near future.

ISPs not telling the whole truth, just some of the truth

More general broadband news also appeared recently on a national level, with the headline that “Broadband rates not up to speed”. This was covering the fact that the vast majority, if not all ISPs state speeds “up to Xmb” but very rarely deliver anyway near the headline speed, and the details behind this are left in VERY small print.

From a communication point of view for all broadband providers, we advocate being open, transparent, and easy to understand. Consumers are clever people, and they know, (and don’t like) when they are getting the marketing message rather than the real message. It goes back to the very useful principle, “under promise, and THEN over-deliver”, and never the other way round.

This post looks at the response to the Digital Britain Report, as well as asking how this effects us in our region. Hull Digital was interviewed on the BBC Radio Humberside breakfast show which you can listen to below:

Earlier in the week, the final Digital Britain report was released to an expectant Great Britain. It has generated a huge amount of coverage, which unsurprisingly, is very mixed. Rory Cellan Jones from the bbc (http://twitter.com/ruskin147) has posted on the their technology blog here, and has attracted a huge number of comments, universally negative towards the Government’s report.

What really stood out was this:

This morning, as he visited the Crystal Palace digital television transmitter, the Prime Minister made an extraordinary promise. Just hours before the publication of Digital Britain, he said this:

“Britain’s going to lead the world. This is us taking the next step into the future, being the digital capital of the world, making the necessary investment.”

This is categorically a BLATANT lie and more evidence that this report is woefully inadequate and 10 years too late. How we (the UK) can expect to be the “digital capital of the world” with the target of 2mb broadband is not only misguided, but frankly, plain rude, arrogant and misjudged.

Do they, the Government, really think that the UK population are that stupid to believe this?

Adam Westbrook, a local media journalism commentator and reporter summed it up very well on his recent post here:

The Promise: 2Mbps broadband for everyone (and “action separately to address the issue of next generation broadband”)

Result?: epic fail. While broadband for everyone is great, 2Mbps [...buffering...] broadband is inadequate for [...buffering...] the growing needs of digital journalism including [...buffering...] the huge demand for [...buffering...] video on demand. Separate action to [...buffering...] investigate faster broadband looks like [...buffering...] the buck being well and truly passed.

With the icing on the cake being that we, the public are being asked to fund this next generation broadband with a £6 per year tax levy. The £6 amount is neither here or there, but it is the fundamental principle that WE are being asked to pay for something that Governments should have done 10 years ago.

Finances, the jaw dropping truth

It has been estimated that it would cost around £27bn to install fibre country-wide. That you might say is a whole lot of cash.

But, to put this in perspective, we spend around £1bn per year just in Iraq.

Yes, £27bn is a big figure, but surely, a necessary one? Just think of the business benefits that it would bring? Anyway, as mentioned before,  4 words come to mind. Too little, too late.

So what do the Digital Britain measures include?

• A three-year National Plan to improve Digital Participation
• Universal Access to today’s broadband services by 2012
• Next Generation fund for investment in tomorrow’s broadband services
• Digital radio upgrade by the end of 2015
• mobile spectrum liberalisation, enhancing 3G coverage and accelerating Next Generation mobile services
• robust legal and regulatory framework to combat Digital Piracy
• support for public service content partnerships
• a revised digital remit for Channel 4
• consultation on funding options for national, regional and local news

There are lots of worthwhile areas of focus here, but it still comes back to what the vast majority of people relate to, and that is broadband speed.

How does this effect us here in Hull?

The simple answer is that we just don’t know yet. There are many questions to be asked, one being do we need to pay the £6 tax / levy for NGN (next generation network) investment? Being in a unique, and frankly, very unpopular positon here in Hull, with our local ISP / teleco, Kingston Communications / Karoo there would need to be written and concrete assurance that something was also being done here to catapult us onto NGNs.

What is certain that with Digital Region and NYnet, there is an understanding that something MUST change and soon.

