Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

WOW your defenition of 21CN is somewhat different to what BTs is.

BT often pass faulty services as fault free so in that regard you wouldnt get working service never mind compensated, 21CN is not on the local loop only up to the exchange.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

They can do most of what you describe already. As for 21cn to the home? Somehow I doubt it. BT would have to replace probably tens of thousands of MILES of copper pair cable, and the customer equipment (sockets) in the house. Bear in mind that legally, BT have to provide a connection to every house, regardless of whether the occupants of that house are customers or not.

Edit: Just done some checking. Seems that BT are not replacing the "last mile" of cable. They are going to be relying on ADSL 2+ (or another DSL technology) for that. Looked at like that, some people are going to be in exactly the same boat as they are today.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

From what i have seen of this so far. Its upgrades to their core network. It has nothing to do with the BT speaker wire connection. I am in and out of BT exchanges everyday and have had long conversations with BT engineers and everyone i talk to say this has nothing to do with the copper to the house.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Interesting Bill, is the general consensus from them the local loop needs work or do they see no problems with the limitations?

Every engineer I had over here shrugs their shoulders like everything is hunky dory.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

The feeling i get from them is that they know it needs updating, However its a long way from being implemented. There is talk of fibre to the cab but they just look at you as if your mad if you ask them if its anywhere near ready for deployment.

BT have a very good infrastructure until it comes to the last mile and that's where they are let down badly if you are talking adsl or adsl2+.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Having just read the first post in this thread I felt I had to post this (my first post) sorry if in not reading the 100's of other posts I'm taking this off topic, I will read up now.

I for one am quite happy with the service I get from NTL for my broadband, the digital tv's not bad when the remote works or the guide doesnt freeze, maybe one day they will be able to work out how to send a bill correctly.

I have been with NTL since the original 512K broadband and I can honestly say over the last nearly 6 years I have probably had 1 maybe 2 correct bills !!.

My last bill has over 100 quids worth of credit covering cockups and even a goodwill 30 pound credit for all the stress I've been caused, however it also contains 14 pounds worth of telephone calls to the customer support centre sorting out all the problems in the first case.

And as for VOD !!! apparently I watched the same episode of lost 3 time in a row, the woman in CS said that if I hadnt watched it, I wouldn't have had it on my bill (along with a 4.99 adult program I've never watched) I suggested that she counted the number of credits on my bill to see how accurate her billing system was :rolleyes: .

Being a complete masochist I've decided to give them one more chance with no VOD or support calls and see if they get it right, if not I will be 'attempting' to cancel my subscription to the wonderful world on NTL.

AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH !!!!!!!!!

P.S. sorry for the venting it was either this or kick the cat !! (jk)

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

To be fair though the BT speaker wire isnt exactly dangerous to a passing vehicle, if it is tall enough it will just rip it in half and the voltage agint exactly gonna kill anyone!

Maybe if the had maintained the wire in the first place, it would not have been dangling so low and they would not have needed to cut it.

BT will only compensate the customers 10 days of line rental, EXACTLY the same and ntl and the minimum agreed by OFCOM. Apparently it has been quite hard for these people to get this applied to their account involving lots of department bouncing.

21CN really is a waste of time, it is BT trying to 'big up' themselves and look like they are improving something, when infact the end result for the customer will be negliable. As mentioned by many previously the current core BT network to the exchanges is already very good, probably amongst the best in the World, the real let down is the section from exchnage to the home.

If BT were to replace this to all homes in the UK it would cost them billions and probably send them bankrupt, they may implement it over say the next 50/100 years but it will not happen in 5 Years, most likely not 10 or even 25 years.

BTs record is as poor if not worse than ntl on delivering services on time. Were is the BT VOD service promised for 2006?? We have BT Home hub which 'apparently' supports VOD, Home Hub incidently is crap and has the wireless range of a portable tv aerial made from a coathanger. I suspect that the VOD service isnt working very well due to the bandwidth limitations and would be more trouble than it is worth to them.

Replacing the core network will achieve nothing, it will be super fast to exchanges, then as crap as it is now on victorian speaker wire to your house. I am amazed that BT do not even see it as a requirement to provide a line that doesnt crackle to their customers, If I want a new line I have to pay for it.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I thought it was quite good. I set one up for a friend of mine, very easy, even had port forwading pre-set for emule, torrents and gaming! And VoIP for cheap calls

I [I]thought[I] 21CN was the first steps to going over completely to an IP network. Then BT will run it out to customers.

