Piers Daniell

With the Olympics just around the corner network providers have been worried about the potential increase in traffic as more of the games will be consumed over IP than ever before. As an example just the tennis match with Djokovic and Murray today saw traffic on the Fluidata network (business centric) grow by 25% as people logged onto iPlayer to watch. As a large proportion of the UK will be in the office while the Olympics are on this kind of increase in traffic will be excessive as people will not only follow the games from their desktop, but also watch a wide range of different games at the same time.

Estimates currently put traffic levels at a sustained average of 20 – 30% above normal during the games, but as today shows I think the average will be a lot higher. It also shows that it won’t just be the consumer networks suffering but also business providers who are going to have to work hard to ensure customers receive enough bandwidth for ‘business as usual’ activities as well as employees wanting to keep informed. One thing is for certain is that if the networks cope, nobody will mention it, but if they fail it will make headline news.

While it has been sometime since we have seen a big leap in technology, such as the development of the personal computer, mobile phone or even mode of transport, I am amazed at how quickly technology continues to develop. While it still might not be big reinventions but instead developments, it is quite incredible how much more accessible advanced technology is and how it has more impact on our daily lives.

Televisions for example have had something of a renaissance in the past few years with the launch of LCD and LED technology. And while the margins enjoyed are slim, due to over competition, they do provide a new medium on which to create new revenue channels (such as apps for network ready TVs). They also make 3D technology affordable, and while it may not have had the impact the manufacturers and I am sure Hollywood were expecting, it is quite literally brining a new dimension to entertainment.

Last year I was at a Virgin Media event where there were a number of stands. One of them consisted of the funny chair you can see in the photo, a plastic steering wheel, peddles and three computer monitors in a line. They were demonstrating some new driving game but the real exciting part was one I could drive my Audi and two it was in 3D. So while it wasn’t the most elegant solution, I did have a vibrating seat with sound in it, field of vision view and 3D creating a realistic, and importantly, engaging driving simulator.

Not long ago this kind of technology not only didn’t exist but when it did it was ferociously expensive being employed by the likes of the MoD for training simulators. I was at dinner recently with a British Airways pilot who said there was a real movement in people learning how to fly and actually simulating long distance flights from the comfort of their living room. He believed the market has only just really started and we are about to see a real boom as the technology develops. Maybe in a few years there will be virtual holidays…

Over the Christmas break I decided that it was time to chop in the Audi and get a bit more of a practical car. Having spent most of the week driving around the countryside in the Peugeot 107 my father rented for the week (smallest car in the world but seemed to fit all of us), I thought it was ridiculous that I couldn’t get my father and brother into my car if we wanted to go anywhere, so decided now was the time for a change. But what car should I choose?

Being a bit of a petrol head I wanted something fun, could seat four and get me back and forth from my home to London on a regular basis with a little style. While I am a big fan of makes as wide reaching as Volvo I thought I didn’t want anything that was too conservative or gave the impression I was heading into middle life just yet. But I still needed something that could tow the Atom and fit a mountain bike into it so quite a difficult choice to be made.

I did give Audi a brief consideration but considering the issues with my TT in terms of service I thought I would give it a miss and instead test drive Top Gear’s car of the year the Range Rover Evoque. Apparently it was a car designed to steal customers from the TT and move them into larger 4x4s. Well to cut the story short, it did the trick, and a deposit has been placed for the five door petrol model which apparently should arrive around April time. My father thinks I am quite mad for not choosing the diesel, but as I said to him it needs to be fun and the petrol is more so than the oil burner.

Interestingly enough my first experience of Land Rover wasn’t a positive one, with the dealer in Stratford upon Avon doing a good job to put me off. Late to the appointment, a short test drive and no follow up to discuss specification, I wasn’t even offered a drink – I thought it was just Audi to expect this from! So instead I drove a little further afield and visited Droitwich, which has recently been taken over by the Listers group and got the kind of service I was expecting. Giving me the keys for a good few hours did the trick and now I am patiently counting down the days to delivery. It also gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to think I am now going to have two british cars (ok one partly Indian) which actually makes the perfect garage for less than the cost of one Audi R8. The perfect compromise?

