[This article suggests that the UK is now facing the same issue as
that recently debated in Australia - the incumbent (BT) is refusing
to build a fibre network, since it will likely be forced to share it
with competitors. The Australian Labour party has suggested the
solution is to have the government (taxpayer) build and own the
network, and lease it to all, including the incumbents (eg, Telstra,
BT). This still sounds like a good idea to me. See also:
http://www.cyberdelix.net/adminz/4601408c_15412_a8dad58.html - Stu]
BT Wholesale's chief technical officer, Matt Beal, has claimed that
the operatorīs new 21CN network will offer enough bandwidth so as to
negate them having to introduce 'Traffic Shaping' technology:
Traffic shaping is a means of prioritising certain types of data over
others to avoid network congestion. The practice is at the heart of
the debate over so-called "network neutrality", as some see it as a
way to protect time-sensitive applications such as VoIP, while others
see it as a way for operators to promote their own services over
those of rivals.
It recently emerged that the Canadian carrier, Rogers, has been
traffic shaping for some time to the detriment of users who, for
example, transmit encrypted data. On Thursday, Beal called such
practices "quite Big Brother-ish" and maintained that 21CN, which is
due for completion by 2011, had the "capacity and scalability" to
make that sort of traffic shaping unnecessary.
"It is up to us at the core of the network to make sure there is
enough bandwidth for [our services and those of our competitors],"
said Beal, who claimed that trials of high-definition TV - the kind
of bandwidth-intensive application that some fear could result in
network congestion - over 21CN had been successful.
Several UK ISP's use the technology to restrict usage of P2P (file
sharing), Newsgroups and sometimes other services, such as VPN.
Typically while it's good to know that BT will not impose a general
restriction, external ISP's will still have the option to do so.
Elsewhere Beal once again reiterated BT's position on FTTx (Fibre)
networks, highlighting good results from their Ebbsfleet trials while
stating that the technology was not something BT envisaged changing
its policy (too expensive) on over the next couple of years.
However the opinion given to ZDNet above differs ever so slightly
from one offered by BT Openreach's chief engineer, Bob Cowie. While
speaking to Reuters he states:
"The most significant change in the last 12 months has been the price
of copper on the world market," Bob Cowie, chief engineer of BT's
Openreach unit told reporters in Tokyo. "It genuinely is now a
cheaper option for new sites to build fibre networks from scratch"
than copper-based lines.
Unfortunately Cowie then goes on to reiterate much of what Beal had
said earlier, regarding issues over general costs and regulation. BT
doesnīt want to spend billions building another network that rivals
can then access for effectively nothing.
