Convergence Conversation

It’s been estimated that 11m people in Britain are disabled, with around 7m of those being of working age. What’s more, there’s a significant (and rising) number of older people who may not think of themselves as disabled but who might have difficulty with their sight or hearing. So, at a time when an increasing number of contact points are being moved online, it’s clear that unless accessibility is embedded into communication strategies, organisations may be unwittingly creating a digital divide.

In December 2010, the British Standards Institution (BSI) launched a code of practice on web accessibility. More...

The European Commission published on 6 April a Communication on policy objectives for the International Telecommunications Union World Radiocommunications Conference 2012 (WRC 12). WRC 12 is the next quadrennial meeting of governments and other stakeholders to coordinate international spectrum policy and to update the Radio Regulations. … Continue reading →

I am currently writing a Disruptive Analysis research report on mobile broadband traffic management strategies. I have discussed various concepts on this for the past year or so - the relative merits of offload, compression, policy management and so forth.

One important factor for vendors and operators to keep reminding themselves is about the importance of accurate language, logic and semantics. The wrong words can drive poor decision-making, especially on "emotive" issues. Non-sequiturs and logical fallacies can lead discussions or engagements astray.

One of the most mis-used words is "capacity". More...

I've been speaking to a lot of people about policy management recently, fitting in with the work I'm doing on mobile broadband traffic management, as well as the Business Models aspect of my newly published report on Broadband Access for Telco 2.0.

A lot of what I hear makes sense, at least at a superficial level. Certainly, I can see the argument for using PCRFs to enable innovative tariffing plans, such as offering users higher maximum speeds at different times of day, or using DPI or smarter GGSNs to limit access by children to undesirable sites.

But there's a paradox I see on the horizon. More...

Is it Coherent Policy; Consumer Confusion; Maintenance; Security Concerns; Spectrum Constraints; or Standardisation & Interoperability? 

You can find the RESULTS so far and VOTE here.  (voting options on the left hand side)

 

 

We'll post the results here shortly.

 When we implement communications infrastructure, we implement politics.  Even if we don't realise that's what we're doing, we make implementation choices that embed political structures.  I think we should take these choices seriously.  To see what I mean, consider a superficially simple case: Should people be allowed to have "anonymous" prepaid mobile phones (well, SIMs) or not? It's a simple question, but a complicated subject. And it's worth exploring because it helps us to have a real, focused discussion about practical privacy and security issues. More...

Now you might say that I've picked this title driven by pure chauvinism, but I assure you, it's nothing of the sort. I just think that - once in a while - when your country adopts a sensible and measurably effective policy, it's good to acknowledge it. The reason I went down this trail of thought again is the excellent article published by Optical Reflection on Gabrielle Gauthey and her views on how the French policy makers solved the middle mile problem (Public Money and Broadband in France).

I'll let you read the whole thing, it's well worth it, but in a nutshell here it is: unbundling in France didn't pick up outside of dense urban areas until local governments were allowed to invest in backhaul fiber networks. More...

A recent report published by Heavy Reading entitled "FTTH Review & Five Year Forecast: The Road to Next-Gen PON" does indeed make heavy reading for us UK residents.

http://spedr.com/2dkz8

The report shows significant growth in FTTH connections globally with a predicted 129.2 million FTTH connected households on 2013 compared with 35.98 million in 2008.



In the Executive Summary the report concludes that "Mass-market FTTH is inevitable". Certainly good news for those of us extolling its virtues. However don't get too comfortable... in the UK we are potentially ten years behind other countries who have embraced the Fibre Generation and could fall even further behind. More...

Not some impoverished USO. Nor anything to do with copper eg Fibre To the Copper/co-ax. But Fibre to every home and business in the country. Start lobbying your MP, find out where they stand, let us know. Make it a matter for the hustings.....

We have to start making this a major issue that matters and get the right policies in place through a) education of the masses during the run-up to the next election, and b) policy delivery, preferably before but also post-election, whoever is elected.

The next election will occur within months of the UK Olympics. Without a decent national communications infrastructure, our Olympics could be a disaster. More...