I had some fun with my new AR Drone yesterday by recording a quick tour of the Fluidata office. As you can see it is a little bit tricky but I managed to get around without crashing into much!

Christmas is always a time for New Year resolutions and this year is no different. This time however there has been a bit more organisation with thirteen of us in the office agreeing to a gruelling fitness regime. It all starts in January with the culmination in May being the toughest twelve mile assault course, designed by British Special Forces, Tough Mudder!

To get us in the spirit we have named our team Bandwidth Bandits and will be raising money for Help the Heroes who are associated with the event. If you get five minutes check out the Tough Mudder website, our challenges include monkey bars over a lake (with some of the bars greased), pipes going underwater, 12 foot high walls, walls of fire and even running through live electrical cables each with 10,000 volts pulsating through them!

We are all a little bit daunted by the prospect, but waiting until after Christmas before hitting the gym and getting ready, for what will be, a serious challenge.

The other week I was invited along to another one of Daylesford’s excellent cookery courses held at their headquarters in Kingham, Gloucestershire. This time it wasn’t so much about cooking and rather about learning the art of butchery.

Now while being a meat eater I do think quite a bit about animal cruelty and was a bit concerned it might be all a bit much, but in the end I thoroughly enjoyed the day. If anything I left with a greater respect for the animals we eat on a regular basis and also all the hard work good butchers actually have to do. Did you know for example that there are nearly 140 different cuts possible from a lamb?

Obviously Daylesford have animal welfare and quality at the highest standards, and while it is very expensive to buy their meat, spending time on this course more than explains actually how much work and investment goes into each animal. You get the point actually where you would prefer to eat a little less meat day to day and save up to eat this quality when you do. So you can guess who got the order for the Christmas Turkey and leg of ham…

If you have ever read any of my older posts you will know that I am the proud owner of an Audi and have many times sung it’s praises. When you own a car as well sorted, you understand how the rest of the car industry struggles to keep up with German engineering. However that bullet proof build was put to the test over the past few weeks with an engine fault.

Not the sort of engine fault that was easy to diagnose, or even recognise as a fault in the first place. It happened at certain speeds when driving between 40 and 70 Mph (obviously just 70 in case PC plod is reading!) under normal acceleration and it was like the engine was coughing or missing a beat. Imagine accelerating over ice and the traction control kicking in for a second or so. Anyway my first thought was it must be some dirty fuel, odd as a premium Shell card holder who only fills up with V-Power, so I put a few more tanks through it but the problem remained.

So I booked it in for someone more experienced to fix it. Actually I tried to put this off as long as possible, because while I like the car, I detest the stuck up dealerships. My call to Docklands Audi produced the standard response; ‘we are full until the 8^th December’ response to which I said I think I had an engine fault so the lady politely suggested I didn’t drive it until it had been seen. Great – just do without a car for three weeks. So instead I booked it into another dealership, Dulwich Audi, they could fit it in by the end of that week.

When I rocked up on the Friday morning there was a guy with a clipboard who directed me where to park and then escorted me through to the service centre. I was then met by the Service Manager who took the keys and introduced me to the technician who was going to be working on my car. She gave me her card with her DDI on it and said the technician would call me later in the day after he had run some diagnostics. So while to most of you that wouldn’t seem that special, compared to the previous experiences I have had I was bowled over – finally service to compliment the car.

In the end it took a bit of time to find the fault, I even emailed over to the technician later a blog where another TT-S owner had the same issue and it had been referred to Germany. My man ended up doing the same after finding no problem with it, even after a 40 mile drive. It turns out to be a problem Audi (and I believe the VW group) are suffering from but with no discernible fix. Apparently the additives in the V-Power fuel can cause a problem with the spark plugs which mean the cylinders don’t fire correctly, causing the apparent loss in power. So it took new spark plugs to fix it and a sample of the fuel being sent off to Audi Germany for testing. Bit of a problem obviously because V-Power is the only real fuel available at the correct RON setting for my performance engine, anyway at least I know what the problem and fix was.

