Business Internet Community

It is an issue that is guaranteed to generate differing, often strong opinions. Do you allow access to Social Media sites such as Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter on the company computers and in company time?

For some senior managers, accessing social networks can be seen as a time wasting, distracting technology to be banned from the office without doubt. For others – including the many younger workers entering the workforce – it can be seen as a right and a necessity. They see it as a tool for getting work done rather than one that prevents it.

What is your attitude to access and is there a way to ensure permission doesn’t lead to misuse?

The world of work is changing and Social Media can be used to business advantage. Workers are also changing and the technology is changing with them. New hires (and those of recent years) are likely to have been accustomed to being able to access web resources for a number of tasks during their University education and will feel that they are working at a disadvantage when they find sites like Facebook or Wikipedia blocked from their view. There are even a growing number of older, greyer heads who are seeing the advantages of Social Media for their business(es).

There are technology tools that will ensure that the security of the business network is maintained and ways of monitoring that there is sensible use of the technologies within the network. A policy that puts the onus on to the employees to ensure that they are reasonable in their time use and responsible in the sites that they access, is now commonplace in many businesses and examples should be easily found. Intel’s policy for example is commented upon in this blog.

At another level, this is not a technology issue. It is also a management style issue – Theory X versus Theory Y. For those who find banning works for them, underlying the issue is the belief that workers given an inch will take a mile and that, at essence, workers only do what you can make them do. Social Media (as with home working) can be seen as a way of allowing recalcitrant workers to do things that management can’t see and control and therefore to be avoided.

Fortunately, the approach of management is changing and managing people by the outputs they produce rather than the amount of hard work they put in is more compatible with a world where responsible adults are assumed (and incentivised) to have the interests of their business at heart. The benefit of allowing people to work in the style they choose is that they may, indeed, be better motivated and more productive than their more controlled counterparts and the business will reap the rewards.

So, if your policy is to ban the use of such approaches because you believe they have no place in the workplace or because you simply don’t understand where they fit, try the approach of allowing their use and take the time to find out how and why they will benefit your business.

BT (Wholesale Division) is confident it can cope with the extra demands the swine flu pandemic may put on the UK’s broadband network. It follows a meeting with the Government and emergency services which raised doubts about whether the network could cope. There were concerns it could freeze as more people suspected of having the virus are encouraged to work from home.

“BT’s network is in a strong position to cope with the expected demands in home working,” the firm said in a statement.

In our opinion, the real issue will be for companies to ensure that their own computing systems are robust enough if many people are going to be remotely accessing machines in their offices. This uses both upstream and downstream capacity. What is likely to happen, is that the evening peak spike may be repeated during the day and providers that have no spare capacity now, will struggle. This could give the impression that the infrastructure is failing.

Microsoft has announced a free web-based version of its Office software. Office 2010 will include lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote when it ships next year. The new web offering will compete with Google’s free online Docs suite launched three years ago.

Microsoft said that 400 million customers who are Windows Live consumers will have access to the Office web applications at no cost. At a conference for business partners in New Orleans, Microsoft announced an early release of web-apps to thousands of testers later this year. At the end of the year the company expects to release a proper public beta for the software and ship a final version off to PC makers in the first half of 2010.

Analysts have mostly given the thumbs up to Microsoft for moving some of its applications to the web, even if it might cost them dearly. The Wall Street Journal has estimated that offering free online software could “put at risk as much at $4bn (£2.46bn) in revenue”.

One analyst told the paper that despite such losses, it could be a canny move. “Making sure people are still using Microsoft products is more important” in the short term than risking revenue, explained Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

Microsoft’s announcement is being seen as the latest move in a tit-for-tat rivalry between two tech giants as it and Google increasingly make efforts to encroach on one another’s turf.

OFCOM has published predicted coverage maps for each of the UK’s five 3G mobile operators. These are predictions based on propagation models and show areas where an outdoor 3G signal exceeds a minimum threshold signal strength for “50% of locations and 50% of the time”. OFCOM acknowledge that the network operators have more sophisticated models that are liklely to be more accurate.

Given the definition of coverage it is quite possible that an individual user will live in an area defined to have coverage and find that it only works outside a building or only works 50% of the time, so the value of the maps is somewhat limited. They do however give a comparison of operators and a feel for the national coverage – which is actually quite limited in Wales, Scotland, East Anglia and the South West.