What would BT benefit from doing VOD? They make a fortune without that hassle. They also have an agreement with Sky.... don't they?

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I took the no crackle for granted when I was with ntl, now on BT its incredibly annoying.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

here an old post now from the reg and while it IPTV ,that covers VOD too.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11...its_way_part2/
part of the story,its 3 pages long:
IPTV/VoD: The world that's on its way
"
Industry comment One of the most common questions operators and analysts are asked is whether IPTV will happen, and if it does, whether if will deliver its promise.

The answer is probably not one you'd expect. It already has happened, and is already delivering. IP and internet technologies may not turn up on our doorstep or down our aerial socket tomorrow morning, but the key point to remember is that in 20 years it will be the dominant method of broadcasting.
The secret is in seeing the bigger picture. Rupert Murdoch infamously declared recently that market entrants need to operate in the mass market or in niche segments, or else they would be someone’s lunch in the middle ground.

Broadcasters have already seen it, as have a lot of telecoms companies. Cable operators are using IP over their coaxial wiring, every country has one or more "triple play" operators and both BT and Sky are evolving their businesses to so-called "hybrid" distribution that uses a combination of both traditional RF transmission and IP back-channel distribution through broadband.

The last mile copper network in the UK is too unreliable for immediate real-time video on-demand so these first services will see an incremental delivery pattern starting with offline "push" downloading onto PVR hard drives that gradually change to live video. BT's 21CN upgrade and digital switchover will help to drive the migration."

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

It is easy to set up, granted; but it is very expensive and not the best quality. You can purchase better equipment to do the same for less, I feel. The wireless range was poor, It had 3 bars in the same room yet my netgear router always has 5 and my rangemax is max in all rooms in the house.

I think BT would like to do VOD if they can get it to work as Quad play is the holy grail for all ISP/Telco/DTV Providers now.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Thats the point, its a market thats currently unfilled and has little awareness.

Touting wireless BB, security, free calls over the internet in one box supplied by good old trusty BT would be very popular and easy money from BTs view... now that customer have the hub, they're more likely to stick with their overpriced broadband and phone line.

Whether its good value or not is another matter.... these are the people that probably would have bought a crappy belkin router from PC world if they hadn't got the hub anyway.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

You're just being silly now.

IF there's about 25 million res line in the UK then we can assume that to replace them will cost approximatly £100 (max) a line based on the fact that they charge between £125 and £175 to install a compmently new line.

25m x £100 = 2500m = 2.5bn.

Now pocket money but far less than BT are spending on 21CN and less than half of Ntls current debt (before they even think about ITV).

Once 21CN is rolled out (2010/11) I can see them spending this sort of money on upgrading the last mile.

It's the only sensible way to do it too, as what's the point in replacing the lines when there isn't anything (other than ADSL2+ which is mainly limited by line length not the age of the line) to plug them into in the exchange.

I can't see it taking 50 to 100 years either, that's just a silly exaggeration. It never took that long for BT to build its current network.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

they could also ask the user to pay a % of the cost to , if for instance you pay £50, then they give you something in return
over the year or whatever deal the user might consider a bargin to get far better speeds etc.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Either that or just increase the line rental by £1 per subscriber from the date the line is replaced.

Shouldn't take too long to claw it back. After all £100 to replace each line is based on engineers installing just one line but they'd be replacing whole streets at a time. :)

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Shaun yeah but BT recently seem just concerned about low prices, logically a £1 on line rental to everyone would certianly help pay for it but they dont want to upset people who are price sensitive to a £1 increase and who wouldnt see a benefit from FTTC. Fibre in the last mile doesnt really increase their headline speeds which is what the adsl2+ will do it just improves the performance and stability for the 75% who dont have great lines.

FTTH isnt going to happen for a while FTTC would be the next step, another obstacle of course is LLU, ofcom wont like the situation LLU providers will be left in following a FTTC rollout.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Same here, i used to be with Virgin PAYG, but when i got Free O2 SIM with included mintues, texts & GRPS, i made the switch. It works out much better for me being with O2. Reception here is also better with O2 than Virgin/T-Mobile

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Not really.

Can you imagine how much road digging they would have to do? To lay Fibre to the Home and at what cost, they have to apply for local authority permission for widespread digging now. Its going to require a lot more than just installing a new line from a junction box on the pole, it will need to go all the way to the exchange.