So while I have berated customer care from Audi previously, Dulwich Audi did me proud and restored some faith back in the brand.

I spent an enjoyable morning yesterday at the Next Gen conference held in Bristol. I was actually talking in one of the workshops with regards to our network aggregation platform. This initiative will see the platform connecting into most rural and urban networks to deliver access to multiple ISPs.

What was fascinating about the event was the broad range of companies from independent fibre ISPs, to system integrators and infrastructure builders all excited and ready about the new push into high speed broadband. If anything this goes against the negative press in the last few days from GEO and Cable & Wireless who have this week pulled out of the bids for building the new generation of networks supported by the BDUK funding. It is a shame, and I appreciate their position, but seeing the excitement and new developments being made it shows that this still isn’t a one horse race.

In an industry that is relatively virtual, well from my perspective at least, it was great to see some of the actual equipment being developed and used to build these new fibre networks. This machine was particularly impressive which was able to dig 700 meters of fibre a day by digging a very small trench minimising disruption to road traffic.

So unlike my contemporaries I am actually quite buoyed by the fact that there still seem to be lots of players chasing the BDUK money and will give BT a good run for their money.

Has anyone noticed that some of the global Olympic sponsors are not the type of companies you would associate with a global sporting event? How can for example Coca-Cola or McDonalds, which are associated with fatty fast foods, be headline sponsors to an event that promotes sport and health?

Now you are probably going to say I am rather naive and that this kind of thing has been happening for years in the world of sport. But for something as global as the Olympics I am surprised how much it repulses me. Don’t get me wrong I understand the need for private support, but the likes of Omega, Acer or GE seem to make more sense as you can associate their brand in some way to the event, or the support they may provide. I can’t believe for example that one of the legacies of the London 2012 games will be the largest McDonald’s restaurant in Europe. We have even added Cadbury, and all their chocolaty goodness, to the list of sponsors for the games.

This along with the extortionate ticket prices, with large quantities being reserved for ‘VIPs’, makes these games more about money than any time before. The Olympics bring some fantastic benefits to London and the country as a whole – I hope that these stay at the forefront of the organisers mind in the lead up to next summer rather than one of greed and a lack of integrity.

I have always been a big fan of our national carrier, but after a recent trip to Cyprus to visit some of my family I was pretty disappointed in the level of service delivered. The fact that airmiles paid for the trip reduced my fury somewhat so BA will be let off lightly, but to be honest I am surprised such poor levels of service are still being delivered by the company.

Granted the plane was old, and in desperate need of a refit, I am sure this old 767 will be left until 2012 and hopefully replaced by a shiny new 787. But the real surprise came with the staff, and the chaos that ensued because of the obvious lack of direction. Staff spent their time running up and down the isles looking very busy and achieving very little, one hour wait for drinks and nearly two hours for food is disgraceful and completely avoidable. Especially when they couldn’t be bothered to serve part of the meal or started clearing moments after serving. The whole point of flying BA is because of service (certainly not the latest aircraft!) surely this is what the cabin crew were fighting for when they were striking – their experience and ability? Well either they don’t care much or management have replaced everyone already.

The problem is that this one experience leaves a nasty taste and means I would review my own travel arrangements, or those of my company because of it. It is such a shame that one experience can have such an effect, but it is something that the high street have been battling with for quite a while. I read an article, in BA’s High Life ironically enough, about Pret a Manger and how they have been able to build on their business by delivering a consistently high level of service. I have become one of their most regular customers, since opening a store next to our office, and I must confess it has always been quick and consistent. Not a mean feat when dealing with low paid staff who most, I am sure, count the job as a stop gap.

So BA get your act together, if Pret can do it then so can you.