It is also hugely encouraging that there seems to be a real groundswell in feeling, people-power, and concern in the area, with Hull Digital and Humber Mud starting to become noticed, and actively participating with the Council and Hull Forward to ensure that we are not left behind.

Your say

The Digital Britain report is a cornerstone in our future, not only personally but also for business.

We want to hear your views, not only about our region and how the report effects us, but what you think about the country, and is it enough?

What is certain, it remains very controversial, and it is clear that Gordon Brown is still using a 56K modem.

Click here and the relevant section is about half way down the page.

On Thursday afternoon, we headed over to the Yorkshire Forward Digital Britain Launch event, held at The Met Hotel in Leeds. There was an excellent turn out, with people from all manner of creative and digital industries, including a number of Hull Digital members.

After an introduction from Stuart MacFarlane, Sector Manager, Digital and New Media, Yorkshire Forward, he introduced Samuel Sharp, the Director of the Digital Britain report who has worked alongside Lord Carter. He provided an overview of what has been done, the main areas of focus, and the report findings and thoughts so far. He did seem to gloss over the much-maligned 2mb broadband target, although made it very clear that this was more of a “floor” and not a ceiling. This is far from clear in the report, and he did mention the initiatives on the US, Australia and Korea, but not giving them more than a passing few words. This is worrying, as if they can do it, so should we.

Robert Ling, the Business Improvement Manager from YF then gave an excellent presentation about what was happening in the local region, and this actually proved more interesting to us than the UK-wide actual report. It was a real eye opener to see that there was plenty happening in the Yorkshire region, and all of it, very, very promising.

Big News for South Yorkshire:

SOUTH YORKSHIRE PIONEERS ‘SUPER-FAST
BROADBAND’ WITH MULTIMILLION POUND PROJECT

Following the Government’s 2009 budget statement to confirm approval for Digital
Region, Digital Region Ltd today announces the roll-out of ‘Super-fast Broadband’
across South Yorkshire, putting the South Yorkshire region at the forefront of the digital
communications agenda and marking a significant change in communications
technology for Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.

This is stunning news for South Yorkshire, and the actual press release is available here > click.

‘Super-fast Broadband’ will provide a high-speed, open-access infrastructure, offering
25mb or above of guaranteed bandwidth and quality of service to the majority of homes
and businesses in South Yorkshire, reaching 1.2 million people. The provision of this
level of broadband service will transform the region, creating inward economic and social
investment to bridge the growing digital divide.

The approval of the Digital Region has been critical to this success, and Robert alluded to the 4 years of work which have enabled them to get this success. What is the “Digital Region though”?

The project has the potential to become the largest open-access broadband infrastructure platform in the world and will enable a multitude of advanced applications at home, in business and across the public sector, transforming communications, entertainment and business activities across the region.

DRL is wholly owned by Yorkshire Forward and the four local authorities of South Yorkshire. Following a full European Union procurement exercise, Thales Transport and Security Limited (Thales) has been appointed to deliver and manage the fibre-optic cable infrastructure on behalf of DRL. Thales leads a consortium that includes Alcatel-Lucent and KCOM.

The DRL Network is offering 25mb+ of bandwidth which is both guaranteed and can be delivered with a range definable Quality of Service attributes. In simple terms, this means the end user gets ‘what they pay for’; if the end user requires 10mb they receive a guaranteed 10mb; if they want 5mb or 25mb this is guaranteed. Some services require more than just high-speed connections: this is true of live entertainment such as sports, and critical services such as aspects of tele-medicine. The DRL Network can configure specific connections with Quality of Service attributes that allow these services to be delivered in a seamless way to the end consumer – so no stop-starting or picture-jitter for example when watching a live football match.

As well as this news, Robert also covered NYnet, a “Broadband Transformation for North Yorkshire”.

What is NYnet?

