The Internet is broken!

Posted: October 30, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Belfast, Business, Interesting, Internet, Telecoms, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Last night, the Internet broke!  When I say the Internet broke, what I mean is, all ISPs and customers of a standard DSL products in Scotland, N.Ireland and much of England had no active connection to the Internet through traditional means, though cable and 21CN product users were largely unaffected.

The exact cause of this is something BT will not and disclose and rightly so but its fair to say that it probably down to a simple bit of kit fairly high up the DSL food chain.

For most having no Internet on a Friday night is a pain in the ass but for some it’s a business critical affair.  People like banks and retailers rely heavily on tills and information polling back and forth through the copper wires berried deep beneath the ground.  For many, no Internet = no business.  Oh how times have moved on eh?

For those businesses that rely so heavily on broadband, its time to start thinking about redundancy.  What happens when there is no Internet, what do we do?  how to we continue to trade ?  This is something businesses take for granted.  Many hotels, shopping centres and office blocks have back up power generators should a power failure occur and broadband needs to be treated the same.

It is a mission critical utility.  Simple.

We cannot hold BT responsible for this outage, they like any utility provider are entitled to have an outage or a break in service as long as a) they do everything possible to prevent it and b) when it does occur, do everything possible to fix it.  In this case they did exactly that with a resolution with 24 hours, not bad going in my estimation.  To put this into persecutive, there was recently an outage in greater Dublin,  Eircom took the best part of 4 days to get everything back on stream.

 

Who's suing whom ? In the wonderful world of telecoms

Posted: October 6, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Internet, Social Networking, Tech, Telecoms, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: | 2 Comments

Thanks to InformationIsBeautiful

Still think the Digital Economy Act is a load of horse-shit ? take note

Posted: October 5, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Government, Interesting, Internet, Social Networking, Tech, Telecoms, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Below is an example of one of the many letters that hit our desk every single week.  I have used XXXXXX to protect the user.

If you still think the Digital Economy Act is a load of horse-shit……… your a mug and it won’t be long before they knock on your door!

Dear Mr XXXX,

We have received a Take Down notice from an organisation or individual which states they are the rights holder, or represent the rights holder, for the following material:

Comedy Central- The Colbert Report

They have alleged that a host on your network is being used for the distribution of the material – or parts of the material – named above without authorisation. They have verified that they are, or represent, the rights holder through reliable means which compares the data alleged to be on your network through identifying information unique to the file (known as a ‘hash value’ – essentially a digital “fingerprint”).

The information below shows the host IP address and method by which the material is apparently being distributed:

—–
Notice ID: XXXXXX
Complaintant: BayTSP
Infringement Timestamp: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:42:46 GMT
Infringers IP Address: XXXXXXX
Infringers DNS Name:
Protocol: BitTorrent
Port ID: XXXXXXXX
Infringed File Title: Comedy Central- The Colbert Report
Infringed File Name: The.Colbert.Report.2010.09.30.Aaron.Sorkin.HDTV.XviD-FQM.[VTV].avi
Infringed File Size: 183475818 bytes (174.98M)

—–

The associated XXXXX Username is: XXXXXX

We hereby request that should the material named above exist on one, or more, of your hosts that you prevent the distribution of this material. If you do not believe this file is hosted on your network we recommend ensuring you are not operating an unsecured Wireless network; for more information on Wireless networking please see the following guide:
XXXXXX

XXXXX will not take action against you regarding this take-down notice and we will not supply any customer details to a third-party without an appropriate court order.

Please be aware, however, that the rights holder is permitted by law to request a court order for disclosure of subscriber details should they wish to pursue a claim for damages through the court. XXXXXXXX would be required to comply with such a request.