* Posts by CowardlyAndrew

47 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Sep 2011

You may not have noticed, but 'superfast' broadband is available to 94% of Blighty

CowardlyAndrew

Re: Exchange Only (XO) lines are completely forgotten

In tracking the coverage we do see plenty of areas that were EO getting the VDSL2 cabinet installed, and yes invariably in the initial wave they are just outside the exchange, but the pattern does vary.

A lot depends on the actual area and existing cable bundles

If you at 1 mile from exchange is JUST you, then unlikely to see a closer infill VDSL2 cabinet, but if you is a cluster of 50 homes at 1 mile from the exchange you may do. A lot depends on the actual area i.e. what stage of the roll-out they are at and the economics to add a cabinet for you. The more people it would help the better generally.

CowardlyAndrew

Re: Its all snake oil

If you want to use snake oil then the figure is 96.8% for premises where anything at any speed using FTTC/Cable/FTTP technologies is available.

Once the distance is taken into account i.e. over 24 Mbps this drops to 94% and if you use a 30 Mbps definition it drops again to 93.6%

The words 'Superfast Broadband' only imply a connection of over 24 Mbps or 30 Mbps and faster depending on if Westminster or Brussels, it carries no technology baggage.

CowardlyAndrew

Re: I assume Thinkbroadband are using the "can pay extra for fibre" definition of ("has access to"?

Please explain why thinkbroadband has an odd view of it all?

i.e. where is the definition of home passed by fibre to the home wrong?

CowardlyAndrew

Re: Depends who you ask

The stats are independent of BT so unless by some quirk we have repeated a mistake they have then the data should not include it.

We do take distance to the cabinet into the equation, hence why the 'fibre' figures are not the same as the Superfast figures.

CowardlyAndrew

Re: Superfast internet speeds from different suppliers?

Depends on what you mean by 2 or more supplies,

Does choice of BT Consumer, Sky and TalkTalk count as three suppliers?

CowardlyAndrew

Re: Takeup versus availability

The availability and take-up are linked, since if take-up exceeds availability you know your statistics are very wrong.

Over on thinkbroadband we have a micro site with the data on labs dot thinkbroadband dot com slash local.

This covers the availability data and also the observations on speed, where for Q3 2017 median download speed was 19 Mbps, mean 27.6 Mbps.

The UK speed test footprint in Q3 was made up of 37% of tests on ADSL/ADSL2+, 39% on VDSL2, 21% on cable, 1.6% on FTTP and 0.2% on fixed wireless.

Quartile and trends over time are all there.

CowardlyAndrew

Re: I assume Thinkbroadband are using the "can pay extra for fibre" definition of ("has access to"?

Article has a link to the coverage report we publish each month.

Fibre on Demand which is what is the name of the 'can pay extra for fibre' does not count towards the statistics, if it did then FTTP figures would be much higher.

The article on thinkbroadband also has a link to a site that shows the data for different areas and is searchable by postcode.

Lego space shuttle hits 114,000ft

CowardlyAndrew

We want the descent video

Third of Blighty stuck on snail-speed broadband

CowardlyAndrew

And in the blindingly obvious news category this press release wins.

Obviously a lot of places are going to be below average, and Ofcom has even published data showing similar speed spreads, and BT released data back in 2006 showing similar numbers.

A year in spaaaaace: El Reg looks back on 2011

CowardlyAndrew

End of space planes?

Has there not been an unmanned mini-me shuttle in orbit for some time now? Shifting its orbit as it does its sneaky stuff, i.e. at least one task the shuttle was originally meant to be do?

I think if commercial flights had delivered a new craft to the ISS before Shuttle retirement, we could be more confident about NASA plans on beyond LEO.

As for ESA, thought there was a good involvement in ion drive and a good industry in at least getting satellites built and into space?

Latest El Reg project: Rise of the Robot Sheep

CowardlyAndrew
Alert

Freaking lasers mounted on the head of a squirrel is what I want, and I want it now.

