Archives for 2015

An interview with Jon Aldington Kent Public Service Network is an exceptionally efficient network operator, in terms of the value it delivers from the resources it uses. Despite lacking the economies of scale of large national operators, it provides equivalent services for around 1/3 less cost. If replicated widely, this efficiency gain would be enough […]

An interview with Peter Clemons, founder of Quixoticity Peter Clemons is an expert in the field of “critical communications”. This includes public safety services that we all depend upon in times of personal and national emergencies. He sees an unfolding crisis in this space. To my mind, this reflects wider issues that affect all applications of […]

I recently completed a major research project for consulting client. As part of the work I had to collate hundreds of references on the tech industry zeitgeist. These included some fascinating futuristic videos from the past and present.

Multiple regulators have begun to take an interest in broadband quality metrics. These efforts are a strong hint that the regulatory approaches proposed by “net neutrality” campaigners are insufficient. That is because “neutrality” is too weak to give broadband buyers the service quality protection that they need.

In this article we explore three under-appreciated facts about broadband: it is stochastic; this constrains its effective performance envelope; and the performance envelope is an emergent property, not an inherent one. These facts have important implications for users, network operators, equipment vendors, and policy makers.

I am chairing a panel at the TMRW event in Manchester on 20th May. They have titled the session “The Internet is Broken: Who’s Going to Fix It?”. This has made me think: knowing what we now know, how might the Internet become better in future?

I have been watching with dismay the commentary and debate following the US Federal Communications Commission’s issuing of its rules on the contentious issue of “net neutrality”. Regrettably, they have proceeded to issue rules without having their science in order first. As a result they have set themselves up to fail. My fear is that other […]

One of the surprises in the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed “network neutrality” rules is a requirement for ISPs to report packet loss rates. This additional rule is significant since measurement is always de facto regulation, in this case of ISP service quality.

Can the Internet scale indefinitely? Many people, if not most, assume that it can. Here is a cautionary tale of a network that strangely and unexpectedly didn’t scale so well. I hope that you find it of interest.

“One thing I’ve learned over time is, if you hit a golf ball into water, it won’t float.” – Arnold Palmer I am using an analogy to help you to understand a crucial new idea: the ΔQ calculus. This enables us to “keep score” of the “game” of packet data. So for a moment, if […]