Ntl (or predecessors) have racked up huge debts laying cable to less than half the UK; imagine the costs of relaying cable to every home in the UK? it aint gonna be cheap and BT aint gonna do it anytime soon.

They will let us use a substandard service at high prices for amy years to come, until it is an absolute necessity to replace it.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Surely as the cable is already there all they need to do is re'pull the cables. It's not like they are starting from scratch the ducting and roadside cabinets are already there.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Have you seen the state of the cabinets, I suggest you have a look inside when you next see an engineer working in one. Their network at cabinet level is typically a shambles that is both very old and went through a period of bad maintenance.

The cabinets would not be suitable for fibre management, and you always have to figure in x-amount of civils for collapsed ducts when considering pulling new cables. You must also remember that their network is completely different to ntl's, the customer drop can be considered as a pair of cables going all the way back to the local exchange. The length of the drop can be measured in miles and not 10's of meters in the typical ntl scenario.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Even so I can't see it taking 50 to 100 years to replace BT's last mile. The phone was only invented ~125 year ago and the net's only been big for the past 10-15. Things move quickley when they want. :) Hell Cable itself was only created really in the 80s

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Ofcoms recent analysis on alternaitves to copper indicates they arent going to be backing fibre to the home any time soon, fibre to the cabinet was the only one they "may" back but they indicated it offered no cost savings over copper, and cost savings is the only thing that would probably make the BT shareholders approve the change. I think the bigger clinger tho is how it will disrupt LLU, ofcom is a big fan of LLU been competitive, FTTC would mean LLU providers having to run their fibre to cabinets to install their dslams there which will be very uneconomical for them as they may only have half a dozen or so customers per cabinet.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I have said before, the long-term plan is ethernet not fibre. So all you do is replace the bell wire with ethernet
BT's plan is to leave the " old switches" to the mercy of the LLU boys n gals, and ride off merrily into the sunset on their 21CN with all their subs fed on ethernet

Thats the looooooooooooooooooong term plan. I have been privy to the mins from a high level meeting via a mate

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

That's a little like saying that all Thames Water needs to do is patch up the pipework in London. It may be, but according to a programme I saw, at the rate they are repairing pipes in London, it will still take > 128 years to repair all the damage.

It's taken BT nearly 15 years to bring ADSL to most of the country. To replace the "Last Mile" for their tens of millions of subscribers is, AFAIK, a job that is a lot larger, and more costly. I can't see BT spending potentially hundreds of millions of pounds when, for the time being at least, as the various ADSL standards would be a lot cheaper to implement.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

hi stuart,
is what you say a bit flawed, your statement about fibere optics offers the impression (to the unwary) that it is a completely fibre connection from exchange to home, where in fact it is the backbone which is fibre but from the distribution cabinet node its copper screened.

speeds are also dependent on how many users per node, so your figures are based on mr billy no mates being the only one on that node to attain the maximum speeds.

regs
alan

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

My statement is not flawed. I never mentioned what BT would be replacing the last mile with. I also didn't mention speed.

:welcome: to the forum, btw.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I think the bottom line is the majority of operators now run in a cost driven environment as opposed to a technology driven environment.

Network operators are in the business of making shareholders money, customers wanting and expecting them to invest heavily in cash they may never recover is a very low priority.

I think we will see technology evolving to use the current network technology that's already in place for the foreseeable future, as opposed to companies spending vast amounts of money to implement the latest system just because customers want, want, want.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

yeah your probably right, but im reasonably sure that signing that mpeg-2 tvdrive/liberate contract will come back to bite em sooner rather than later.

the liberate gui middleware does'nt do them or the users any favours eather over the longer term, if they dont have the capable AVC STB at the users end, then new software services,far better interactive GUI, micro payment gaming and all the rest are all no go area's for the stb as it stands now.

they (is it an external or internal Virgin-Media liberate SW team btw?)might be able to coble together something that almost works, but will it be enough for paying customers or more to the point get new users from sky etc....

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I discovered today that Digital TV On Demand is not available. An error message "This service is not available. Please contact NTL Customer Services. IS009".
I phoned the number and was finally connected to a gentleman who was very difficult to understand and was told that I would be contacted within 6 days to advise as to why the service is not available.
I would appreciate some of your inside information as I am certainly not impressed!

