I’ve had a new fibre optical broadband and telephone service installed. The BT Openreach vans have been busy in our area for months. The fibre optic cables were laid under the streets and up the telegraph poles, ready for anybody who wants to take advantage of the higher data speeds available with fibre optics, and to future proof homes connectivity. I’ve always had a pretty good service through the copper wires though, and since reliability rather than speed is my most important criteria, I elected to remain with my current sluggish and expensive but very reliable broadband provider. Well I would have done if I could have, but they had been taken over by another company, and then another in turn. So I was left on a legacy system yet again. Finally, BT made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Six months totally free broadband and landline phone usage, including up to £5 worth per month calls to mobiles, no setup fee, no line rental, no charge for the modem, free to opt out again at any time. Supposedly it’s a trial to test the new voice over fibre service. Whatever. I notice Sky TV are offering similar broadband deals so it’s probably more of an enticement, because we all know how powerful the force of inertia can be, once you’ve plumped for one service or another. Fibre Optical Broadband I’m happy to have my house cabled up with fibre optics, all the way to the modem. The old copper wire system is still there, and working as I type, so I have a choice of two broadband connections, luxury. The fibre optic system is about two or three times as fast for downloads and browsing, but more like six or ten times as fast for uploads, which is great when I have a series of half a gigabyte music videos to upload to YouTube for example. Even running in the background, the three or four hour uploads used to degrade the general internet access quality for everybody else on the network, but that’s no longer the case. And I can watch live streaming HD TV channels such as the BBC iPlayer at the same time as uploads and other stuff going on simultaneously. Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogFibre Optical Broadband
-
I posted to distributedresearch.net
Fibre Optical Broadband
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2012/04/29/fibre-optical-broadband
- Tags:
- best broadband deals
- tools
- internet
- broadband connection
- sky
- BT
- Mobile
- broadband connections
- broadband provider
- bt openreach
- connectivity
- copper wire
- fibre optic cables
- fibre optics
- free broadband
- speed
- telegraph poles
April 29 2012, 6:47am | Comments »
-
I posted to distributedresearch.net
The Cooperative movement was born out a mixture of radical socialism and paternalist philanthropy
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/09/the-co-operative-revolution
The Cooperative movement was born out a mixture of radical socialism and paternalist philanthropy during a period of upheavals and change. It was a group called The Rochdale Pioneers who established the first successful co-operative in 1844, starting a revolution which is still going strong.In theory the cooperative movement provides an alternative to capitalism by changing the relationship between the workers and the owners of business. In a workers coop the business is owned by the workers collectively, although it still has to operate in a capitalist marketplace. Not all coops are workers coops though. The coop retail service was a form which claimed to share the ownership of the enterprise with the customers rather than just the workers. Customers were paid a dividend, terminology deliberately derived from shareholders dividends, which was paid out periodically according the amount spent in the coop supermarket. This system degenerated into a stamps scheme, which ended up almost like green shield stamps and is mirrored today by the loyalty card schemes operated by distinctly non cooperative retail giants Sainsbury and Tesco. There is much more to the Cooperative movement than the visible shops trying to compete on our high streets and retail parks though. Today in the UK, as well as The Co-operative Group with its six million members and 5,000 outlets across its family of businesses including food, financial services, travel, pharmacy and funerals, there are thousands of other co-operators who share the same heritage. The cooperative model is often the best way for rural communities to organise services such as broadband into areas where the big telecoms companies can’t be bothered to deliver. Alternative energy is another good example:
The UK’s first community owned wind farm, Baywind Energy Co-operative was established in 1996. The project has always favoured local investors, that way the economic benefits of the wind farm are kept within the community it serves. In 1998 Baywind secured a loan from The Co-operative Bank to purchase two turbines for their Harlock Hill site. It has also received several grants from The Co-operative Enterprise Hub to develop new, co-operatively owned wind farms across the UK. Baywind now typically generates around 10,000MWh of electricity each year – enough to power around 30,000 homes. And along with educational visits throughout the year, it funds environmental books for local schools. There’s even a Coop Facebook page now,which you can ‘Like’ to get updates. The Co-operative Join the revolution Get involved Sponsored Post
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe Cooperative movement was born out a mixture of radical socialism and paternalist philanthropy
Related posts:Movement on the bridge UK Farm infected with foot-and-mouth Wild birds not to blame
- Tags:
- economics
- best broadband deals
- broadband
- UK
- Community
- politics
- Social
- membership
- Communities
- Green
- socialism
- Environment
- revolution
- Society
- marketplace
- Arsenal
- Baywind
- capitalism
- change
- co operative group
- Co-operative
- cooperative model
- cooperative movement
- cooperative society
- Coperative
- Harlock Hill
- high streets
- loyalty card
- LRCoopWindfarm
- pharmacy
- philanthropy
- retail giants
- retail service
- rochdale pioneers
- rural communities
- Sainsbury
- telecoms companies
- Tesco
March 9 2011, 7:06am | Comments »
-
I posted to distributedresearch.net
BE Broadband ADSL2 – Best Broadband Deals
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2009/07/29/be-broadband-adsl2-best-broadband-deals
Best Broadband Deals BE Broadband ADSL2 My BE fast broadband box arrived today but I can’t start using it before the activation date on Friday, which is a bit frustrating on the one hand but on the other it’s great that they actually sent it out two days earlier than they said they would. I only actually got my home land line switched back to BT last Friday so that means only one week without home broadband while making the two-step switchover. It seems to be a good idea to do this at a time of year when most people are thinking about going away on summer holidays rather than upgrading their info telecomms systems.
