Broadband Rant

Money Programme induces rant

...must shout at the TV syndrome rubbish web 2.0 "phenomenon" phone uses VoIP contention ratio? Governments and hackers...

 

 

Shouting at the TV is no solution to anything. Last night it got so bad I had to change channel. And the cause of such ire? The latest episode of that primetime inanity Love Island perhaps (note to ITV trend watchers: the viewing public will find it in their hearts to rescue a rubbish Programme once and once only.) Or was all that verbal abuse being hurled in the general direction of the TV aimed at those numpties parading around the BB house? Well, no. The target of my displeasure was the Money Programme (Wednesday, 02 August 2006, 21.00 BBC2) or perhaps more accurately it's editor, researchers and presenter.

I sat down expecting an informative and entertaining Programme about the use of broadband in the UK - did I really just use the words informative and entertaining in direct relation to the words broadband and "Money Programme" - instead my sensitivities were abused by some monkey from uSwitch who twittered incessantly about Talk Talk's free broadband package and described broadband as "a commodity which would one day be free." I can tell you that I felt like the shit of the donkey of the bad guy.

Let me explain: As more businesses enter the broadband market the cost of Broadband is falling and is often bundled as a "free" element to a broader telephone/TV/cable package. There are some very good packages on offer. But (and it's a big BUT) if you pay "nothing" per month for a broadband connection what kind of customer service do you get? What's the average download speed (not the maximum advertised nonsense)? What's the contention ration? How unlimited is unlimited? So many questions, so little time. And what about BT's ridiculous "Home Hub".

You see what caused such an overwhelming feeling of "must shout at the TV syndrome" was that for once the Money Programme failed to ask any sensible questions before looking at the issues. IT education is sadly lacking amongst the UK adult population, every week there are scare stories around social networking sites, hordes of viruses attacking internet users, and whatever else, propagated by a half-arsed bunch of tech watchers who constantly predict the rise of some rubbish web 2.0 "phenomenon".

Take Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). I'm sure most people have heard of this technology. Now BT's home hub phone uses VoIP. So what happens when BT's servers go down for whatever reason? How many people using VoIP technology will be aware that no internet connection means no phone connection? This is just one issue with relying on VoIP as your main means of communication. The woman from BT was very keen to show off the video phone with which you could talk to two (count them, TWO) people simultaneously. So what, most of the "free online" VoIP products on offer allow up to nine on a video conference. VoIP can increase privacy if your tech savvy enough, but is also open to abuse by Governments and hackers, whereas the legal and "physical" integrity of a normal phone line is far greater. If the government wants information about or to tap your landline they must obtain clearance to do so from a court. Controls surrounding government access to personal records and information transferred over the internet in the UK and US are weak to say the least and don't necessarily involve courts.

Finally, what is a contention ratio? When you buy broadband your internet service provider (ISP) will give you an IP address which your local computer will always connect to as the first step to connecting to the wider web, others will share this gateway address with you. Think of this address like a physical doorway with a fixed height and width. The more people using the gateway address the less space there is to move through the doorway and the slower the flow of information. Most ISP offer a contention ration of 50:1 i.e. 50 people using 1 gateway. This means that even if your ISP offers 2MB connection speeds, you will never actually get those speeds.


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