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Thought some of you might find this interesting...

Link: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/98216/bt...tothehome.html [pcpro.co.uk]

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

BT is undertaking the biggest network and strategic transformation project by any telco in the world. Over a five-year period, starting from 2004, the UK incumbent is to spend a staggering £10 bn (US$18.7 bn) on moving customers from its legacy infrastructure onto its next-generation 21st Century Network (21CN).
By the end of this decade, the BT plan is for the PSTN to be shut down, along with the majority of its 16 legacy platforms. The more platforms that can be ‘collapsedâ €™ and managed on the 21CN, the greater the cost-savings prize.

Given the enormity of the project, it should come as no surprise that Matt Beal � who is responsible for managing the network transformation � has plenty of things to keep him awake at night. “There is always the question of are we going to be truly ready for our customers to come over onto the 21CN,� he says. “What is it that we don’t know that’s waiting to bite us?�

By the time you read this, Beal � who’s full job title is director of 21CN core convergence and capabilities � may just have a clearer idea of how ready the UK incumbent actually is to move to an all-IP network. When Telecommunications® International had a chat with him in mid-October, BT was only weeks away from migrating its first PSTN customers, based in Cardiff (Wales), onto the 21CN.
Cardiff represents, in Beal’s words, the ‘slow ramp-up’ of 21CN. Phase one involves ‘upgradingâ €™ ten percent of customer PSTN lines to VoIP in the city starting this month (November); it will be followed by the second phase â€� running between April and May next year â€� to upgrade a further ten per cent of lines. The third and final phase is to upgrade 350,000 customer lines in Cardiff and the surrounding area during next summer, which includes 90,000 broadband and ISDN lines. BT will then take a period of time to assess how effective the migration process has been before rolling out the 21CN nationwide.

“The purpose of the work in Cardiff is to validate we can deliver quality service to customers and for us to learn from the rollout experience,� says Beal. “We want to give the rest of industry [BT’s wholesale customers] confidence.�

Reducing the potential risk, understandably, lies at the heart of Beal’s planning for 21CN transformation. The first 21CN customers in Cardiff, for example, will â€â€ÂÂ� initially â€â€ÂÂ� not be able to do anything other than the ‘legacyâà¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ services that they have been used to. “If we try and enable new services immediately, we would probably break some of the old services along the way,â€ÂÂÂ� says Beal. “Our first priority must be for the successful migration of the old services.â€ÂÂÂ�

De-risking the 21CN project includes not immediately migrating private point-to-point circuit-based lines, which typically carry mission-critical applications, onto the all-IP network. Private point-to-point lines in Cardiff, for example, are not to be transferred onto the 21CN, says BT, until ‘much later in the programme’.

Despite these precautions, Beal feels it’s unrealistic not to expect to run into some implementation problems along the way in a project of this magnitude. “There is only so much you can do in small-scale lab testing,� he says. “It could very well be that we find critical vendor faults or critical BT faults.�

For Beal, this is all part of the necessary pain of going from being a twentieth century telco to something much more than that � a twenty-first century company pushing into what Beal calls ‘adjacent industries’, such as entertainment, and creating ‘new wave’ revenue. “No other carrier is moving as fully into convergence and multi-services as we are doing,� he asserts.

So is 21CN on track? One target that BT has set is to cut opex by at least £1 bn per annum during its 2008/09 fiscal year and to fully close down the PSTN the following year. Beal believes those targets are within reach, but, by his own admission, the timetable for the closure of all of BT’s legacy platforms is more fuzzy. The UK incumbent is still in discussion with utility customers, for example, who are seeking reassurance that 21CN can deliver the same performance levels of the point-to-point TDM-based SDH networks they currently use from BT.

But Beal emphasises that the £1 bn opex reduction target is not fully derived from the closure of all its legacy network platforms, and nor is the 21CN project itself only about network transformation.

“There are three primary objectives for 21CN,� he explains. “One is our customer experience programme, which focuses on process re-engineering to deliver services better [self-automation]. Another is to simplify our portfolio and get services to market quicker. The third is cost reduction. But it is possible to achieve cost reduction through these other two programmes.�

By this reasoning, Beal expects the opex cost savings to go beyond the £1 bn level as network migration to 21CN continues after the 2008/09 fiscal year.