NYnet is a public and private sector commercial venture created in order to provide a communications network that is capable of delivering multiple high quality services to citizens, business and public sector bodies. The lead role is taken by North Yorkshire County Council with support from Yorkshire Forward and Government Office Yorkshire and Humber. Our private sector technology partner is BT who will work with NYnet to deliver, monitor and maintain the network to the highest standards.

So, from a UK perspective, the Digital Britain report is on track, after the release of the Interim report, and they are receiving feedback. Having spoken to a number of people, it seems like the Yorkshire region has been the only region to hold an event to collate feedback, which is good for us, but poor overall.

What really stood out was the South Yorkshire success and Nynet. Leaving Hull, well and truly left in the middle of two areas who are accelerating away in terms of development and future vision. This was immediately clear to us, and has left many questions for the future. We cannot afford to be left behind and we must not be left behind.

Finally, here are two clips from the London Digital Britain Meeting:

On a lighter note, and not lost in it’s irony, was the Wireless charges from the Met Hotel – good grief, they should be paying the digital infrastructure of the region!

Unfortunately, it is not looking very healthy at the moment, and Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Report, whilst large and wide ranging, has left many people hugely dissapointed with certain parts of it, more of which we will look at shortly.

So what are the main objectives of the report?

Digital Britain: Five objectives
●     Upgrading and modernising our digital networks – wired, wireless and broadcast – so that Britain has an infrastructure that enables it to remain globally competitive in the digital world;
●     A dynamic investment climate for UK digital content, applications and services, that makes the UK an attractive place for both domestic and inward
investment in our digital economy;
●     UK content for UK users: content of quality and scale that serves the interests, experiences and needs of all UK citizens; in particular impartial news, comment and analysis;
●     Fairness and access for all: universal availability coupled with the skills and digital literacy to enable near-universal participation in the digital economy and digital society; and
●     Developing the infrastructure, skills and take-up to enable the widespread online delivery of public services and business interface with Government.

There are a large number of PDFs available here for you to look at in more detail. From a personal point of view, what concerns us the most, and almost underpins all future online plans and ideas is this:

ACTION 17
We will develop plans for a digital Universal Service Commitment to be effective by
2012, delivered by a mixture of fixed and mobile, wired and wireless means. Subject
to further study of the costs and benefits, we will set out our plans for the level of
service which we believe should be universal. We anticipate this consideration will
include options up to 2Mb/s.

Yes, you read that right. 2mb/s. We get that on 3G dongles right now.

The Government Hosted Digital Britain report meeting happened a few days ago in London (report here:

More than £1 billion of taxpayers’ money could be deployed to help to connect 12.5 million small town and rural homes to superfast, 50 megabit broadband next decade, amid fears that Britain’s phone companies are unable to afford to do so.

Surely investment like this is needed to try, and we mean, TRY to catch up with the likes of Korea, who are aiming for a very impressive 1Gbps broadband network. That is 500 times what we in the UK are aspiring to. Pretty depressing reading is it not?

So, getting onto the crux of this post, there are a number of people planning to be at the Leeds Digital Britain Launch Event on Thursday 23rd at The Met Hotel this coming week. The agenda looks like this:

It would be very useful to get YOUR feedback here so we can get some collective thoughts about the report which we can try and get across at the meeting.

Please do add your comments below – it is vital that this report gets the feedback it deserves – it is, after all, our digital future, and we certainly don’t want to lumbered with aspirations of 2Mb broadband for the foreseeable future!

On Monday, having twittered that we were going to be meeting Steve Jagger from Quickline Communications to test a Wimax signal, we were surprised and pleased to get a tweet from @mrwilliam, the BBC Radio Lincolnshire’s drive time host! You can see the tweeting that went on in the picture above…. It ended up with a short interview conducted from the garden! We’ve put it together into a short first podcast – many more to come!

William was good enough to get in touch the next day to say thanks, and he very kindly gave Radio Humberside our details too, so this led to a call from Tim Johns, the breakfast show producer, and ended up with an early morning trip to the BBC studios in central Hull.