The BE Broadband deal is the best for me because of the ADSL2 technology which allows speeds up to 24Mb and the Professional deal which has an option for faster uploading at the expense of a little bit of the huge download bandwidth. Upload speed is important to me when moving websites from one host to another, uploading high definition theatre breaks video or loads of pictures to Flickr. It should also be just the job for ensuring my Tuesday Night broadcasts on Ustream.tv run smoothly. Not everybody can get the BE broadband deal, you have to be lucky enough to live near a telephone exchange which is equipped with ADSL2 capability and that hasn’t been rolled out all over the country yet. Well neither has ADSL1 yet! So location is still very important for getting the best broadband deals. Mobile Broadband Dongle Deals
In the interim we’ve been making do mostly with a couple of T-Mobile pay as you go mobile ‘broadband’ dongles. It’s the only deal we found that doesn’t tie you into a 12 month or longer contract but hasn’t been as successful as I’d hoped due to the 3Gb monthly data transfer limit which I quickly used up in less than a week. All the dongle deals have that though, even the longer contracts After that I expected to get progressively capped the following month, but no – the service just stopped working until the next calendar month which is no use to me. In fact the realisation that mobile broadband just isn’t good enough yet for business use makes the whole idea of location independent living seem more like a dream for the future than a practical reality for here and now. Getting by temporarily without Broadband I found it much harder than I expected to adapt to offline working with sporadic broadband access. After a few days I’d resorted to installing google gears for offline gmail reading, re-installed an old client RSS reader and installed WordPress Turbo (google gears again) on quite a few blogs for faster updating when I did get through. I finally got around to looking back through some old mini-dv tapes to capture some old video clips – very time consuming, and I tidied up my apllications and downloads folders a bit. I couldn’t really settle down to proper ‘flow state’ work though, and I suspect it would take weeks or more to really get back into the habit of working mainly in batch mode offline, if at all. The conclusion therefore is that a good, fast and 99.99% reliable broadband connection is absolutely essential to the conducting of any business even with just an online element to it. I would happily pay upwards of £100 per month for such a system if it existed, so the difference between a £9.50 a month cheap broadband deal service and a £24 one is not the price but the vital quality of service which needs to be the best.
Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogBE Broadband ADSL2 – Best Broadband Deals
Related posts:The Post Office for Best Broadband DealsLocation Independent Working
- Tags:
- best broadband deals
- broadband
- broadband connection
- ustreamtv
- adsl2 technology
- bandwidth
- download
- flow state
- high definition
- home broadband
- Location Independent
- mobile dongle deals
- rss reader
- t mobile
- telephone exchange
- uploading
July 29 2009, 6:41am | Comments »
-
I posted to distributedresearch.net
The Post Office for Best Broadband Deals
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2008/10/27/the-post-office-for-best-broadband-deals
I think the Post Office might be one of the best broadband deals for anybody making the move from dial up to broadband for the first time because of the hand-holding you get with the setting up. It’s also a serious contender for anybody disatisfied with their present broadband provider and considering switching over. The Post Office have a simple choice of broadband and/or telephone package with a free calls option and either medium usage or unlimited downloads. With all broadband options there is no connection or setting up charge and with broadband unlimited you get a free wireless router. The homephone option also includes free calls to UK mobiles and twenty top international destinations. Post Office Broadband
Q Which are these top 20 destinations for free international phone calls? A According to this new release from Royal Mail Group the list includes: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, USA. For alternative broadband suppliers maybe check out Best Broadband Deals .org.uk
Posted by Andy Roberts The Post Office for Best Broadband Deals
October 27 2008, 3:18am | Comments »
-
I posted to hubpages.com
Best broadband deals UK
http://hubpages.com/hub/best-broadband-deals-UK
What's happened recently in the UK market for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is that competition has forced down prices so the best broadband deals are changing from month to month.
August 12 2008, 2:22pm | Comments »
1
