Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users

[General Maximus]

you might want to take a look at your max number of global connections for your torrents. Less is more so to speak. Although i dont pull my max speed from public trackers like the piratebay, I can always get my max speed from private sites which promote seeding in the way of monitoring share ratios or use a credit based system. I always limit my upload speed to 40k while I am downloading (to achieve my max speed) and then knock it back up afterwards to seed.

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Your business deserved it for being an "IT outfit" that doesn't know even the basics of doing fresh installs. Any "IT outfit" that has to download windows updates more than once is a joke that shouldn't be in business.

Actually, you are the one showing your ignorance.

We asked Microsoft about this, and they explicitly told us that we were not allowed to install customer's PC using slipstreamed CDs. In fact, for non-volume licence installs (i.e. most of them outside of large businesses) we are not even supposed to use CDRs, only original install media.

We had to argue with them for a long time to clarify that customers who don't have a Windows CD (only a restore CD or partition) can have installs/repairs done for them with our CDs. We even had to argue over keeping downloaded copies of service packs or using SP1 (which was the latest back then) integrated CDs for customers who only had original XP discs.

Another company we have dealings with was fined by MS for using slipstreamed CDRs, which they didn't realise was a problem. In fact, we didn't before that happened, which is why we asked MS to clarify.

[/quote]I've done tens of thousands of fresh installs,[/quote]

No you haven't.

261 working days a year. Minimum 20,000 installs over 20 years is over 36 Windows installs per working day. Even if you got started in 1988 I don't believe you have done that many.

because I know how to slipstream patch files into an install CD and know that sitting around waiting for windows update to download patches is not the best use of my time.

So do I. I also know how to set up a caching proxy server and a WSUS server for our SBS customers. I keep copies of 90% of the drivers I need on a file server. We still pull down a lot of data.

Maybe you can get away with it, but we can't. If MS found out we were using slipstreamed CDs for customer repairs, at a minimum they would fine us (the other company paid £16,000) and they may also stop selling us software licenses (we get discounts via the Action Packs etc). If you refuse to pay the fine they sue you for copyright infringement and breaking EULA.

---------- Post added at 19:46 ---------- Previous post was at 19:42 ----------

Originally Posted by Rik

I mean does anyone expect a 50Mb completely unlimited line for £51 or less, come on peeps lets be serious, bandwidth costs a lot more than that

Depends. Our government says broadband is important but doesn't do anything about it, do we get expensive and poor service.

The Japanese government says broadband is important and does something about it. They get 1000/1000 (yes, gigabit) fibre optic broadband with near universal coverage by 2010 for around £23/month.

Actually there was a bit of a stir when one provider (NTT DoCoMo) introduced a 30GB upload cap on it's basic 100/100 service. That's 30GB per day though, and still unlimited downloads.

Even in other European countries you get unlimited fibre or ~50 meg ADSL for around £20-30/month.

Easy to do tens of thousands of Windows Install - using PXE servers, multiple installs can be done at once.

We send out new builds twice a year to 4000 PCs.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by cook1984

Actually, you are the one showing your ignorance.

We asked Microsoft about this, and they explicitly told us that we were not allowed to install customer's PC using slipstreamed CDs. In fact, for non-volume licence installs (i.e. most of them outside of large businesses) we are not even supposed to use CDRs, only original install media.

We had to argue with them for a long time to clarify that customers who don't have a Windows CD (only a restore CD or partition) can have installs/repairs done for them with our CDs. We even had to argue over keeping downloaded copies of service packs or using SP1 (which was the latest back then) integrated CDs for customers who only had original XP discs.

Another company we have dealings with was fined by MS for using slipstreamed CDRs, which they didn't realise was a problem. In fact, we didn't before that happened, which is why we asked MS to clarify.

It's really strange you know, because there's countless knowledgebase articles on how to slipstream updates on the microsoft website. It's amazing how they're encouraging people to break their license agreements. Unless of course, they allow it. Which they do.

Originally Posted by cook1984

No you haven't.

261 working days a year. Minimum 20,000 installs over 20 years is over 36 Windows installs per working day. Even if you got started in 1988 I don't believe you have done that many.

