Piers Daniell

BT announced with great fanfare the launch of Annex-M services on their ADSL2+ (21CN) platform allowing up to 2.5 Mb/s upstream (from standard 1.3 Mb/s). Whooohooo. Excuse me if you detect a tiny bit of sarcasm but really how can BT talk about this being new technology when we have been offering it for over four years? We interconnect directly into the BE network (wholly owned by Telefonica O2 group) and have been delivering up to 2.5 Mb/s upstream to customers for all of this time, even using Cisco hardware.

I mention Cisco hardware because most businesses like to buy it. There is an old saying in the industry that goes ‘you don’t get fired for buying Cisco’. Granted it is pretty expensive but in all the years of doing it I can count the failures customer have had on one hand rather than the calculator I would need to tot up other ‘cheaper’ manufacturer’s hardware.

So you would think that if you were building a national network and launched a new variant (ie Annex-M) you would want your technology to work with Cisco hardware so you could conquer the business market? Well believe it or not, BT have followed the route of Tiscali and ended up with a network that we can’t make work with Cisco hardware! We are struggling to make it work at all to be honest, and that is with a not insubstantial client base already using Annex-M on the BE network which we have been supporting for years.

If this is the best they can do, I assume we are going to have to wait for the fibre to the cabinet services before we start seeing anything near impressive. Or, most likely, someone else will come and do that first so BT once again follow rather than lead.

As 2010 rolls in, I am reminded that a decade is a significant period of time and a good one to reflect on, especially in the world of IT and Telecoms. What have we achieved in the past ten years, and what, if any, predictions can be made about the next ten years? Well, for one, Fluidata couldn’t exist until 2004 on the back of ADSL technology, to launch as its own business until early 2006. Which means that the last decade has seen great advances in internet connectivity speeds and brought the word ‘broadband’ into common parlance.

We might be far behind many other countries in this race, but don’t forget in 2000 dialup was the norm and businesses like Freeserve dominated internet access with products offering up to 56 Kb/s. Now people have the choice of ADSL2+ offering up to 24 Mb/s (24,000 Kb/s in old money) or even 50 Mb/s with certain cable broadband offerings. Fluidata, for one, became a leader in bonding technology providing services over multiple carrier networks at speeds up to 60 Mb/s down and 8 Mb/s up with PureFluid. Even gigabit (1,000,000 Kb/s) speed is achievable with the use of fibre, as well as more affordable especially in urban areas.

Networks not only got faster, but also more intelligent, with quality of service, large wide area private networks and MPLS protocols. Businesses put voice over the internet and now video is seeing a resurgence with advances in HD video conferencing. Which begs the question - what will happen in the next ten years?

With the industry talking about FTTH (Fibre to the Home) and FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) more people will be able to experience the high speeds that fibre can deliver. But remember this isn’t like the previous decade when the main infrastructure (the cables) remained the same. This technology requires something new which not only will absorb huge amounts of money, but also time and resource. The cynic in me would say BT’s 21CN (to provide ADSL2+ and more IP services) offering is aimed purely at the LLU carriers such as Tiscali, Carphone Warehouse, Cable & Wireless and O2. I am sure its reach won’t extend over 2,000 exchanges by the end of the next decade. So FTTH or FTTC products are purely to take the fight to the cable operators such as Virgin. And what will quench our thirst for data? I believe there will still be some advances in DSL with products such as VDSL, but also other completely different technologies which will see in excess of 100 Mb/s over copper. Bonding will become more prevalent and give rise to a larger number of niche ISPs able to aggregate multiple networks together, not only to improve performance, but also reliability. Fibre will of course continue to grow in popularity and while still not being within easy reach of home users, will hit more of the SME market as costs reduce.

Other technologies such as WiMAX will become more widespread as companies such as Intel start to bundle the protocols into their mobile chipsets. I know of one company soon to come to market with a 3 GHz service which, if widely adopted, could bridge the gap between broadband and 3G mobile networks. Another product I am looking forward to seeing more of is BPL (Broadband Power Line), which has the potential to deliver many hundreds of Mb/s anywhere in the country over a normal power line. It has been a long time in the making, but I believe this decade will see its widespread adoption.