We were made very welcome, and at around 7.50am, we were ushered into the studio and met Phil White the host, and here is the interview!

A big thanks for the opportunity to talk about Hull Digital and broadband in the area. For those of you who may be interested, we are on Radio Lincolnshire again on Monday 2nd March at around 6.30pm talking about email, how to make sure it doesn’t take over your life, and how to use it effectively for marketing. Tune on in!

Jon has some frustration (source: Twitter)

…I’m guessing that this is a common scenario for many people? The fact is that it doesn’t really matter how much bandwidth is available between your home network and the Internet when somebody on the network is dominating the bandwidth. If somebody on your network is downloading a file or watching a streaming video then, as long as the bandwidth between the machine that is serving content to the Internet exceeds the speed of your Internet connection for receiving it, all other users on the network will have rather unsatisfying performance as their download or video will consume all available bandwidth. Bummer!

This is frustrating, and can lead to some interesting “discussions” with the bandwidth hogs that you share a network with. In my house the question “ARE YOU DOWNLOADING???!!!” is painfully howled between rooms and users with alarming frequency… What is needed is prioritisation of traffic on the home network, and between the home network and the Internet.

Businesses have faced this challenge since they first connected their networks to the Internet, and they use different techniques to control user behaviour, including:

1. Blocking bandwidth hungry applications from employee computers
2. Blocking bandwidth hungry applications from the network
3. Prioritising traffic by application on the network

Businesses often pay a small fortune for this kind of management of their systems, employing specialists to define their user policies and enforce these on the network, often using expensive equipment and software. For a home user it’s probably not going to be cost efficient to make this kind of provision… or is it?

If you’re a typical 2009 person with DSL based broadband and a home network then your home network probably consists of a few basic elements:

1. A broadband Internet access connection from an ISP (Internet Service Provider)
2. A device that negotiates a broadband connection between your home and the Internet, via your ISP
3. A device that creates and manages the LAN (Local Area Network) or WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) in your home, typically using Ethernet, WiFi or homeplug.

A means to connect each device (could be a laptop or desktop computer, a printer or a games console… these are generically referred to as “hosts” in networking terms) to the LAN or WLAN

Within this kit of parts let’s focus on number 2, the device that negotiates the broadband connection. This is a DSL modem or router, or a combination modem and router in one. If you live in an area where you can get cable service from a provider such as Virgin Media then you may alternatively have a set top box, also called a cable modem, supplied by the cable operator. It’s quite common now for one box to take care of both your connection to the Internet and your network, and the majority of home broadband customers will typically this kind of device. It is also this device, or a replacement for this device that can unlock the bandwidth management woes.

The basic device that your ISP shipped to you, or the device that you picked up yourself takes care of a couple of important jobs:

1. Negotiating the connection with the ISP (the modem part)
2. Negotiating and managing connections with hosts that want to connect to the home network to either access each other or the Internet (the router part)

To connect your home to the Internet through an ISP you need to ensure that you have a device capable of negotiating with the ISP in the correct way. If you’re a Karoo customer then you need to be especially vigilant when choosing a DSL modem router as Karoo makes its connections using a technology called PPoA, rather than the more common PPoE, and not all of the routers available on the market in the UK support this. Everything that we discuss in the next section needs to work slightly differently if you’re a Karoo customer (surprise!), but it’s not an insurmountable amount of hassle.

So, the device, this modem-y router-y thing… this can be configured allow you to take full control of your network traffic. A working group has taken specific DSL routers and re-engineered the firmware of the routers, replacing the standard stuff with open source firmware that includes new functionality that the hardware can easily handle but that the manufacturer chose not to include.

There are a few open source firmware / router hardware combinations that can be created, however the most popular router for modification is the Linksys WRT54G series, which is available from both online and offline stores in the UK. The open source firmware itself is available from a variety of developers, and one of the easiest to work with is Tomato.