"tens of thousands" = a huge amount, although I really wouldn't be suprised if it was actually over that amount. When I first started working, all those many years ago, it was for a solutions provider and I had the great job of running around to all the nice new pcs, booting them from the network, and doing remote installations. In one weekend at one of the companies clients I must have done a thousand. Those sort of clients combined with several schools we dealt with mean that 36 would have been a pretty slow day. Infact I can't think of many of our clients that would have had that few, we'd have been far too expensive for them. We had 3 seperate teams working on deployments, one doing the network, one moving in the pcs, and then the one I started in doing the software rollouts. When you're doing that day in day out the installations soon mount up.

We never once used windows update though.

We use Shavlik for distributing Windows Updates (including the latest Security patch) - works for us.

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by TheDon

It's really strange you know, because there's countless knowledgebase articles on how to slipstream updates on the microsoft website. It's amazing how they're encouraging people to break their license agreements. Unless of course, they allow it. Which they do.

I never said that they didn't allow it. In fact I said that I do use slipstreamed CDs myself.

What I was saying is that, in our business of repairing and maintaining PCs for the public and businesses, MS have stated clearly and categorically that we cannot use slipstreamed CDRs if the customer only has an OEM copy of Windows. That is most machines bought in PC World or from Dell/HP/etc.

Some business machines have XP Pro or Vista with an original CD, or the customer has bought a boxed copy of XP, or they have a volume license. In those cases, we are allowed to use slipstreamed CDs.

You will note that in order to create a slipstreamed CD you must have an original CD to start from. Note also that MS does not offer ISOs of original CDs to the general public, only people with VLKs. So, for anyone who bought a PC from PC World and who only has restore discs (which are basically image files, not Windows CDs) there is no legal way for them to create a slipstreamed CD short of buying a new copy of XP.

Like you, many people are ignorant of this fact. That is why the other company I mentioned got into trouble - they assumed it was okay, but it isn't.

[Zhadnost]

Originally Posted by cook1984

PC World got in trouble for this very same thing several times. Advertise a really cheap laptop on TV, but when you get to the store it's sold out because they only had one or two, but wait perhaps you would be interested in this more expensive one now you are here...

Yeah I remember this, it would have at least been nice if the one or two was per store ..

---------- Post added at 17:58 ---------- Previous post was at 17:48 ----------

Originally Posted by cook1984

The Japanese government says broadband is important and does something about it. They get 1000/1000 (yes, gigabit) fibre optic broadband with near universal coverage by 2010 for around £23/month.

Yeah, and the economics are exactly the same in the UK, I mean the population dentisy is almost excatly the same ...

[Toto]

...... I think we may be straying slightly into off topic land.

[Raistlin]

..... I think you might be right

< nudge >

[mike24]

As VM are going to get rid of 2200 staff this news does not supprise me:-)

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Zhadnost

Yeah, and the economics are exactly the same in the UK, I mean the population dentisy is almost excatly the same ...

In some parts of the UK it is indeed almost exactly the same - Japan also has its' rural areas too but easy to compare the entire UK with Tokyo / Kyoto / Osaka I guess, try a comparison of Greater London with the greater Tokyo area, the difference isn't that massive and depending on which areas you look at London actually has a higher pop density in some surveys.

Japan's population on most recent figures I could grab was 339 persons per square kilometre, UK's 246. Here's a nice little stat for you however:

Administrative Division Area Size(sq km) Population density 2003 (people per sq km)
England 130,281 383
Northern Ireland 13,576 125
Scotland 77,925 65
Wales 20,732 142
United Kingdom 242,514 246

So, again what is exactly the fundamental issue with at least doing such a deployment to the more heavily populated parts of the UK? Oh yeah there isn't one beyond that we're British and don't do such things as large infrastructure investment as most other things illustrate. Seems to me the economics aren't that different we just have no-one who wants to pay for it.

Ooo post 666

And I am sure (well, fairly sure) that if the UK Government gave the same tax incentives to BB providers that the Japanese Government gave, and are still giving, that this may help in the provision of FTTH (imho).

Pages 19-20 of this explains.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

And I am sure (well, fairly sure) that if the UK Government gave the same tax incentives to BB providers that the Japanese Government gave, that this may help in the provision of FTTH (imho).

