The ‘middle Mile’ Challenge Facing UK Isps
Tagged: TechnologyThe middle mile – the network connection that runs between telephone exchanges to the core UK internet backbone – is emerging as a bottleneck, and a key inhibitor affecting the level of service that ISPs are able to deliver to customers, she says.
“There are some 3,000 telephone exchanges in the UK, and an ISP needs access into a subset of those, getting them as close as possible to the end user,” she says. “This means they are faced with an economic decision – do they pay for the network capacity they need from BT, or do they look for some sort of alternative?”
She says the impact of the issue depends on where the service provider sits in the food chain, and also on factors like geographic location. Does the service provider enjoy a choice of suppliers, or do they rely on BT?
“For our customers, Geo plays a key role in helping them bridge the middle mile issue and solve this dilemma,” she says.
Murphy says many ISPs are now seeing the ownership of a core dedicated fibre network as the answer to the middle mile bottleneck: “Only connectivity offering the capacity, security and control of dedicated fibre like Geo’s is able to meet their needs,” she believes.
The sheer volume of traffic faced by ISPs means that it is in any case now economically advantageous for them to design and own their own dedicated fibre networks. Not only do the economies of scale equate to a much lower total cost of ownership, this path also enables them to add additional wavelengths as and when needed.
Owning and controlling their own network is simply the best way for an ISP to manage the massive shifting of data within their core networks in order to offer best levels of security and uptime to satisfy both business and consumer alike.
Geo provides service provider customers like Carphone Warehouse Networks and Tiscali with middle mile optical fibre transport as an alternative to copper networks, routing huge quantities of data traffic from consumers into the core UK Internet backbone.
Mary Turner, CEO of ISP Tiscali UK, has said that with a new generation of Internet users looking to download videos and stream TV content, the major issue is network bandwidth between the core network and the exchange where backhaul demands are high and often expensive to meet other than with the sort of affordable connection that Geo delivers.
Carphone Warehouse Networks (CWN’s) MD Neil McArthur says that developing next generation network capabilities that will strengthen CWN’s offering into the future was absolutely key and that Geo was their chosen network partner because it could offer the most robust, modern fibre infrastructure in the UK.
Geo will provide Carphone Warehouse Networks with a dedicated fibre pair across its entire national network for the next 15 years, enabling future-proof expansion while avoiding spiralling costs every time additional capacity is required. The ability to grow capacity while retaining existing infrastructure will become increasingly important to the Carphone Warehouse Networks business model.
By 2012, residential broadband customers will be expecting a massive 23Mbit/s downstream and 14 Mbit/s upstream capacity, which means Carphone Warehouse Networks will need the backhaul capacity to meet the demands of its AOL and Talk-Talk residential broadband and Opal B2B customers.
Blundell Harling - UK Manufacturing at its best
Tagged: TechnologyThe acquisition of BH Magpie in 1996 and BH Amerson in 2001 has meant that Blundell Harling can now undertake any third party manufacturing under contract using wood, laminates, sheet metal, MDF and screen-printed plastic.
Blundell Harling has successfully moved the manufacturing operation of sister company Amerson from Bristol to Weymouth. Teaming up with sister company Magpie furniture a range of retail display and storage systems has been developed for the CD/DVD and vinyl markets and the optometry markets. This complements the DDA compliant modular reception desk and G.P’s surgery furniture, which was successfully launched last November.
BH Drawing has also developed three new exciting drawing products. (1) The Tru-Trim economy paper trimmer is a commercial quality paper trimmer with Blundell Harling’s signature of durability at an economy price. (2) The Challenge Champion Drawing Stand offers the most cost effective drawing stand available on the market. (3) The Digital Photograph Trimmer, designed for the Digital Photography enthusiast.
For more information, visit Blundell Harling at http://www.blundellharling.co.uk/.
Increasing your Fuel Economy / Mpg
Tagged: TechnologyEconotune is the outcome of the shared knowledge of some of the UK’s leading engine tuning companies. Whereas traditionally, engine tuning has concentrated on the performance side, Econotune are looking to obtain the best economy (increased MPG) from your engine, your driving style and journey type.
By modifying your cars controlling computer (ECU) and the parameters used in various conditions by the engine program (fuel and ignition basically) we can improve not only the drivability of the vehicle, the delivery of the power and the power it self but primarily, the economy.
Econotune is a mobile service that can come to you home or workplace as the programming can be performed almost anywhere, We offer big discounts for groups (2+) cars in one location and of course we can supply pricing for fleet work if required.
We performed our work on a fleet of Patient Transport Services (PTS) ambulances and after which they started to save a huge £6.80 per day per ambulance!
So, with big savings on fuel bills this can be of great benefit to companies and individuals alike, cars, vans and even trucks. We give a 14day trial period as the work we do is fully reversible, so can you afford not to at least try it?
How does economy mapping work-
The basics:
Out of engine efficiency come both power and economy, so if an engine is more powerful for its capacity this allows it to run at a lower RPM to move the vehicle. Because we create more torque from the engine, you can move into a higher gear at an earlier point during acceleration and then maintain that higher gear for a longer time.
We achieve an increase in torque by altering the fuel pressure, the injector timing and turbo boost pressure (obviously where applicable). Whilst this seems like it is going to increase the amount of fuel used it has the opposite affect when applied.
