UK Cities Will Get Better Broadband

They have announced a list of cities eligible to bid for super-fast broadband funding. However, the experts think that the cash might make no difference to a lot of British cities.

After the authorities have announced that the 4 capital cities in the United Kingdom will be awarded part of a £100 million fund created for developing high speed broadband, they revealed a list of cities who’ll scrap it out for broadband cash.

The permit to grab the remaining money and find themselves a part of the super-fast broadband project was given to Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and Bradford. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently taking bids from the towns able to plead the best case for receiving the money, which will involve explanation of how they are going to use the 80-100 Mbps speeds to push growth. Meanwhile, the broadband will be supplied by ISPs BT and Virgin.

As you understand, the competition will mean that some cities will lose out on the cash. However, it still seems to make it easier to allocate the resources more fairly. Industry observers think that there are still doubts about the ability to make a difference to 10 cities taking into account the amount on the table. By limiting the funding to 4 pre-selected capital cities, and adding 6 out of the 10 cities only going to get into the project, the UK will least have an idea of how far the money will have to spread. The authorities pointed out that a lot of cities are already approaching existing targets for 2015, like Cardiff, despite the fact that such steps might have been made prior to any knowledge of further funding.

Mainly, the cities have been working towards improving Internet connection, though it is not clear whether some of their projects were going ahead with the prior knowledge that government funding might be available. However, experts agree that the offered amount is little in comparison to the scale of the task in improving broadband systems, but if the authorities will carefully target the worst served locations, it might make a difference. Nevertheless, the best people can expect is that the project will ensure broadband at speeds well above the 2 Mbps available everywhere.

BitTorrent Contributed To Network Decongestion

Erik Klinker, BitTorrent’s Chief Executive Officer, attended the Broadband World Forum that took place in France. As a result, he came with a new solution for an old problem of network congestion because of P2P. A new open-source technology called Micro Transport Protocol or xTP has already been introduced into the company’s application in order to increase the performance of network by decongesting it.

Most of the information flying around the web is transmitted through TCP, which works by breaking it down and later reassembling at the other end of the network link. However, Klinker explained that this method is obsolete, because TCP defines congestion based on lost packets. He compared the network congestion to driving a car through a school zone and only slowing down after having struck the first pedestrian.

As opposed to TCP protocol, the xTP technology would detect the network congestion on the early stage and try to fix it, because it was designed in the philosophy of yielding to traffic. BitTorrent promised that xTP will no longer be the cause of the web congestion thanks to new mechanisms. Mr. Klinker noted that if the company could somehow address the problem of network congestion, it would end up addressing the network cost issue. He also came with a prediction, saying that the worldwide web is going to evolve and develop in the direction of a multimedia network. What is it for the users? A lot more big files at the very least, and you can consider many other advantages.

BitTorrent CEO announced that the company will develop this new direction. BitTorrent has already begun to facilitate transferring large amounts of information from digital devices and gadgets, and it will do much more in the nearest future. Klinker promised that the industry will soon see the company rolling out software that would help liberate media from the above mentioned devices in order to share it easier with family and friends.

Many will agree with Erik Klinker that content doesn’t present any value until it is shared and seen. That’s where it becomes hard for today’s networks in the first place. While the devices at the edge of the network are rapidly increasing in capability, the today’s networks stay the same and are governed by the same old mechanisms.

Canadians Opposed Surveillance Legislation

The governing party of Canada – the Conservatives – was planning an omnibus crime legislation which was supposed to include surveillance provision. Although the bill is not yet tabled, opposition to this bill is already growing.

Recently the web was hit by the suggestions that the Canadian surveillance bill may be bundled in to omnibus crime legislation and tabled in the near future. That wasn’t exactly news for industry observers, but the news was that multiple experts, academics and organizations have stepped up to formally oppose the bill in question. They have recently sent an open letter to Prime Minister where they voiced their concerns about the proposed legislation. The opposers cited previous laws making up the surveillance legislation in the last government session and expressed their concerns about them. The particular concern is that three of the proposed bills would have serious negative implications for the privacy rights of the citizens. In addition, the controversial aspects would not receive the scrutiny they deserve if they were rolled into an omnibus bill.

The main focus of concern was the ease by which the country’s ISPs, social networks, and even their handsets and cars can be turned into instruments to spy on their activities, thus implicating fundamental rights and freedoms. In addition, the letter contains a very detailed list of other concerns, warning that the costs of enforcing such measures would finally be passed on to consumers, because it is a new cost of doing business for Internet service providers. Actually, it has precedent: in France, when the country’s government forced Internet service providers to adopt a “three-strikes” regime, the broadband providers just passed the costs of implementing the system on to their subscribers.

Although the letter was signed by a lot of people and organizations, there’s a difference between when the citizens were fighting dangerous bills in the past and today. The matter is that the Conservatives have a majority government, which means they are able to pass whatever bills they want without fearing an opposition. In other words, no evidence or reason would matter to the government, it will simply legislate how it likes, and this is the government the country is stuck with.