We do the opposite - we actually tax every foot of fibre that's in the ground and active. There's a great investment driver for you...

http://www.computing.co.uk/itweek/co...ocks-bt-rivals

EDIT: Another driver was that NTT Japan's BT were told to either lay the fibre or face structural separation, be forced to spin off their equivalent of Openreach. They chose the former.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

In some parts of the UK it is indeed almost exactly the same - Japan also has its' rural areas too but easy to compare the entire UK with Tokyo / Kyoto / Osaka I guess

Do you think the rural areas have high speed broadband though? The cities you've listed are the only ones in Japan where you'll get 100mb.

Japans high speed broadband market is simply a case of hooking up the cities, and forgetting everyone else.

Here in the UK you can't get away with that, we have a huge amount of people living in "rural" areas (essentially anywhere other than the big cities) who will also expect the same service, and it's these people that make rolling out a new network nationwide unprofitable.

It's basically the same as ADSL, but on a much larger scale, it's not profitable to supply ADSL to rural villages, but it gets done because BT have a duty to do it, the cheap exchanges to run (the ones in the cities) subsidise the rural ones.

With fibre you have the same problems, it's just not cost effective to connect all the rural housing, far more so than with adsl, because you don't even have the cable to the home to use, it all has to be laid new.

So, any company that offers fiber in this country will be the same as in Japan, big cities only, forget everyone else. Movement in this way is happening, fibercity for instance, they're starting with bournmouth, but will then be expanding into other cities. VM already cover the profitable areas, they just need to fill in the gaps from new builds (something they're slowly getting round to doing) The issue with BT doing it is that they don't want to have to foot the bill because they know that once they're done with the cities they'll be pressured by government to also roll it out to the rural unprofitable areas.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Do you think the rural areas have high speed broadband though? The cities you've listed are the only ones in Japan where you'll get 100mb.

Nope try again. Japan already has coverage of FTTH above 75% of population and expect it to be 90% by 2010.

Japans high speed broadband market is simply a case of hooking up the cities, and forgetting everyone else.

See above.

Here in the UK you can't get away with that, we have a huge amount of people living in "rural" areas (essentially anywhere other than the big cities) who will also expect the same service, and it's these people that make rolling out a new network nationwide unprofitable.

Do we? The point of them being 'rural' is that there aren't a huge amount of people there. I think you also overstate this - ignoring London..

South East England, an area covering the eight counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and East and West Sussex, is feeling the heat of a population explosion. Covering an area of 19,069 square kilometres, and with a population of 8,237,760 in 2005, its population density of 432 people per sq km makes it one of the world's most crowded regions - almost matching that of Puerto Rico (445).

Ignoring the oversimplification of regions you could likely deploy fibre in the UK to >75% of the population without touching anything with a population below 10,000 or at very least within a few KM of such an area. Villages tend to be comprised of homes quite close together, and in some cases more densely populated than suburbia.

It's basically the same as ADSL, but on a much larger scale, it's not profitable to supply ADSL to rural villages, but it gets done because BT have a duty to do it, the cheap exchanges to run (the ones in the cities) subsidise the rural ones.

BT have no such obligation to deploy DSL. It was done purely for 'political' reasons.

With fibre you have the same problems, it's just not cost effective to connect all the rural housing, far more so than with adsl, because you don't even have the cable to the home to use, it all has to be laid new.

So just don't? We're a capitalist country not communist last I checked? Places have DSL that don't have mains gas or sewage?

So, any company that offers fiber in this country will be the same as in Japan, big cities only, forget everyone else. Movement in this way is happening, fibercity for instance, they're starting with bournmouth, but will then be expanding into other cities. VM already cover the profitable areas, they just need to fill in the gaps from new builds (something they're slowly getting round to doing) The issue with BT doing it is that they don't want to have to foot the bill because they know that once they're done with the cities they'll be pressured by government to also roll it out to the rural unprofitable areas.

H2O are deploying Bournemouth because of a deal struck with the local council. They'll no doubt be delighted to do similar where they can strike similar deals.

A combination of municipal fibre deployment and commercial deployment will plug most of the gaps. Where this isn't possible in extremely rural areas either FTTC or high bandwidth wireless would have to do.

We do live in a capitalist, market driven country last I checked. Not sure why there's such a strong emphasis on broadband communism on behalf of the same people who have to drive a few miles to get to a doctor or shop for the month. Probably do-gooders for the most part