For BT to achieve its targets, however, it will require an unprecedented amount of collaboration among the vendor community. BT has selected eight ‘preferred suppliers’ for its 21CN rollout, and, between them, they will have to make all the equipment that comprises the 21CN � multi-service access nodes (MSANs), metro routers and switches, core routers and optical transmission kit � interoperable and adhere to open standards.

How are the vendors responding to the challenge? Beal says he is ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the amount of cooperation between the suppliers but admits BT has had some ‘knock-down fights’ with some of its 21CN vendors. “When you feel so passionate about getting it right, these things happen,� says Beal. Not surprisingly, Beal wouldn’t name the vendors that BT has had the most serious scuffles with but does say there have been ‘lots of issues to work through’ with the MSANs and the intelligent call platform.

Anticipating future technology trends is also difficult but something â€â€Â� claims Beal â€â€Â� that BT has done successfully. When he and his team put together the architecture design for 21CN back in 2003, Beal says that ethernet was ‘nowhereâà ¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ as a carrier-grade Layer 2 technology in the wide area network. Even so, Beal says that BT still made the decision at that time to put ethernet at the ‘heart of the 21CN’, anticipating that its performance and O&M capabilities would mature. “Our vendor selection for 21CN predicted we would move into an ethernet IP/MPLS world,â€ÂÂ� says Beal. “Their capability in ethernet is phenomenal.â€ÂÂ�

Earlier this year, BT issued a request for proposal (RFP) for the use of ethernet in the backbone, which is separate from the original 21CN contracts. Beal doesn’t see this as a threat to Cisco, Juniper and Lucent � which are the preferred suppliers of Layer 3 IP/MPLS core routers for the 21CN project � or an indication that BT is going cold on IP/MPLS. “There is no reason to get religious about this, as it won’t be one or the other,� says Beal. “We are looking at ethernet to deliver resilient point-to-point services, but we will still need IP/MPLS to deliver value-added applications to the desktop.�

While Beal wouldn’t give any detail on the ethernet RFP, he says the decision to have one was just the ‘natural process’ of continually looking at what the most cost-effective solutions are in the market. PBT (provider backbone transport), an ethernet-based WAN transmission technology that BT has jointly developed with Nortel, is seen by Beal as a carrier-grade contender for 21CN but adds that he ‘honestly doesn’t know which bid will win out’.

Aside from vendor cooperation, BT has needed to work closely with its wholesale customers to work out ways to transfer legacy services and establish interconnection processes to 21CN � that are open and transparent � to deliver next-generation services. Beal says he has been ‘surprised and impressed’ by the support received from industry so far.

“If 21CN is to be successful, we need to communicate early in an open, honest and transparent way,â€ÂÂÂ� says Beal. “Itââà ¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s a different way of thinking from the past. We can’t afford to have a ‘them and us’ attitude â€â€ÂÂ� us and our competitors, us and the regulator, us and our customers. We’re having to go through a lot of growing pains on a personal, corporate and industry level.â€ÂÂÂ�
I keep banging on about BT upgrading the last mile, well here it is from the horses mouth:Yikes:

http://www.telecommagazine.com/Inter...?HH_ID=AR_2532

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Well that sounds like its to do with the last mile but when I mentioned this on adslguide I got told its just ATM been shut down on the core network so phonecalls going over voip etc. but the last mile will remain the same. So 21cn will have very few initial benefits to the average customer and is mainly about cutting bts operating costs.

I am not saying I am right just going on what I have been told.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

The 6 day deadline has passed and NTL have failed to solve this problem. I have contacted them and been told that they have a huge back-log but I should not worry as they will phone me.
Any chance of some Inside Information:confused:

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Well since competition in the consumer sector is so fierce, hopefully those savings will be forced onto the consumer.

And the last mile isn't gonna be upgraded but they're moving the DSLAM's closer to people's homes and it wont be located at an exchange (right?). And since ADSL2+ is faster over shorter distances the idea is to have ADSL2+ operating at near maximal speed. Dunno how that will translate into practice but I also know there's plenty of R&D to develop copper technology (some Israeli funded programme).

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

by moving the dslam closer I assume you mean fibre to the cabinet and the answer is no I think, some people leaked this was going to happen but then yarwell and some others in the know pointed out bt 21cn docs dont mention any kind of fibre rollout on the last mile, last mile been between exchange and property.