Tomato is a good example as not only is it relatively easy to understand but it also supports a traffic management technique called QoS (Quality of Service) that allows network traffic to manage the allocation of bandwidth among users and their applications:

Tomato QoS interface (source: Wikipedia)

QoS allows the flexibility to make policy decisions to put your traffic into “classes of service“. These determine the relative priority of traffic on the network, and control the maximum percentage of the total available bandwidth that can be made available to that “class” of traffic, during times when demand for bandwidth from users on the network exceeds Internet bandwidth available from the broadband connection.

Tomato can be made to work on a number of different routers, but the Linksys WRT54G is probably the most popular of these and is available in the UK for many DSL and cable modem connections. Coming back to that Karoo issue though, Karoo users need to use PPoA for their connections, which the WRT54G does not support. The most simple way to take advantage of the open source firmware is going to be to continue to use a Karoo compatible DSL modem, such as the Netgear DG834G for establishing the connection to the Internet but to then hardwire a router such as the Linksys WRT54G into one of the Ethernet ports of the Netgear and use the Linksys to create and manage the local network in the home.

This article is not intended to provide a walkthrough or a comprehensive reference guide, just to illustrate that there are solutions out there for the things that frustrate us, if we’re willing to think outside of the user manual. QoS is considered quite an advanced traffic management technique and you’d need to spend quite a lot of money to buy a router that has it listed as a feature by the manufacturer. Thanks to the ingenuity of hackers and the open source community we can now invest a very small amount of money in hardware, and a little effort and time overwriting and configuring firmware to bring this feature to our home networks.

Could the writing be on the wall for spousal bandwidth wars?

It’s nice therefore to be able to report that we’re seeing what could be some very positive developments coming from the company, but I’m not sure that these are being widely communicated, (in particular to those customers that live outside of the city centre and are most likely to be some considerable distance from a KC exchange, experiencing the slowest and least reliable broadband connections).

So what’s happening, and what does it all mean?

ADSL2+: Karoo have finally started to offer customers the chance to move from standard ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) broadband to the faster and further reaching ADSL2+ specification. This improves the theoretical maximum speed for many customers from 8Mbps download up to a theoretical maximum speed of 24Mbps download, Karoo are claiming a maximum of 18Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds will be available and are highlighting possible restrictions on P2P (Peer to Peer services such as Bit Torrent) and Usenet (Internet newsgroups using NNTP – Network News Transport Protocol) traffic. Now, we talk about theoretical speeds here because to get this kind of performance you need to be pretty close to the local exchange and Karoo needs to manage to have very low contention on their service (contention is essentially the assumption that not everyone uses their broadband connection all of the time and the ISP applies a formula – an Erlang formula – to calculate an acceptable level of over-subscription to their service, ensuring that they spend less on connections out beyond their network, users will still get something approximating a reasonable service and the ISP can remain profitable and in business).

As with all things in life, this upgrade comes at a price. You will need to move your account onto the new Karoo ADSL2+ tariff and this will likely mean that you pay a different price going forward. For light and medium users this is undoubtably quite interesting as you’ll get nice performance when you need it, and the possibility of a reduction in your monthly broadband costs. If you’re more of a heavy user then you’ll need to study the terms and conditions quite closely as there are guidelines about maximum data transfer per month that could actually reduce the usefulness of the service. This is definitely an upgrade where your mileage may vary. Caveat Emptor!

The new Karoo prices

WiFi in Hull city centre: This is something that Jon and I have griped about since we first met, the lack of decent available WiFi in Hull. It’s great in many major cities (and not so major towns and cities) to be able to grab a coffee at a Starbucks or an airport and get online. Great for business, great for grabbing an audiobook on a journey, great for “WTF” moments when you’re lost and in need of information. Hull has remained a wasteland in this respect and I am delighted to see that Karoo are at long last doing something about it.