OK lets be honest. If we increase the output of an engine, even if the emphasis is on economy, its going to be faster – it goes hand in hand! If you are going to drive the car faster it is not going to take a genius to realize you are going to use more fuel! Therefore you need to appreciate that you need to be driving in the same style and at the same average speed (within reason) to obtain the benefits, but we will assume you are going to do this otherwise you would go for performance mapping instead.
The most important aspect though is your driving style. The steadier your throttle foot the better your economy. Cruise control is superb for maintaining a steady speed, most cars have it – use it if it has! By being able to change up a gear because of your improved torque is going to make best of your economy but not if you are then going to accelerate up and down when in top!
The next thing is the state of your car. You need to make sure your car is in top condition, serviced regularly and that your tyres are at the correct pressure and in good condition. Check your tracking with a laser alignment specialist at least once a year! Ask your service centre / dealer to ensure you air flow sensor is working correctly, your oil is of the correct type and that your filters are replaced.
And lastly, take a look at what you are carrying around in your boot! Additional and unnecessary weight all add up to using more fuel than necessary – so remember to take the case of Chateaux Laffite ’68 out the boot as its better off inside anyway!
Use add-ons of Firefox browser to download YouTube movies
Tagged: Firefox, Publishing, Technology, Video
There is no doubt that you must have faced problems downloading movies from YouTube? There are few persons who browse the net regularly and love videos that have not heard about or visited YouTube. Before this site was launched people had to face lots of problems sharing their personal videos. There are many people who take different types of videos that include hilarious ones, educative ones or just simple ones of their family and most of them want to share these videos with their family and friends. Till a few years back the only option that they had was to burn the movies on a CD and send it by normal post to the recipient. This proved to be too costly, but in postage costs and the cost of the CD, and one had to spend time burning so many CD’s too.
With the advent of high-speed broadband and introduction of file sharing sites one could upload their videos for others to download. Even this was time consuming and people wondered if there was a way that the size of their videos could be reduced without sacrificing too much of quality. YouTube provides solutions to all these problems. When someone uploads their videos to this site, the video is converted on the fly to a small size .flv (flash) file and is embedded on a web page. The poster has to just send this url to their friends and relatives so that they watch the streaming movie online. Being saved in the flash format helps reduce the size of the movie and even those on a low bandwidth connection can enjoy the same painlessly.
They only problem is that one have to watch the movies online. They cannot save it on their hard drive for viewing offline. Some web companies that specialize in producing services that permit one to download videos from YouTube have resolved these problems. There is just one hitch. One has to pay money for purchasing and using these programs. There is a free option out there for those who use the Firefox browser. If you do not have firefox installed, download and install it. Now search for the greasemonkey add-on (in firefox select tools> add ons> get extension).
In the page that opens, search for greasemonkey and install it. This is not an issue and firefox along with the web page will guide you with hints. Once you have installed greasemonkey, download the `save YouTube video’ script from www.userscripts.org. This is all that you need to do. Visit the YouTube site and select the video you are interested in downloading. With this program installed you will see a `download video’ option on the YouTube screen. Just load the video and click on the `download video’ button to download your favorite movie from YouTube. It is recommended that you give an appropriate name to the movie you are downloading. Use any video converter to convert the downloaded movie to a format of your choice.
WordPress 2.6 Released
Tagged: Publishing, Technology, Wordpress, Wordpress ThemesThe big news right now is the release of WordPress 2.6
It hasn’t been a long time since the release of the last update, and they do say that they were ahead of schedule with this one - but we still can’t wait to see how Wordpress 2.6 rolls out.
Here’s the video tour:
Microsoft ‘trying to destabilize’ Yahoo - Jerry Yang
Tagged: Finance, Internet, Microsoft, Technology, US|
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Yahoo founder and chief executive Jerry Yang accused Microsoft of trying to destabilize Yahoo with no genuine intent to buy the company, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Yang, on the defensive as billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn seeks to unseat the current Yahoo board and install his own people in order to propel Yahoo into Microsoft’s hands, told the Journal that Microsoft has not pursued talks with the company in earnest.
He noted in an interview with the newspaper that Microsoft has recently expressed interest in opening new negotiations to buy Yahoo’s search engine business if Icahn’s proxy fight succeeds.
“To trust Mr. Icahn and his board is really a bad choice,” Yang told the Journal.
“I think that the destabilizing by Microsoft has become more and more intentional. I am not happy about it.”
On Monday Yahoo’s stock price jumped nearly 12 percent after Microsoft said it is willing to reopen talks on a “major transaction” with Yahoo if its board undergoes a major shakeup.
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The world’s biggest software firm confirmed Icahn’s comments about talks that could lead to a new takeover bid if Yahoo replaces its directors next month.
Yahoo earlier defended its handling of the takeover bid and accused Microsoft of joining forces with Icahn to overthrow its directors.
“Now (Microsoft chief executive Steve) Ballmer and Mr. Icahn have teamed up in an apparent effort to force Yahoo into selling to Microsoft its search business at a price to be determined in a future ‘negotiation’ between Mr. Icahn’s directors and Microsoft’s management,” Yahoo said.
Yahoo said its board approached Ballmer as recently as June to renew takeover talks, but was told Microsoft was no longer interested.
“If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately,” Yahoo said.