I actually hope the savings are 'not' passed onto the consumer my reasoning is recently adsl has got too competitive on the retail level and its been dominated now by bargian price 8mbit which is severly shaped/capped and very limiting to use. I am hoping that the cost savings are used to improve the service instead.

I dont know about the copper r&d but I suspect BT wont be that bothered that adsl2+ will perform very poor for some people, their own publish stats show only 25% of lines now can manage the full 8mbit on adsl1 so this 25% is probably the only people who are going to see around 16mbit on adsl2+ and the other 75% will be less.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Thanks a bunch to NTL (and the Inside Info Employee). At this rate it looks like Christmas will come and go before the On Demand is sorted! The 6 day deadline passed on November 24! I have phoned NTL countless times and each time been promised that the engineer will return my call.:td::td::td::td::td::td:

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Why would BT need to dig up roads? The last time I looked, BT had thousands of telegraph poles everywhere, including in every street in the country. Sling the fibre cables over them, much easier. Not that bt, ntl or anyone else will bother with fibre now....

Just install wimax transceivers at the bt exchanges and connected to their network, will do the job just fine. Customers who are currently too far away from the exchange will then get about 10mb. Which is plenty enough for a few vod streams with mpeg4 compression. I gather ntl have similar plans at least for offnet anyway.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

you think wimax would achieve 10mbit at multiple km with variable line of sight and interference?

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

...good points, but define mulitple?

I don't think wimax will do what its meant to do on the packet, i.e. up to 50KM. But, in regards to BT using wimax, it could manage the last "mile". Mile meaning the similar kind of area that a BT exchange now covers. For ntl and their offnet strategy. Rather than ntl using BT's ancient wires, they could install Wimax dishes in their cabled-up areas and connect them to their fibre network. But the wimax services wouldn't be for the cabled areas, but to beam services to the neighbouring smaller towns or villages.

I take your points onboard, though. My home router can't even manage a few metres....And if wimax really did work well, there's nothing stopping mobile phone companies or anyone else installing wimax and destroying ntl/bt in a single swipe.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

and thats were the selling off of the analoge tv and the new land grab for the regulated private wireless bands will come in.

perhaps now that Virgin Media seems to given up on ITV (for the moment) they might instead try and go for some private WiMax spectrum outright rather than rent space from whoever gets the new space (some players in the EU pehaps ?).

or they might try and go the cheap and cheerful route, for the usable public space and as you say, get wiped out, complain to OFT or whoever and get BT/Sky or whoever told off and dont do it again, LOL.

with NTL its not hard to guess which, unless richard is keeping a good eye on the boardroom and plays a card or two....

would anyone know the max commercial power rating for line of sight WiMax if there is even such a limit like the consumer power rate limits for wifi ?.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

So lets get this straigt, we have a new suggestion here that BT should use wireless for the last mile?

Would that be the same sort of wireless that they trialed a few years ago in Pontypridd based on the mesh system?

Or would it be the same sort of wireless that ntl trialed ie:WHAM in their trial in South Wales and later London. (London is the only one widely known because, well its erm London innit mate)

Or perhaps it could be the same wireless that we saw 10GHz and 40GHz franchise licences up for tender and issued a few years ago!

Both BT and ntl dropped the idea after the trials because of the implementation costs. In BT's case they decided to soldier on hoping new ADSL technology would give them an acceptable speed for the majority of the country. In ntl's case, well they just dont have any money and the shareholders are more interested in cutting costs that investing to gain new customers.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

My understanding of even newer technologies like ADSL2/VDSL2 etc is these technologies still have the same problems as exists now. If you sit on top of a bt exchange you will get super speeds. But, if like me, you're more than a mile away from an exchange, then the speeds will deteriorate. Whatever BT do with their exchanges, it's the ancient copper wires that go into people homes.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that BT (or ntl for offnet) should go down the wimax route, but what other options are there? If BT don't install fibre-to-the-home or much closer to the home like the US telcos are currently doing to compete with the cablecos in the States. I just don't see any other way that BT can deliver "cable" like services on the last mile of their copper loops.

Ntl, in the areas which are cabled, are in a very competitive position now. Yes, Sky can beam down a 10000 shopping channels if they wished, but where's the return path - bt's copper wires. One of the reasons why Murdoch is keen to ditch his satellite operations in the U.S is because he knows its the return path that is the key. Whether its internet, VOD or anything else you need a good return path.I think there will be a "land grab" for the spectrum and if the current operators like bt or ntl don't snatch the spectrum, someone else will.

