2005/08/19

ISP�s Call For Greater LLU Focus

ISP�s Call For Greater LLU Focus

AOL doesn't want BT to lose focus on LLU (local loop unbundling) especially as Alison Ritchie has left BT (who headed up their broadband division).

All though BT have frozen ADSL pricing until 1.5m lines are unbundled, they are bound to be focussing on their 21CN efforts which could potentially scupper LLU efforts anyway as it's being rolled out to every exchange in the country and why use a competitor when BT's offering will be everywhere and they'll bundle all sorts of offerings with the basic line rental.

2005/08/18

San Francisco to get blanket Wi-Fi coverage? - Broadband & ISPs - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

San Francisco to get blanket Wi-Fi coverage? - Broadband & ISPs - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

It all sounds nice, blanket coverage of a city using WiFi, but it's not really been done before and WiFi was never designed for it. The 802.11 standards are really based on Ethernet (which is a wired protocol) and Ethernet relies on every station that's connected to a LAN (local area network) being able to "hear" the traffic on the LAN and detect whether collisions have occurred. In WiFi terms it's Ethernet mapped on to radio where as Ethernet uses CSMA/CD (carrier sense mulitple access/collision detect), 802.11 uses CSMA/CA (carrier sense mulitple access/collision avoidance). CSMA/CA requires that every node on the network is able to "see/hear" every other node.

This leads to hidden node problems which can cause network meltdowns and the bigger your WiFi network, the more chance you have of hidden nodes.

There's also the problem of mobile users who can act as hidden nodes and can moves between access points - requiring some kind of roaming protocol which 802.11 does not as yet support (though there are planned enhancements and proprietry solutions).

So though it's a good idea, the practicalities make it very complicated.

Digit Online news - LaCie unveils 2TB hard drives

Digit Online news - LaCie unveils 2TB hard drives

The units support Firewire 400 and 800 and USB 2.0. Each drive can operate at 88Mb/s with a combined speed of up to 800Mb/s per bus. The units support between 160GB to 2TB and cost between US$179 to US$2299. So for 2TB that's about £1400 which works out about £0.7 per GB.

The price of storage is dropping rapidly putting multi-terrabyte arrays into consumer land i.e. into the home.

Digit Online news - Apple update breaks 64-bit apps

Digit Online news - Apple update breaks 64-bit apps

Bit of a mistake there for Apple, though it has released a 2nd version of the update that now does work with 64bit apps and users should update (using system update).

Bloomberg.com: U.K. Energis prefer C&W to THUS

Bloomberg.com: U.K.

It seems THUS really did have a need for an M&A department. THUS bid £600m in cash and £200m in THUS shares. C&W's bid was undisclosed but they have cash in the bank.

If THUS had bought Energis, they'd have to have loaned the money, so paying off Energis loans with THUS loans, though the combined company would have been a potentially big threat to C&W. Now that Energis are going with C&W they'll get swallowed up.