Sky follows BT in blocking Newzbin2

CowardlyAndrew

Hold on while I a borrow an Audi R8 from the showroom, it will not affect anyone as I will wash it and return it before it opens the next day.

If we have a moral right to free movies, then I demand my moral right to a free R8.

Perhaps I am old fashioned, can't afford the film/music then listen on radio or wait for it to appear on a free to air channel.

Three more 'nauts prepare for space station housewarming

CowardlyAndrew

Hang on isn't that a still frame from CoD Black Ops, or is that the real place?

My money is on the first moon base actually being a prison, just like we did with Australia a few years ago.

BT, Scotland Yard form copper theft crackdown supersquad

CowardlyAndrew

Maybe in two hundred years people will wonder whether the police were fondly called coppers because they protected the copper networks that in the 23rd century will have been replaced with nano-tube cables, where the light travels in a vacuum to squeeze the last once of speed out of it.

Alec Baldwin kicked off plane for playing with his phone

CowardlyAndrew

If the plane was sat at the gate and the door open, then usually you are allowed things on.

If refueling while still boarding, they usually add a DO NOT BUCKLE UP warning, in addition to electronic devices.

Flying in business when I can, you find that generally staff are much more friendly about this, and people do put stuff down and away once its clear the doors are shutting. Have seen more abuse on the device rule in economy, and oddly it often seems to involve the person who was a pain to staff during the flight too. Some people seem to exude karma where things go badly for them.

Codebreakers find evidence for hidden puzzle in GCHQ challenge

CowardlyAndrew

Simply really, take one in eight pixels and replot as binary and convert to ascii, then a rot 13 and viola, the location of a dead drop to leave your job application.

Too bad it was full when I dropped mine off.

doing the ultra complex is nto always needed, its all about variation and ensuring you follow no set pattern. If the information is not of critical importance then simple encoding to ensure its not of use once figured out is simply enough.

Antarctic ice formed at CO2 levels much higher than today's

CowardlyAndrew
Boffin

I reveal the subject of my next research paper.

If we all stop breathing, does this reduce the CO2 levels, ie. how many tickets have to be in the breathing lottery for the number of deaths to make an impact. Obviously would have to avoid carbon release from decaying bodies.

To summarise, we need to all have a plastic chip in our palms, that will indicate our need to attend carousel at the grand age of 42.

Boffin's bot spots red light jumpers before they kill

CowardlyAndrew

I guess the system might be useful to those who see a green light and go, but you learn to look and assess what other vehicles are doing.

1. There may be a mad driver who does not care about red lights

2. Pedestrians who are crossing slowly

3. Emergency vehicle

4. Shuttle Astronaut wearing a nappy in a rush to confront a cheating lover

BTW reason roundabouts don't work in the US is that the sloppy suspension means if you went around at 30 mph you'd probably fish tail.

How to stop network traffic fighting like cat and dog

CowardlyAndrew
FAIL

Was that article an attempt to improve SEO?

Did not say anything new, even prosumers in shared homes have been using management techniques for years so people can game and then do downloads without affecting each other.

Netflix rules out Kiwi launch

CowardlyAndrew

Are they saying that their 720p HD 5Mbps service will have people watching 300 films in a month? At 90 minutes per film that is 15 hours a day?

Even as a projection this does not stack up. Even if we presume that usage is going to double, and the fact that Netflix is 33% of US traffic now, then the suggestion is that currently on average US users are using 1.5TB per month?

Punters even more dissatisfied by Virgin Media's package

CowardlyAndrew
Devil

Does it not strike people as odd that Virgin Media do so poor in this survey when talking to customers, but when publishing Ofcom speed test data Virgin Media does so well?

Surely there should be hardly anyone complaining of connection speed issues with the cable service, if the over 30Meg average from the 30Meg service is true?

Reality being that the service varies greatly from town to town, wonder which towns have the Ofcom testing kit in them?