There could be interesting times ahead if we had a choice of a bt phone/tv/internet service, cable service, Sky service and a few wimax "cable" tv operators too.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

You think wimax is superior to fibre to the cabinet?

I am curious of the problems that come with wireless, I see it performing badly on lans so it would amaze me if it offered good latency and high speeds over long distances.

I am not sure if BT even care that long poor lines perform badly as long as that 25% of lines that are good perform well they can promote fast speeds. :(

Last sunday it seems my copper pair got swapped without warning to an inferior one making my line very bad again like it was last june, I probably now have another 3 month battle to get it swapped again.

---------- Post added at 13:59 ---------- Previous post was at 13:57 ----------

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

So, the long and short of it is they need to trial things as usual :)

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Of course wimax despite its use of a spread spectrum technology is still wide open for jamming. (It just requires to either spread the jamming signal, or make the jamming signal a high enough level to make the wimax receiver go into AGC) Just as hackers enjoy hacking in to systems, and virus writers enjoy spreading viruses, it would leave another option open for those who want to jam the service.

That also holds for the HFC network where it is fairly easy with a limited amount of knowledge to screw the system up, or at least make things go down to a crawling speed.

wimax however doesn't need any physical connection to jam customers services, I undertsand jamming of microwave services to the home has been a problem in some countries in the past.

ADSL has to be the most secure service available, at least until fibre to the home is available.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

A bit off topic, but I am curious to know, why don't they use the rails to transmit/wifi/"lan overpower lines" instead of the expensive Wimax on the trains?

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I doubt if the bandwidth would be available, I know they used to run comms over the rails but I'm not really that clued up on it. Many years ago I knew a guy working on comms for BR, I think the technology then was a LF or HF signal. I also remember seeing some of this old equipment available at a radio rally aroundb that time. (thats how the discussion started)

It was a long time ago so perhaps I am confused and they were for use on overhead electrics. Any for of communication down the rails will be a problem, you have to consider loosing connections at points, and corrosion if not on a continuous welded section of track.

Also remember that the signal levels would need to be very high if using LF/HF in the same manner as ADSL, because the railway lines are not twisted pair:) With twisted pair the crossing of the wires cancels out any unbalanced signal. ie: interference picked up on the line by using the push-push effect. (I'm sure you could Google for an explanation)

BT's lines were designed for audio signals, getting good balance at HF frequencies (that ADSL uses) is not an easy task. The old Rediffusion HF cable TV systems used balanced twisted pairs desugned for the job, but they still had problems with balance and interference.
The use of digital technology these days goes some way to mask the inherent problem of using twisted pairs for broadband communications. Twisted pair in itself is not a bad thing, it has a higher velocity ratio than coax, and has less loss/km. The real problem is maintaining good balance at all the joints, the use of chock block type connections ruins the balance.
Whilst a network can be efficiently maintained for audio or low speed data (voice) using it for broadband is far different. ADSL technology masks the problems with error correction, so its very much like trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

Using the railway lines would only offer one ADSL line shared between all the users on that track, even if it did work satisfactory.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

sorry to but in bit of topic is it true tvdrive has been delayed?;) seems to be a bit up in the air at the moment.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I had to google that to find out what it was.

Perhaps someone working for tw/ntl will know a bit more.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Many thanks Escapee.

I have noticed that the rails are no longer disjointed, they put a thick wire and connect disjointed lines/pints on the side, no idea why.

Why can't they apply the short-wave idea used on the powerlines?

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I guess they could, but I think it would be limited bandwidth.

I think the comms they used on the rails long ago was just audio for communicating with the train drivers, this was multiplexed upto a higher frequency possibly to get extra channels and also to put it outside the human hearing range.

I'm not sure how their automatic signal system works, perhaps someone may know if its done via RF telemetry or some other method?

I'm not sure how they got around the fundamental problem of wooden sleepers being good insulators in the hot summer months, and fairly good conductors in the wet months. I couldn't see the system working for anything more than carrying audio or low speed data. I dont know how much of the rail network is now continuously welded rail ie: no joints, fish plates etc. But some of that used to use concrete sleepers, all this low frequency stuff below the HF band is not really an area I have ever got involved with. Putting LF/HF signals down the mains and relying on transformers and some capacitors to offer a high resistance to 50Hz is something I dont go near.:Yikes:

I would say putting LF/HF etc down a railway line wouldn't work, but apparently it does. I guess it was a matter of using what was available as a cheap implementation for communications, just the same as ADSL is.