Now this is a baby-step, and I’m not quite sure what exactly their trial is designed to demonstrate, but Karoo have made public WiFi service available around the Queens Gardens area of the city centre.

I think that this is strange as hotspots are neither new technology or a new ISP business model. BT have done this for years and other providers like The Cloud and T-Mobile are very well established in many parts of the UK. The choice of location seems weird as well, I would have thought that somewhere with either a higher penetration of cafes and lifestyle-y places or somewhere further into the heart of the student or business communities would have delivered better results. Perhaps the trial is “designed” to show that there’s no demand in Hull and so therefore no need to invest in a citywide WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) infrastructure? I doubt that arguing for a significant East Yorkshire CAPEX budget is something that the incoming CEO is going to look kindly upon or get enthusiastic about.

It’s very easy to get registered on the trial, visit your Karoo account homepage and enable the WiFi service through your browser, it doesn’t cost anything so let’s give it a go.

Easy to add Karoo WiFi hotspot capability at your Karoo account page

Don’t abuse the service but show that there’s healthy demand for WiFi service in the city. I cannot imagine that the lack of a public WLAN service is doing anything other than holding back Hull. We can’t be ambivalent about this, take the kids to feed the ducks, get your WiFi enabled device connected and prove we want it!

Conclusions and wrap: It seems like Karoo is doing something, I’m just not quite sure what that something is. It’s satisfying though to see some new products and services being announced, launched and experimented with. The ADSL2+ and the WiFi trial are both potentially services that are great for Karoo and great for us as customers, but something is fishy about that trial… I’m watching closely to see what the follow-through is from Karoo.

Hull is geographically a fabulous place, a gateway to the UK and positioned at the edge of some lovely surrounding areas (come on, work with me… I’m keeping it “glass half full” here ). The city is within easy reach of historic locations such as Beverley and York that draw tourism, and boasts quite good air and sea routes to mainland Europe for passengers and freight, (good rail and road infrastructure is not quite there to reach other UK locations, we can’t blame that on Karoo though).

Regenerating Hull requires a forward-looking communications company to take up the challenge of developing the network to be the best in the UK, making Hull the most attractive destination for businesses and consumers that want to live and work in a city that can support their aspirations. With such a small catchment area KC could be so so good at this, they very much need a strong and visionary leader to convince the shareholders that a long term plan is the way forward, and if Hull thrives then so will their investment. If KC would really go for it then the people of the city will get behind the company and we’ll see a strong foundation built for a service-driven economy in East Yorkshire.

It’s hard to believe but there is a lot of latent pride in KC, and the company was quite an engineering pioneer for most of it’s history. Hull had the first all-digital telecom network in 1989 and the first video on demand service in 1999… way ahead of BT. We’d love to see KC once more at the cutting edge of communications technology. Every street corner should have a historic white phone-box with a brand-new 802.11n wireless access point at its heart!

Of particular note in the comments on the article is this one post by Hull Gold which seems to perfectly sum up the situation:

This was because like all proper cities Manchester has a vibrant, competitive market economy,.Unlike the outmoded, antiquated…& lets not forget… notorious, monopoly capitalist system of telephone & IT services which exists in Hull with KC.

This would simply NOT be tolerated anywhere else…and indeed it isn’t.

Hull will NEVER achieve top ten status as a city because aspiring new IT companies look at the system KC provides in Hull, have a good laugh ,and set up in another town or city that has moved forward into the 21st century.

Likewise, despite having a city of over 200,000 ,only a few thousand customers even bothered to sign the recent Downing Street on-line petition concerning KC monopoly’s.

The bold is our emphasis, as it rings very , very true – Hull is sadly lacking any really big corporate companies, bar Smith & Nephew and Reckitts and the city is in desperate need for them. With new business comes new people, with jobs who will drive the economy and local business. Without this, the city continues to struggle.

We are very keen to start making a lot more noise about this in 2009, and so do come along to the monthly MeetUp >> sign up now!