Ofcom: ISPs can cripple the web as much as they please

CowardlyAndrew
Flame

Yeah lets all go on strike until they give us a net neutral unlimited connection for £6.95 a month.

Narnia is out there somewhere, but in the real world bandwidth costs money, and not just because of BT, try buying hosting in a data centre.

Erotica 2011 stands firm against rise of the sex machines

CowardlyAndrew
Gimp

Apparently it is the post show parties in local hotels where the fun is to be had, so I am told.

ISS 'nauts need not fear head-on space junk smashup

CowardlyAndrew
Alien

Whoever figures out a way to collect debris and use it for something useful will be onto a winner.

All those aerospace metals, could be used to make an ugly but functional level of shielding around craft.

Hero dev writes the CODE that COULD SAVE THE WORLD

CowardlyAndrew
Coat

My prediction is that it will hit us on a Monday.

They always are the worst day of the week.

It's ALIVE! Broken Russian Mars probe finally answers calls

CowardlyAndrew

It is all a conspiracy so they can send supplies to the moon base team who are running short on loo paper.

Successful space station shift change by Russian rocket

CowardlyAndrew
Alien

I suspect the 60's was the big step change for space exploration, the challenge seems to be reproduce that but at a cheaper price.

Suspect we are looking at 100 years for the next big step change, that will allow for safe/quick travel to Mars and beyond.

Amazon's Android-friendly Kindle Fire splutters

CowardlyAndrew
Terminator

Do a BattleStar Galactica and cut the corners off, even in Caprica their e-paper had no corners, obviously it is the way of the future....

Netflix raises $400m to steady its global expansion

CowardlyAndrew
Thumb Up

If they can offer SD and HD streaming, i.e. lovefilm quality, and then something approaching 4 or 5 Mbps at a reasonable resolution, then they will get my custom, and good bye LoveFilm.

Poll: One in six interrupt bonking to answer mobile

CowardlyAndrew
Paris Hilton

They answer because it is the wife calling, and she has her own ring tone and she would be suspicous if they did not answer.

Russian Mars probe heads into space WITHOUT ENGINES

CowardlyAndrew
Facepalm

Its the X37B - using a low thrust configuration to avoid detection while tethered to the russian craft.

No Xbox Live hack say insiders

CowardlyAndrew
Windows

I guess the safest way is to have no credit card linked with the XBox live account, and only buy the points card in the high street.

Then all that is at risk is a points balance of perhaps 1000 or so, i.e. don't keep 100,000 points in the wallet.

No chance now to save Phobos-Grunt Mars mission

CowardlyAndrew
Black Helicopters

What was that fancy robotic cross range CIA space craft that stays up for months?

X73-B ?

Maybe the advanced tech has been snatched by this craft? And a small Bigelow inflatable left in place to fool radar?

Gov web boss: Our sites look like bleak council estates

CowardlyAndrew
Stop

For doing things like paying your Car Tax when the reminder arrives, who needs a complicated graphically heavy webpage?

Remember also that there is a need to support older browsers from not just home computers, but mobile phones and linux machines used for low cost digital inclusion projects.

Simple websites with clean, fast to read and digest content, and obvious this is where to click are the way to go. Keep it simple, keep it cheap and people will use it.

Swedish college girls now twice as slutty as in 2001

CowardlyAndrew
Go

Maybe they are simply being more honest now in the survey responses, i.e. the 'slut' effect is less, and women being allowed to enjoy themselves is ok.

Why is the article concentrating on women, unless it was only women having sex with women?

Telcos snub UK.gov broadband cash pot

CowardlyAndrew
Boffin

?Problems Geo had with PIA...you mean they have actually tried to use it, or this is just an on paper assessment that it does not let them do what Geo wants.

PIA was never about long distance backhaul, it has always being about local infrastructure.

Geo has installed fibre between business parks in North Wales, how did it do this before PIA existed? Many teleco's have fibre backbones too.