Three have the widest coverage, no doubt because they are a 3G service using 3G for voice and video as well as broadband access. Orange is the most widespread of the other four operators.

Ericsson, one of the world’s leading suppliers of mobile phones and related network solutions, has warned that it could be 2012 before the first true next generation Mobile Broadband networks gain a good foothold in the UK. The deployment of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology (aka – 4G), which could deliver download speeds of 150 to 1000Mbps, is being hampered by problems with releasing the needed 900Mhz spectrum.

Presently both O2 and Vodafone own some of the older 2G (900MHz) spectrum, which Ofcom is seeking to have redistributed to rival operators (Orange , T-Mobile and 3). This could then be converted for use by 3G/4G voice and Mobile Broadband technologies, such as HSPA and LTE .

The recent failure of Lord Carters Digital Britain report to reach a quick agreement on the matter means that the process will now not be complete until the end of 2010. Ericsson has informed PC Pro Magazine that it could then take until 2012 before LTE begins to saturate the UK market. Then there’s the big issue of advertised versus real-world speeds.

Ericsson’s Chief Technology Officer, John Cunliffe, said:

“The technical guys know that advertising those big speeds is damaging, but they’re the numbers the marketing guys want to push. It’s difficult, if one company is advertising the maximum speed, for another to then turn around and advertise the likely speed. It’s going to need everybody to be honest.”

Ericsson continued on to state that its roadmap aims to deploy 150Mbps but will ultimately upgrade to 300Mbps and then 600Mbps within the first phase/generation. Future ‘Advanced LTE’ enhancements could also hit 1Gbps, although none of these speeds are truly representative of what consumers can expect to receive.

LTE is certainly going to be a lot better at latency and handling multiple users, which has been a weak point of HSPA and older 3G or even 2G technologies; if you get too many people trying to go online in one area then the network can quickly before unworkable. There are also issues of capacity to consider, with mobile data being very expensive. It’s hard to see how operators could afford what LTE is capable of delivering.

The reality of 4G Mobile Broadband is likely to be faster and more stable, albeit not hugely so. Most current HSPA based 3G deployments can deliver speeds of up to 7.2Mbps, yet consumers usually see, at best, just 25% of that. The delay to LTE means that HSPA can be enhanced further to 14Mbps and possibly 42Mbps with HSPA+, although we expect the distance between what is advertised and what is delivered to become even more apparent.

To make matters worse T-Mobile is looking to sell its UK business, with both O2 and Vodafone in the frame as possible suitors. This could also place T-Mobile’s complex network sharing agreement with Three (3) into uncertain territory and confuse the whole 900Mhz debate even further.

Miscreants have created a Michael Jackson mass-mailing worm. The malware, which follows a growing list of other hacking attacks in the wake of the superstar’s death last week, claims to offer secret songs and photos of Jackson in an attached zip file. In reality, the emails (which claim to come from sarah@michaeljackson.com) offer only malicious code.

The mass mailing worm – identified by Symantec as Ackantta-F – spreads in messages that typically bear the subject line “Remembering Michael Jackson.”

Ackantta is far from the only item of malware trying to ride on the coat-tails of Michael Jackson’s death.

For example, an executable file posted on counterfeit photo-sharing sites was detected by F-Secure last week. The malware tried to established a backdoor on compromised Windows PCs, as explained here.

Separately, a domain loaded with exploit code – supposedly touting Jackson death conspiracy theories – is actually just an outlet for an exploit tool, Sunbelt Software warns. The malicious domain is being promoted via an enthusiastic spamming campaign.

Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox 3.5, calling it the best performing version of its popular web browser ever released, offering better JavaScript performance, private browsing, native support for open video and audio, and location aware surfing.

Built through Mozilla’s global, open source development process, Firefox 3.5 is said to be more than two times faster than Firefox 3 and ten times faster than Firefox 2 on complex websites thanks to a new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. The new version arrives roughly one year after the release of Firefox 3.0, which was also billed as “two to three times faster” than its predecessor.

Firefox 3.5 has undergone “extensive under-the-hood work to support new technologies” that will allow Web developers to create the next generation of Web content, Mozilla says. It also packs a handful of user-oriented features such as:

Open Video and Audio: Supports playback of video and audio content from within the browser, without the need for plugins. Web developers can use these technologies to design pages that interact with video content in new and interesting ways, offering richer interactive experiences beyond controlling playback and volume.

