if connected

When I started this blog last November I agonised over the name. Implicit in “Being Connected” is the idea of an always-on Internet. But “always-on” is a term that we all use blithely without thinking about it.

Most of the time, we still use a PC to browse websites or create content. But the PC isn’t an always-on device, or if it is always-on, it’s not where people actually are living for large parts of every day. Home broadband connections may be “always-on” but only the infirm live their lives exclusively at home. Laptops enable people to enjoy mobile broadband out and about but laptops are too bulky to carry all of the time and take too long to set-up on a flat surface to deliver anything other than a part-time Internet.

The devices that create an always-on digital life are the increasing numbers of Internet mobile phones. These are carried 24×7 and  are carried in easily accessible pockets for instant Google, email, Facebook or whatever.

The mobile phone isn’t significant because it’s mobile. If mobile was the most important aspect of the mobile phone, then mobile’s role in people’s lives would be limited to ‘away from home’ or ‘out of the office’ situations. But people use their phones inside the home as much if not greater as outside: studies on mobile TV and mobile phone calling show very high usage at home. Plus people don’t leave their personal mobile phones outside of the office. No. They carry their personal digital lives into work on-board those personal mobile phones. This increases the collision between work and personal lives.

What’s important about the Internet mobile phone is that mobiles deliver a 24×7 digital life. One where people are connected all of the time, should they choose.

I’ve started writing about this idea, in the increasingly misnamed “day” job here:
How Mobile Handsets Will Deliver 24×7 Social Computing

Bootnote – If people carry Blackberries or work mobile phones 24×7, is it still a “day” job?

This is an interesting initiative to help consumers test whether their unlimited broadband services really are unlimited and deliver on how they are marketed.
There’s quite a bit of work to be done before this kind of test is ready for the mass market. At the moment, this tool is for savvy tech users only. But what I can see happening over time, is that a new kind of ‘net neutrality’ speed test will evolve and be available alongside the existing website speed tests on sites like Think Broadband or DSL Reports. These tests would measure VoIP, online gaming, peer to peer, and other Internet application performances and spot any interference or degradation.
Regular readers will know that I have strong views on the marketing of broadband. My view remains that it is in ISPs’ own best interests to become more transparent on speeds, traffic management and limits. However, there is a dilemma in that there is little reason for any single ISP to be honest if their competitors are not. There needs to be industry-wide action to improve clarity and transparency in how broadband is advertised.
Otherwise, consumers will see no reason to spend more on more expensive broadband packages. Why would they, if they lose confidence in ISPs’ descriptions of the package performances?
Read about European consumers’ views about ISP interference and net neutrality in this JupiterResearch report.

Sky’s ‘See, Speak, Surf’ marketing wins: Sky reaches 1 million broadband customers.
But while Sky report that “around 70% of Sky Broadband customers are taking a paid-for [broadband] option”, the actual revenue impact will be fairly modest for now. The paid broadband options are only £5 a month or £10 a month incremental.
Much more importantly for Sky is this metric: “Around 30% of customers who have joined Sky Broadband so far are new Sky TV customers.”
What of the cable companies that have had a head start of more than five years of marketing triple play, although with much more modest results?
Well, VirginMedia is altering its strategy away from bundles (!), away from pay TV, and instead plans to focus on high speed broadband. This is a sign of weakness from VirginMedia. Their long cherished differentiator of triple play simply isn’t unique any more, and as usual, Sky is following through on its stated bundle strategy with tremendous efficiency.
VirginMedia’s cable broadband does have some advantages over Sky’s DSL, but the cable operator must come much closer to matching Sky’s ability to execute on its strategy. Otherwise, Sky will continue to extend its lead.

Today, BT and FON have announced that BT home broadband users will be able to share their DSL connections and become Foneros. In return, such users will be able to use any FON WiFi hotspot, anywhere in the world. The main focus will be a software upgrade of BT’s existing home hubs to enable FON support. This is similar to the Neuf-FON model in France.
This service is usable with all types of consumer devices: from laptops (which are becoming increasingly important for consumers); iPods such as the new Touch; Nintendo DS’s; as well as dual-mode WiFi-cellular BT Fusion phones.
FON is a natural partner for BT. While BT is one of Europe’s historic operators, in the mobile space it’s a disruptive player not an incumbent. Formerly, BT was owner of infrastructure-owning mobile operator O2 (then Cellnet), but now BT is just a mere MVNO and so benefits from all technologies which enable it to avoid paying MVNO-related fees.
BT has much to gain from leveraging FON. The equity stake BT is taking in FON (value undisclosed) is a sign of how important BT believes WiFi to be to its ‘total broadband’ proposition. But it will take time for the benefit to appear in BT’s bottom line. For now, the FON partnership is about adding value for BT customers and to help to position BT as an innovative sexy company.
Similarly to BT, France’s Neuf has a similar partnership with FON. While the Neuf-FON link up was announced last year, the service also went live this week, also with a big fanfare.
But I’m especially pleased to see BT making a product announcement where the service is available (almost) immediately. This is very unusual for BT. Such rapid delivery will help BT with its innovative positioning: Sexy Internet companies rarely take months/years to deliver on a new product announcement.
Note for potential users – there are a few initial limitations and quirks (clients should ask us). Many of these will be fixed between now and March.