Issue appears to be that BDUK is not a blank cheque to sustain a business, but rather requires investment from the business or a source of capital from VC's

C&W Worldwide boss out after 4 months

CowardlyAndrew
WTF?

Demon gets a small mention, customer churn and pressure (downward) on voice and data.

For a firm offering wholesale services, and what was once an internet pioneer in the UK, to have such a small mention does not bear well for continued faith (if anyone has any faith left) in their SME broadband services.

Lost cities found beneath sands of Sahara by satellites

CowardlyAndrew

Big lols if it turns out to be a WWII supply base hidden in desert and now under the sand.

'Indestructible' Moto Defy telly ad banned

CowardlyAndrew

Urm maker says phone was dropped during the advert 'live' and several times, ASA says seen no evidence of phone being dropped.

Does this mean they did not see the advert? Or they just want a person in a white coat to repeat the drops for them rather than pretty people used in an advert.

Aren't most screen breaks from people sitting on phones? and bending beyond tolerance?

Ofcom boss warns of low interest in 'superfast' broadband

CowardlyAndrew

Massive profits?

What massive profits are comms companies making from broadband? Is profit illegal these days too?

The profit is largely from the telephone and other product bundling, cheap broadband being the incentive.

Ofcom being BT's pet, more like Virgin Media who are allowed to keep their totally vertical market. BT aren't saints and will try to wiggle out of things, just like any other commercial operators, including the new latest friends to the market.

CowardlyAndrew

How much does the 20GB game cost off steam? Versus say buying it from Amazon and getting it delivered that way?

Is the time you can get the game faster over broadband not worth paying a little more. Virgin does have a 30Meg service you can go to.

To some extent the Virgin 10Meg is their Tesco Value equivalent product, does the job, but not in the same way that the Waitrose version would. Your choice, but moans about the cheapest not being as good as the best achieves zilch

CowardlyAndrew

Blow a 10GB allowance on an app or OS upgrade? Really, what app is 10GB for an update, or what OS has updates that size?

Not all superfast is capped at 10GB, and not all of it has to be bought from BT Retail either. It also has a retail product that is uncapped, yes P2P is managed, but was not aware that Apple/MS used P2P to patches/iOS updates?

Ofcom tarts up telco report with pretty coverage maps

CowardlyAndrew
Facepalm

3G when it works

Beyond the averaging, even in places like Oxford and London you come across cell towers that refuse to operate on 3G, dropping to Edge and then without moving the phone/dongle it switches up to 3G+

Cell tower switching is a real pain on even commuter train services, hands up if anyone elses a get spot just south of Clapham Junction.

Voda to plug not-spots with mini-masts in boozers

CowardlyAndrew
Alert

Switched my femtocell off

Are they going to offer free replacements for the duff ones that people have paid for already?

Works for a few works, and then falls over, and refuses to provide a signal for a week or two.

Have given up on it for now, though may switch it on again when its cold to warm my feet on using the power brick under the desk.

The call quality was never great with the old femtocell they sold, but the same broadband line would sustain decent video call quality in Skype.

Smut oglers told to opt in to keep web filth flowing

CowardlyAndrew

Do they work

With no extra software, just a standard web browser even with these systems porn is out there, and plenty of it.

Thus easy enough to claim they don't work, and thus more harsh systems in place in the future.

Fire burns away the Kindle dream of interactivity

CowardlyAndrew

Something I've not seen anywhere, what would happen if you bought a Kindle Fire in the US, and brought it to the UK?

Might make a nice Christmas present.

If the cloud stops working, then am sure lots of US customers who travel will be less than pleased.

BT bitchslapped for misleading 'Join now' Infinity ad

CowardlyAndrew

@ryan

The FTTC estimates are very conservative, and if getting 22Meg now then by removing the e side you should go even faster.

People moan when estimates are high and low, its an estimate of course.