Mobile broadband still has a long way to go so that future services, such as cloud computing, can be widely used. And what else is in store? Well to be honest, it can be anybody’s guess. The great thing about this industry is the fact it continues to innovate and change - I’m, for one, looking forward to the next decade.

Interesting development over the past few weeks has been BT Openreach actively telling

end users about BT’s new (or old depending on how long you have been waiting for it) 21^st Century Network (21CN). This from your perspective may be perfectly normal, however when you understand that Openreach should remain independent it shows flaws in Ofcom’s control over the carrier.

Openreach was formed to serve all ISPs independently, especially those with their own technology in the local phone exchange. Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) has become widespread over the past few years, mainly due to the demands for new technology which BT has been unable to provide. O2 and BE for example have been delivering ADSL2+ for many years prior to the launch of BT’s 21CN offering. Even now the BT product is second-rate (no Annex-M support). Therefore if they, or any other LLU carrier, need Openreach to visit their client’s site to fix a fault they should receive just that.

While I enjoy talking to my mother, I think this week I have spoken to her more than when we lived together for 18 years. It all started when her home broadband decided to fall over on Tuesday afternoon and hasn’t come back to life since. From her perspective a son who lives, breathes, and talks nothing but internet should be capable of ending her suffering and restore the internet – but to be honest I have really struggled.

For the technical among you the router has sync with the exchange and many hours left between turning it off and on again (should clear stale sessions) but still no life. Talking your mother through the process of testing the line or logging into the router is no mean feat (“don’t you think ping is a silly word darling?”), especially when you are used to talking to technical people all day. But it did remind me what it is like to be a consumer and how helpless you feel at the other end of the phone trying to get help. When she did finally speak to her ISP, after holding for an hour, they were no help. Suffice to say it is a call centre on another continent refused to escalate the matter as she has not tried a different router, removed the face plate, changed the cables or the microfilter. I mean this is my mother they are talking to, not some techie glued to his computer all day.

From what I can make out it looks like the line has been transferred in the background from IPStream over to IPStream Connect, which is part of BT’s new 21CN platform. A number of other lines in the area, with the same carrier suffered the same fate but most have made it back online now. When I called them and threw around complicated words like DSLAM, LNS and DNS nothing progressed – it still hasn’t been logged with an engineer to investigate.

It looks like if I head up there on the weekend and can’t get it working I’ll have to organise for a migration code and port the line over to our network as I know the guys here will be able to make it work. I just don’t know how the general public copes but I assume that is why niche ISPs continue to do good business by offering a superior customer service to help their clients when it goes wrong.

News from Thinkbroadband on Andrews & Arnold’s (AAISP) recent success installing FTTC into one of their client’s premises. Just goes to show BT are going to really shift their focus over the coming year towards fibre and away from their failing 21CN project. From AA’s recent issues with BT in providing their clients with a reliable 21CN they are obviously keen to find an alternative technology.

Essentially the FTTC is putting VDSL equipment into the local cabinet (instead of the exchange) dramatically lowering the distance from the DSLAM to the clients office. This ensures the speeds are better but also means that BT doesn’t have to go through the costly exercise of getting fibre into every building. This way as BT upgrade their existing 80,000 or so cabinets they can look to run fibre to them and hence offer VDSL services. I believe this is their preferred route to market as it would jump all the existing LLU carriers who have been deploying ADSL2+ for quite a while now.

However on first inspection it seems like a lot of work for not much gain. In this example the customer reportedly received 40 Mb/s down but was impressed by the upload of 1.7 Mb/s. Agreed that this is a big increase on what BT can currently deliver using their small ADSL2+ footprint but nothing compared to the 2.6 or even 2.7 Mb/s we have achieved with some of our clients using ADSL2+ Annex-M. Admittedly this is using the Telefonica O2 network, who we have an interconnect with, but still not the giant leap BT were hoping for. Also by installing two lines customers can receive over 40 Mb/s down with over 5 Mb/s upload as one service taking away the current gains of FTTC.