Privacy Controls: Like the “Private Browsing” feature of Apple’s Safari web browser, an identically-named addition to Firefox 3.5 similarly prevents the browser from storing anything related to a browser session once it’s been activated.

Unique to Firefox 3.5, however, is a new Forget this Site feature that removes every trace of a site from a user’s browser. Users who want to remove all private data or activity from the past few hours can also use a Clear Recent History function, which is another Firefox-only feature that offers users more control “over what stays and what goes.”

Location Aware Browsing: Location Aware Browsing is an optional feature that, when enabled, lets websites tap into a user’s location information to find nearby points of interest and return additional, data-like maps of their particular area.

Firefox is currently the world’s second-leading browser with a 22.5% share of the global web browser market. It trails only Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which maintains 65.5% of the market. Apple’s Safari is distant third with just under 8.5% market share.

OUT-LAW.COM, an online legal information site, has warned that neither regulators nor law protect Net Neutrality (restriction free access to legal online content and services) in the UK, where ISPs are free to block content from those that do not pay them to deliver it.

OUT-LAW Radio investigated whether there was any legal barrier in the UK to an ISP slowing or blocking access to video services, such as the iPlayer or YouTube, and found that there are none. As long as an ISP explains its actions in its Fair Use Policy (FUP) or statements of Terms and Conditions (T&C) then it is permitted to block whatever it likes.

In other words, if your ISP decided that you couldn’t access the YouTube website unless you paid them extra then you would have no choice but to accept. A spokeswoman for telecoms regulator Ofcom said that ISPs all had to abide by its General Conditions, but that these did not specify that all Internet traffic had to be treated equally. Ofcom considered the matter but never reached any conclusions.

A lawyer at consumer protection body Which?’s legal division added that consumers would only have grounds for complaint if a connection was interfered with without notification.

Stephen McGlade of Which? Legal Services:

“The Supply of Goods and Services Act relates to their broadband contract so basically there is an obligation there to provide the service that was previously promised and as described. If there is any situation where the internet connection is reduced in some way obviously one would have to look at the service contract, at the terms and conditions, to see what it says in relation to that service agreement.”

Naturally some degree of traffic management is often necessary, especially on budget priced broadband services, to help balance network load and give everybody a reasonable service. The problem is that the absence of Net Neutrality can also have a darker side, where UK ISPs effectively have the power to censor the entire Internet; not that ‘most’ of them would want to.

Imagine if you were only allowed to view selected websites or content. For example, consider the outcry if the boss of an ISP with a dislike for the BBC decided to block their websites and content. There are clearly some very sensitive political as well as service implications.

It is, in our view, patently absurd for any ISP to suggest that legal content developers should pay them (the ISP) for the delivery of their content. Content is what makes the Internet what it is and, while the costs of bandwidth may not always be cheap, it is ultimately the consumer that has to pay for what they use; just like your gas, water or electricity supply.

The European Commission has called on the US to let the internet’s main governing body become accountable to the whole of the world.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which is based in California, is responsible for running core internet functions such as the assignment of address space, and the management of top-level domains and the root zone file. Icann performs these tasks on behalf of the US government, under an agreement that will expire on 30 September.

“The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is approaching a historic point in its development,” said information society and media commissioner Viviane Reding in a statement on Thursday. “Will it become a fully independent organisation, accountable to the global internet community? Europeans would expect so, and this is what we will push for. I call on the US to work together with the European Union to achieve this.”

According to the Commission, the EU has nearly 19 percent of the world’s internet users, despite having just over seven percent of the world’s population.

“Internet usage and penetration is now so high, especially in developed countries such as those of the EU, that it has become a critical resource, where any serious disruption in service can have potentially catastrophic effects on society and the economy,” the Commission said.

The Commission praised the private-sector nature of Icann and other, more regional internet administration companies such as Europe’s RIPE NCC, but said the banking crisis had led to a public expectation “that governments will be more proactive than they may have been in the past in defending the public interest”.

Icann should be accountable to the governments of the world, but is currently accountable only to the US government, the Commission said. “The stability and management of the root-zone file is, however, a matter of crucial importance not just to the US government but to all countries of the world,” the Commission said. The root-zone file is a database file that contains much of the information necessary for running the internet’s domain name system.

The Commission also noted that international accountability was essential for bridging the global digital divide.