This is going to be the first in a few entries on ISPs’ wild and confusing claims for their broadband service….
First up are the European cable companies that are jumping on the fibre bandwagon and implying that their service is similar/the same as the fibre to the home (FTTH) services launching in France and elsewhere.
Background: traditional cable networks use HFC technology which stands for hybrid fibre coax. In simple terms what this means is: Fibre runs to near the consumer’s home — like a street cabinet — and then a copper core coax cable runs down each road with branches into customer homes. The coax is shared capacity for broadband: the more capacity one house uses the less there is for neighbours.
Several European cable operators are now using the word ‘fibre’ rather too prominently in their corporate backgrounders, investors beware, and even in the case of Virgin Media in their consumer marketing. Virgin’s current poster campaign proclaims:

Truth, Lies and Broadband
Hello,
There are lots of companies out there selling ‘high speed’ broadband, claiming to be the fastest and cheapest in the land.
The truth is this… right now, in terms of broadband, there are two types of home in the UK.
Half of us can get cable broadband. This is delivered via a fibre optic cable — meaning it is officially the fastest and the best performing broadband available.

[My emphasis. It goes on in a similar vein.]
The key word in the above text is “via”.
This usage of the word ‘fibre’ is highly misleading and confusing. The service of ADSL broadband consumers will also go via fibre at some point, typically from the telephone exchange onwards, so what’s the actual difference??? Also, unlike cable’s HFC, ADSL uses uncontended (ie unshared) copper between the consumer and the telephone exchange, unlike cable’s shared coax running around the street. So, although telephone line quality and distance matter for ADSL there are some advantages for ADSL over HFC.
Bottom line: The most important bottleneck for broadband performance today, is not the technology that delivers the connection to a house, but the overall network capacity that ISPs allow throughout their network. And, as ISPs are cutting consumer broadband prices, they have less incentive to invest in such network capacity.
Going back to Virgin, briefly, their earlier radio advertising campaign was even worse:

You can now get Virgin Broadband for just £10 a month and it’s not just any old broadband. It’s unlimited super duper fast fibre-optic cable broadband or in other words broadband that doesn’t use copper wire like most providers and doesn’t slow down no matter how far you live from the telephone exchange.

Arghhh.
In my opinion, the word via is not enough to fix the message from the July radio adverts for the current print campaign and make the message clear. The word via just results in:
Truth, Lies, Ambiguities and Broadband

The current Virgin Media poster:

There’s an assumption I encounter regularly in Europe — typically from US-based folks — that while cable is weak here now, cable will win out in the long run; that cable is the natural broadband winner and delivers better quality than DSL; and that triple plays and multiplays are something only a cable company can deliver.
Someone should tell Sky.
Today, Sky announced their latest quarterly results:
- 8 million TV households in the UK alone, plus more in Ireland, that’s almost two and half times the UK’s cable operator.
- 716,000 DSL customers, just one year after launch. This already amounts to one fifth of cable’s broadband base. But Sky is growing quarter on quarter at over 56 percent, compared with 3 percent for cable broadband.
- 526,000 telephony customers.
- 2.4 million DVR households.
- 70 percent reach of UK households for the Sky LLU DSL network which is now greater availability than the UK’s cable network. In time, Sky will use DSL to deliver VOD as well as broadband. Plus, Sky have almost universal TV availability from DTH satellite.
Why is Sky so strong here and not cable? Some of the main factors:
Market: The regulatory environment in the UK is totally different. DSL lines are shorter / better quality and so can deliver faster speeds more reliably. The DSL industry is set up to enable new entrants and the incumbent telecoms operator is relatively weak. The telephony market is organized to foster competition.
Company dynamics: Sky has a strong brand and is tremendous at executing on its strategy. Cable is still working through the growing pains of numerous mergers over the last 10-15 years, frequent re-brandings, highly variable network quality between franchise areas, and has an ongoing hangover from surviving chapter 11.
Read more about how DSL and cable compare in a variety of European countries in these reports :
Cable Broadband Versus DSL,
How to Survive in Someone Else’s Market
Competitive DSL ISPs,
Understanding Multiplay Broadband Packaging Strategies in Europe
Cable Broadband in Europe,
Benchmarking Broadband Package-Tier Tactics.

OK, so the title is a tiny bit misleading. The spirit of the title is correct, if not the letter:

Dial-up Internet access feels slower than it used to because web site designers are used to building for the broadband-connected majority. Page sizes on existing sites have crept up and this penalizes dial-up users. Technically, of course, dial-up operates at exactly the same speeds as five years ago.

The speed that matters for PC Internet access is the experience and not the technology: subjective speed, not objective speed. It’s the same concept I wrote about for mobile phones and handhelds recently (and more here).
What are the impacts?

Devices that expect dial-up speeds (e.g. including GPRS or Edge) to be good enough for consumers now, because the same objective speed was acceptable five years ago, are making a shaky assumption.

Consumers that remain on dial-up Internet access at home are experiencing an Internet that feels slower than it did. And that assumes they remain browsing the same sites they always have. If they are tempted by Youtube, Dailymotion, Flickr, or any of the real broadband sites then those parts of the Internet will either slow right down or become a no go area. ISPs have another opportunity here to communicate why that small number of consumers remaining on dial-up must switch to broadband.