Teknovis

During the weekend I read about Intune Networks and the Exemplar Network in Ireland’s next big thing - Govt commits extra €5m to Exemplar Network. It appears to be a very positive development, and I am delighted to see that it has such strong links to fourth level research.

The video Digital 21 - The Exemplar Network is worth looking at also. Unfortunately, I cannot embed it here :( It is funny to hear Eamon Ryan describe it as open source, and then realise that he does not actually know what that means :D

Tags: Exemplar Network, Intune Networks

Last night I read that Eircom will start upgrading its broadband offering. You can read more about this in either Eircom unveils ‘next-generation’ broadband or on Eircom’s site. (Unfortunately, I cannot link to it because all the links appear to require a session ID :( Stupid!)

One of the main points of this announcement is that Eircom will upgrade existing 1MB/s, 3MB/s, and 7MB/s connections to 8MB/s connections free of charge. That is good news, although I am not sure how many people really need this extra speed.

The other interesting change is that Eircom will now charge users based on the amount of traffic transferred. I realise that I do not know how much I transfer at the moment. I must investigate this on the Eircom web site :o

Finally, I agree with IrelandOffline’s assessment that there is a lack of “next generation” about this offering! See Eircom and “next-generation” broadband.

Tags: Broadband, Eircom, IrelandOffline

I noticed that INEX had record traffic levels last Wednesday afternoon of approximately 8.7Gbits/s according to the INEX traffic statistics.

I assume that this record was due to people watching the Irish Minister for Finance announce the annual budget for 2010 online thanks to RTE.

Hourly Graph (aggregate/bits) (Copyright INEX)

I described the previous INEX records in Record Traffic For Irish Budget 2009 Announcement and Record Traffic For Second Irish Budget 2009.

Yearly Graph (aggregate/bits) (Copyright INEX)

Tags: INEX, Ireland, Peering, RTE

Delighted to read Threat to Eircom ‘three strikes’ plan. It will be interesting to see how Eircom reacts!

Tags: Eircom, ISP, P2P

A friend of mine who works in UCD was trying to use the RTE Player on her laptop this week. (Yes, it was work related :o ) She had mixed results!

She could view the RTE Player web page, and any of the video content, using her wired connection in one building. However, she could only view the RTE Player web page, but not any of the video content, using her wireless connection in another building. The video panel would time out after playing the advertisement. That was annoying!

I did a quick search on the Internet, and the only related information that I could find was New RTE player also blocked?. However, this thread seems to be full of inaccuracies, as I normally find on Boards.ie :( In particular, the following statement appears to be incorrect:

The new RTE Player opens a direct connection to the RTE Server on tcp port 1935

fmsv1.rte.ie:1935

I can view the RTE Player video content perfectly from my current location, and I know that I am not allowed to access TCP Port 1935. I also am behind a proxy server, so that cannot be the cause either. My friend was able to access fmsv1.rte.ie, so obviously the site is not blocked.

However, I still do not know what is causing the problem :|

Tags: RTE, UCD

I tend to connect to the Internet a lot with my laptop in public places. I have no confidence in the security provided by Windows (2000 or XP), and I am am extremely sceptical of any software based firewalls for Windows. I am a firm beliver of hardware based security!

So I am very interested in some products by Yoggie that I saw recently. This video explains them:

In particular, I like the Gatekeeper Pro in inline mode. I think that this would be perfect for me if only it also included WiFi.

Tags: Firewall, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Yoggie

Last October I described the format of the Irish budget, and how it is broadcast online by RTE, in Record Traffic For Irish Budget 2009 Announcement. At that time INEX had a record throughput of approximately 5.3Gbits/s.

Last Tuesday the Irish Minister for Finance had to announce a second annual budget for 2009 because he got the first one wrong. (I will not comment on his incompetency on this blog ;) It appears that this caused a new record throughput of approximately 7.2Gbits/s according to the INEX traffic statistics.

I should have thought of putting a copy of the Day Graph here earlier in the week :(

Tags: INEX, Peering, RTE

Eircom has been in the news over the last few days due to its broadband strategy:

An Eircom executive has said that people in rural Ireland who live more than 5km from a telephone exchange will never get broadband.

Eircom’s Paul Bradley said that even when the local exchange is upgraded to handle broadband, a modem will not connect as the signal becomes so weak after 5km.

I must admit that I do not see what all the fuss is about. Eircom is simply stating the obvious! You can read more about this in Eircom accused of abandoning rural Ireland and Eircom broadband spend under review, committee told.

It is not clear to me why people in rural Ireland have an expectation that they should be able to avail of the same level of broadband as people who live in urban centres. Do these rural dwellers also expect the proposed Metro for Dublin to extend to their towns? Or do they expect that they can have gas connections to their houses? There are advantages and disadvantages of living in rural or urban areas, and that the associated differences must be recognised!

Indeed, the story gained enough momentum to be featured on national television this evening. You can watch it online on at Eircom re-thinking rural broadband rollout. Damien Mulley, for whom I have a lot of respect, appeared on the program. However, I disagree with him on the significance that broadband has on rural Ireland. As part of his argument he compared broadband access in rural locations in Ireland with broadband access in Amsterdam! I think that this is a very flawed comparison for the obvious reasons!

I also disagree with what Damien said about Eircom blocking access to certain web sites, and in particular, he mentioned The Pirate Bay. I am currently using Eircom to access the Internet, and I appear to have full access to The Pirate Bay. Furthermore, I previously described how many ISPs blocked access a certain web page in Extreme Child Pornography Prevention Measures, but Eircom did not, and still does not, block access to this web page.

In my opinion, it would be significantly more beneficial to Ireland to have investment into providing greater bandwidth and more services into a few well chosen urban locations. In other words, concentrate resources to create a silicon valley in Ireland, rather than create a mediocre service covering the entire country.

Tags: Broadband, Damien Mulley, Eircom, Ireland, ISP, Netherlands, The Pirate Bay

I remember reading a while ago that some of the record companies were taking legal action against Eircom, because Eircom would not police and prevent illegal P2P music sharing within its network. I think that Eircom would have been mad to do this!

Like many other people, I think that the record labels are still living in the past by spectacularly ignoring the realities of current technology!

So I was very interested in reading this week that this action has been settled out of court. The agreement seems to centre on the record labels detecting illegal downloading themselves without any special access to Eircom’s network. They can then pass the relevant IP addresses to Eircom, and Eircom will serve the offending user with a warning. If the record companies detect that the user persists in sharing illegal music files then Eircom will disconnect the user.

I think that this is a big win for Eircom, and a big loss for the record companies, for the following reasons:

• Eircom does not need to modify or police its network.
• The record companies must do the policing themselves. I am sure they would have loved to pass that burden to Eircom!
• The record companies will not get any special access to the network. So, they will have as much detection abilities as I do!
• Consequently, it will be relatively easy for users to avoid detection.
• The record companies will not get access to any personal details of users who are performing illegal downloading.

The full details about this are in Big four music labels and Eircom in landmark piracy settlement.

Tags: Eircom, ISP, P2P

Google is developing a set of tools that will enable users to determine if their ISPs are interfering with their packets. That should be very useful, especially if more users become aware of the fact that some ISPs might do this!

More details about this are described in Google Introduces A New Weapon In The Fight For Net Neutrality: Measurement Labs.

I am not necessarily an advocate of Net Neutrality. I do not think that a very small proportion of users should be allowed to negatively impact the majority of users. However, this can be ensured through network management without necessarily compromising on Net Neutrality. However, I do think that ISPs should clearly state their network management policies. This enables consumers to make the final decision!

Tags: Google, ISP, Net Neutrality