“The first billion internet users have been largely from the developed world, and the initial governance decisions and structures were, not surprisingly, mostly made by participants from developed countries,” the Commission said. “The next billion users will mostly come from the developing world, however, and their interests must be taken into account in any governance arrangements made for the future.”

The UK government has published the final ‘Digital Britain report’ in an attempt to describe the digital future economy. The 245-page report can be downloaded in full here.

The main key points of the report are as follows:

1. The UK is to have a Universal Service Commitment of 2Mbps (2 Mega bits per second) by 2012, this is to be funded in a number of ways, £200m surplus from the Digital Switch Over Help Scheme, commercial gain through tender contract, contributions from private partners, money from other public sector organisations, consumers themselves by resolving wiring issues in their homes. Additionally the wider coverage obligations placed on mobile broadband providers will help to meet this obligation.
2. The report does not set an minimum speed for upstream or latency, though does suggest that money spent on meeting the USO should be spent in such a way that does not preclude expansion to Next Generation speeds in the future.
3. A 50p per month on fixed copper lines (basically telephone lines, i.e. residential phone lines, business analogue lines, ISDN2 lines and cable telephone lines. This £6 a year will go into the Next Generation Fund, the purpose of which is to fund the roll-out of Next Generation services in the third of the country where at this time commercial operators are saying solutions like fibre are not feasible. A sum of £150m to £170m is expected to be raised per year from the fund, with the aim of connecting most of the final third by 2017.
4. The 50p levy is not part of providing the basic 2Mbps USO.
5. In the area of illegal file sharing the report outlines a proposal to legislate and give Ofcom the a duty in reducing the amount of file sharing over the Internet in the UK. This will comprise of notifying account holders when it appears their account has been used to infringe copyright, and an obligation to keep records so that serious repeat infringers can be identified and thus allow targeted court action against the most damaging breaches of copyright.
6. A code of practice to underline these obligations will be produced, which should set out the processes for rights holders to inform Ofcom.
7. Ofcom will also be provided with additional powers, so that if this warning system does not have a significant impact on illegal file sharing then Ofcom can place additional conditions on broadband providers. For example blocking of sites, port blocking, bandwidth capping, data volume caps, traffic shaping. This measures are only expected to be used if the overall level of illegal file-sharing does not diminish after a 6 month initial period.
8. The report outlines that it plans for the first stages of the warning system will be deemed successful if infringement is reduced by 70% in the first year.
9. Fair use gets a mention, since at present even if you own a copy of an album on CD, ripping it onto your MP3 player is a violation of copyright law. Nothing concrete appears, other than to mention that this area is heavily constrained by the EU copyright framework.

The 50p levy on the telephone line is not likely to be popular and people acceptance will largely be down to whether they feel broadband is a utility and everyone should have a bite at the cherry. In terms of Next Generation services, eight years of £150 amounts to about £1.2 billion, which considering BT has talked of £5bn to do Fibre To The Cabinet to the whole country does not look to be a large enough pot of money.

The Universal Service Obligation looks set to be a slow process, we can expect the creation of a Network Design and Procurement Group in the Autumn, which suggests 2010 at least before people start to see action on the USO. Procurement is almost a dirty word as many people will associate it with long drawn out Government projects that deliver late and are over budget. Hopefully in this case, a lean mean machine can be created also access to information on the USO needs to be straightfoward so that consumers can easily find out which service is available in their area and what speeds it can offer.

Martha Lane Fox appears to have gained a figurehead role, as Champion for Digital Inclusion, forming part of the reports aim to drive forward Digital Inclusion and convince people that going online is worthwhile. The appointment seems somewhat odd, a more well known respected UK figure might have been more appropriate.

Overall its hard to say the report has been a waste of time, since the USO is better than most other countries, but at the same time the overall ambition is clearly still led by the commercial operators, with the Governments role being one of filling in the holes around the edges. Whether the new role for Ofcom will succeed is hard to know, and there is no guarantee that reducing the amount of unlawful file sharing will lead to an increase in sales, and if some surveys are to be believed it may for some content lead to a reduction in sales.

So the message now is clear, if you want ultra fast broadband, i.e. something over 8Meg then you need to move into the cities, otherwise you may be waiting until 2017 or later. Of course by then other countries will have completed their own Next Generation roll-outs, leaving the UK where it is now in relative terms in the worldwide digital economy. There is still the risk that countries that missed the first generation broadband wave could leapfrog the UK as we take our step by step approach to faster broadband.