PS: I wonder how they managed with comms when a train was on the line, ie: shorting the two lines together via the axle. I guess it could work because the frequency used wouldn't see it as a short unlike 50Hz or DC.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

and looks like cardiff will be one of the first ones to get it, july 2007 for my local exchange

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

I've got the samew problem mate, except i'm supposed to be on 10 meg bb

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

That is very off topic, and we have a thread dedicated to that (and indeed, a forum dedicated to the TV drive). Look at http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...php?t=33604693

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

Hi thought I'd butt'in I am not an S&T Engineer but can say the railway is bad environment any comms no matter how sophisticated.

My experience lies in Power Transmission, but the basis of signal telecommunication is that on Overhead Power Tranmission DC signaling is used and on DC Transmission AC signaling.

Bad - in that our rectifier,s induce 300 hz into all adjacent copper cable's, our HT cable surges (be it for our network or the REC), induce upward of 1,500v, mother nature via Lightning strikes at or close to running rails destroy most front ends, TOC induce further interference via chopper ccts in their trains, every night especialy in the London area track ccts(running rails) are disturbed due to engineering. I will not go on !!

The greatest disapointment that Network Rail cannot extend their existing Fibre optic system nationwide for commerial use.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

So the signaling data is at 300Hz?

I remember many years ago that ntl actually came to an agreement with Network Rail or whoever it was at the time, to use the railway fibre/comms ducts in the South Wales valley's. As far as I'm aware they never actually made anything of this agreement, dont quote me but I think the agreement involved ntl using the ducts to run or upgrade the existing fibre routes and offer dark fibres for Network Rail to use. I dont remember the exact details, but had the information at the time from someone involved in the discussion.

The deal was struck (if it was ever signed) at a time when ntl in South Wales were called ntl but were in fact CableTel, It was around the period that CableTel bought ntl but before they bought any of the CWC/Comcasts/Diamond mob etc.

If they had never gone out and bought these companies we would probably of still seen the same end result, ie. One cable company. I do believe though we would of seen more areas, especially profitable ones serviced with cable.
I believe that CableTel/ntl buying up most of the opposition early on had a big impact on the overall availability of cable in the UK.

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

As I say I'm into Power Tx, Wessex Southern, DC 750v, 3rd rail.
Our S/stn are every 3 miles our rect. put our 300Hz, S&T use various Freq.
It was an small example of the the unfriendly electronic environment.

Deal must have been in the Railtrack days, kept being told against our licence to sell cable space, but diversity of routes with a massive handling capability (overground)must have be a money maker, if we still had a in-house IT group.

It been a good xmas, no bodies/fatalities, odd car turning left on X-ing, and no tripping so far this shift;) .

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

As for the prices, NTL.Telewest give you free Line Rental (with CableTV packages), Free Weekend Calls to all Local & National UK home telephones - Our call package prices are dropping, we are the first company in Europe to offer "Quad-Play" - visit the websites, compare the prices, and you will see, NTL.Telewest works out cheaper, and you will be able to get it all on the one bill, so it's convenient too.
But why should I take on ANY wired phone service when I can have in some cases free line rental and in others pay the measly sum of 1.99 a month and have free calls every week day night and all weeked using VOIP.
Secondly I feel that I for one (and there are many other customers )cannot now beleive a single word any member of BY staff says anymore ,when one high ranking staff member was asked by a customer if there was any plans to impose capping,throttling,traffic shaping,call it what you will on customers and the aswer was a definite NO and two days after this it was announced that TRAFFIC SHAPING ( robbing customes of bandwidth they had paid for )was taking place in the Northwest of England.
I am on a 4Mb connection and for the last two months my speed has dropped from around 480Kb/sec to less than 200Kb/sec EVERY DAY and I hardly download anything .
It isn't the loss of speed that is bothering me it is the fact that I am paying for a 4Mb UNLIMITED service and only getting less than half of that for around 8 hours pr day .Yes I know that speed can drop due to network congestion and other matters compleatly out of TWNTL's control and this is covered in the T&C's but the delibrate curtailing of a customers speed by the company isn't .

Re: A little inside information by an Employee.
 

NTL charge £11 for phone line rental - it isn't free.