INW Group Ltd

British Telecom (BT) has admitted its chairman is the only person in a village on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border with broadband.
Other people in Hambleden were told they could not have broadband because of the distance to the exchange.
BT said Sir Michael Rake’s connection was part of a trial of new technology, and no company could afford to provide broadband to the area.
One local resident said it was not fair and that Sir Michael should resign.
‘Preferential treatment’
In a statement, BT wrote: “Trials of new technologies are often conducted among a company’s own staff so there is nothing unusual in this situation.
“BT has learnt a lot through the trial the chairman participated in and hopefully those lessons will benefit the residents of Hambleden in due course.
“We have sympathy for the residents of Hambleden.
“Several companies actually supply broadband from the exchange serving their village but the lines between the village and the exchange are simply too long to support a broadband service.”
Gary Ashworth, who lives in Hambleden, said: “If I was a BT shareholder I’d be upset… I think one can live with it, if it’s a level playing field it’s not a problem.
“It’s this preferential treatment that Sir Michael Rake has had that’s upset most of the villagers.”
In May research commissioned by the BBC found that about three million homes in the UK have no broadband or speeds of less than two megabits per second (2Mbps).
The government has promised to provide all homes in the UK with speeds of at least 2Mbps by 2012.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8386224.stm

Online backup services can be a useful component of a broader backup strategy. But from security to completeness to speed and cost, there are a number of factors to consider before deciding if online backup is the right thing to do.
“Moving to the cloud” is a popular buzz phrase these days, and online backup is one of the poster children for the concept. In a nutshell, the idea is that with ubiquitous connectivity why not store important data out on the internet, in “the cloud” as some people call it?
By using services and servers provided by Intelligent Networks on the internet, you can keep all your email online (nothing new here, Hotmail and others have been around for years), your documents online (Google docs, for example), and more. The advantage is that all you usually need is a computer and a browser and not only can you access your documents from just about anywhere, but you’re also less concerned about your own system crashes and the software installed on your machine.
So if “the cloud” is such a good place for your data why not for the backups of your data that you do keep on your machine?
Why not online backups?
It’s definitely an option, if used properly, so here are some things to consider:
It’s not practical to backup everything online. If you do the math, for most people it would take days if not weeks to upload a complete copy of everything on their machine, simply because of the limited upload speed of their internet connection. This means that you likely won’t be backing up your operating system, your settings or anything but your data.
The implication is simple: if you have a major system failure and lose everything, your online backup won’t help restore your machine. It’ll only restore your data after you’ve rebuilt your machine and reinstalled the operating system and applications.
That might be a valid choice, but it’s a choice you need to be aware of.
You must be online. This might sound obvious, but in many cases it’s not.
It’s in the cloud. Accessible from anywhere? By any computer?
The risk is the same risk you run when using any online service: if someone steals your account information, they have access to your information. If you’ve been backing things up online and somehow your account is compromised, the attacker could have access to everything.
The good news here is that this is something that’s in your control, and goes back to the basics of online account management and safety: use good, strong passwords, don’t write them down, don’t share with people you don’t absolutely trust, stay safe in open WiFi hotspots, avoid malware (good news, we have a solution of that!) and so on. The steps are relatively easy.
The other concern many people express is the security of their data even after maintaining the security of their account. There’s good news here as well. As long as you stick with reputable online services such as oursleves the technology used typically encrypts your backups in such a way that no one but you can actually see it. (Often not even in an emergency, I might add, so don’t lose that password! )
So, is it a good idea?
All I can say is yes. Used properly!. Certainly it’s very lucrative to know that if your computer, or even your home, were to go up in flames that your important data would be safe and secure out there somewhere. In fact, that’s exactly why a type of remote online backup is a part of my own backup strategy.
But it’s only a part. I use it as a safety net in part of a larger strategy that includes nightly backups at home, and some carefully thought out backup strategies when I travel like carrying a USB thumb drive or disk.
I’d am very hesitant to use only an online backup service, so I would not recommend it to our customers, but as a component of a larger picture, it can easily make sense, as it does for me!

One thing is clear: the internet needs of business is escalating, not least on bandwidth issues. Many would say that the need for broadband is now overtaking the need for Voice, as when a problem occurs with the voice network we have variable alternatives but when Broadband fails, as a business what do we do???

So where does that leave VoIP?

VoIP has always suffered from Quality of Service (QoS) issues, there’s no getting around that or is there???. Crackling lines, dropped connections, and incompatible VoIP formats results in a poor user experience that reflects poorly on the technology. But is this the technology which is VoIP fault, or simply the vehicle which it needs to be able to deliver it services? Quietly simply it is the latter! If you had to be held from the top of the BT tower would you buy a piece of string or a engineered piece of climbing rope? No option really, so how can businesses expect to deliver a VoIP service on a £14.99 residential, highly contended broadband connection. Simply you can’t!

With broadband services in the UK being sold on price points as opposed to QoS, it’s no wonder that many people’s experiences of VoIP or hosted services isn’t necessarily the most positive.

There are Solutions to these connectivity problems though, using existing ADSL technologies: leased lines, VPN, WAN and bonded ADSL services all offer the ability to supercharge a company’s broadband potential.

The trouble is, historically many of these services have remained out of reach of small business because of the cost-investment required to apply them.

The result is a two-tier internet provision - mass market , and specialist high-budget services.

However, as activities increase and especially video usage and VoIP becomes an increasing norm, the expectation is that market forces will adapt to bring more users from the mass market into the higher end services. However savy business owners will realised this is available now!!

We’re not yet seeing that happen, but we are still living in the early days of a media-rich internet. As technologies, pricing models, and user activity matures in these areas we should see continued progress in this area.

In the meantime, VoIP still has a somewhat uncertain reputation. It is a service which simply is being positioned wrong in the market place, this is not a service which should be sold to B2B on a zero price-point but a service which will enhance the productivity of their business.

We are now starting to see advanced ADSL technologies expand and increase in availability, so will we see VoIP not as a free bundled service, but a quality paid-for service in its own right?