Obviously over time the footprint and technology will grow in very much the same way ADSL did when it first arrived in the UK. However I think we are looking at 18-months or so before you see any wide adoption of this promising technology.

The playroom in the office is finally up and running. Bit difficult to make it out from the photo but sits alongside the video presence suite and gives visitors a chance to view all of Fluidata’s connectivity products in action. I think it must be a first for an ISP to showcase all their products but I think it is important in helping customers decide which service is best for them.

It is all well and good saying to a potential customer on the phone that the solution being proposed will do what they require but it is a different matter all together to demonstrate it. Too many in the telecoms industry hide behind contracts and long lead times, so to cut all the red tape and just show the product will give us a distinct advantage. Visitors can either see the products being demonstrated or can bring in their own equipment to test with. The room has a couple of screens and a generous number of power and connectivity ports alongside the mandatory Wii and kick back area.

One of the biggest aims of the playroom is to effectively demonstrate the range of failover and aggregation products which customers are skeptical about prior to purchasing. With Fluidata being the only carrier in the UK to successfully bond multiple technologies and carriers it is important for prospective clients to see it cope with VoIP, Video and Data. Also with the range of different ADSL2+ technologies available across the country it is useful to test the Telefonica O2 product next to the Cable & Wireless and BT 21CN products. Next to all the copper there is even a fibre line so pretty much any topology can be copied and tested.

If you are interested in seeing this room in action, then give the sales team a call and arrange an appointment. In the meantime I’ll keep you up to speed on any further developments.

Interesting article in this week’s Sunday Times detailing a high number of compromised computers ostensibly controlled and monitored by the Chinese Government. What is fascinating from my perspective is the fact that BT have opened their network up to potential disruption by utilising Huawei hardware in the rollout of their £10 bn 21st Century Network. Huawei are a classic Chinese clone producing very similar hardware with almost identical software (IOS) to that of American brand, Cisco. And this is the partner BT chose to supply key networking hardware for their biggest infrastructure project.

It raises interesting questions in terms of our national security let alone being able to support and maintain our national network in time of crisis. The global market may provide better value for money, but if history has taught us anything, is that today’s friend could be tomorrow’s enemy.

Not that our network even compares to the likes of BT’s in terms of scale, you will be pleased to know that we have stuck solely with expensive named brands in our topology!

At a recent partner meeting with Cable & Wireless conversation turned to BT’s ongoing 21CN rollout. This multibillion pound investment by BT seems to be floundering especially when it comes to converting the legacy phone system onto it. Currently BT have unbundled some 3,000 lines so with a further 29 million to go we can be confident that the expected completion will be way into 2014, a few years behind schedule.

What was interesting was the near unanimous acceptance that BT 21CN will not reach all the exchanges and that realistically they will stop rollout at around 1,100 exchanges. This observation confirms other rumours I have heard within the industry and makes a lot of sense. When you are multinational business with a project requiring such massive investment why take it to areas that will not provide the necessary return. With BT suffering from a dramatic drop in share value, parts of the group loosing vast sums of money and a pension deficit I can not see there being the resources, let alone the desire, to roll out new services to exchanges that do not have the demand.

I suspect any announcement on such a plan will be a long time coming from BT as they will have to withstand pressure from Government on the ‘Digital Divide’ and the partners who have invested heavily in equipment to talk to BT’s new network. Currently only BT Retail and Enta have made the necessary investment into WBC and I am sure will be very upset if BT only provided the same footprint as to most LLU carriers.

Fluidata has always invested in LLU relationships just because the technology is years ahead of BT. We have been selling ADSL2+ with Annex M technology from Telefonica O2 at over 1,200 exchanges for over 18-months now and by the time BT gets to the party it will be time to go home. Maybe this is what BT are slowly waking up to.