In the last few days Google has added roads to Guernsey.  It appears that they have got the data from Guernsey Digimap, as there appears to be better coverage that from any of the GPS device manufacturers I have seen.

If it is the case that the data was provided by Digimap then it may mean that we may be getting higher resolution images.  I know Digimap offered images to Google in the past but might they have just accepted the offer?

Two points to note about the roads:

1. Some of the roads are tracks that are closed to traffic (much to my annoyance).
2. In the map and terrain views the coast line is very rough.
3. Searching for a road name in Guernsey you need to search for: “road name, parish, Guernsey” or “road name, parish” otherwise it doesn’t find it.

The route finding appears to work quite well, although with local knowledge of traffic and junction layouts mean I wouldn’t necessarily choose the route Google suggests.  It is, however, more than adequate for visitors.

Could it possibly be that Cable & Wireless are almost ready to roll out the long awaited and delayed broadband upgrade in Guernsey?

Last week I heard from an insider at Cable & Wireless that they are due to be finished internal testing some time this week.  Today I have just received an email from a friend sent to him by C&W saying:

There will be a short break in service for all High Speed Internet Pro users from 5am on the 6th May 2008. The outage is expected to last less than one hour.

If this is the case we can look forward to a blindingly [not very] fast broadband service.  I must say that I’m not overly confident that either this will be the upgrade or, if it is, that the downtime will be limited to one hour.

I have heard from an inside source that the equipment that they have bought in to  facilitate the upgrade isn’t all it was meant to be and that maybe they are regretting buying it.  If this is the case I’m guessing (from the way the person spoke about it) that we can expect the reliability of broadband in the island to go down hill once the upgrade has been rolled out.

This Wednesday is election day for the Guernsey States of Deliberation - the government of the Bailiwick of Guernsey.  This year I’ve been following the election process more closely than I have in the past.  Partly because I think the current States have done such a terrible job and secondly because I think the next sitting of the States will have some difficult decision to make.

For the last election I was living with my parents in the Vale.  I knew of most of the candidates that were standing for election and I had a fairly good idea of what they were standing for.  This time, however, I’m living in St Martins and haven’t heard of many of the candidates before, so I have been reading their manifestos.  I meant to go to the area hustings meetings - where members of the parish get to question the candidates - but unfortunately it clashed with another meeting.

Being new to the area, I was looking forward to being able to speak to the candidates as they went door-to-door trying to solicit votes.  Unfortunately we have only had one candidate coming to the door and that was only to drop a manifesto through the letter box.  In this respect I am rather disappointed with the candidates.

Also, reading the manifestos I get the feeling that none of the candidates are willing to stick their neck out and say what they think really needs to be done.   All of them acknowledge that waste management, education, transport and health all need address but none are making any proposals as to what could be done.

One candidate in particular includes a list of the various sections of the States they have served whilst previously elected.  While this may look impression to the casual reader, it just cries out to me saying “I’ve got no area of expertise so I go where I’m told to” and that really doesn’t inspire me to vote for them.

I think I have come up with a short list of people I am willing to vote for on Wednesday.  One thing is certain though, I’m not going to be using all my votes.  I believe I have six votes I can use but I suspect I may use only three of them.

Following on from my previous blog post, about the continuing delays with the broadband upgrade in Guernsey, I have just received an email from C&W in which they give a bit of context about the upgrade, why they have made some of the choices they have and a bit of background of the commitment from C&W to the telecoms infrastructure of the island.

With regard to your technical questions, you are correct that the new faster services will be based on the ADSL standard.  Rather than being an out of date technology, in our experience standard ADSL is far less susceptible to noise and interference than either ADSL 2 or ADSL 2+ at speeds of up to 8Mb/s.  Both ADSL2 and ADSL 2+ are also extremely prone to problems arising from variations in wiring quality, and for these reasons we have opted to use standard ADSL as it offers a more stable service.  However the equipment that we have now installed is capable of supporting both ADSL2 and ADSL2+ in future.

It’s good to know that at some undetermined point in the future we might possibly get ADSL2 or ADSL2+.  However, my personal opinion is that I would rather have 12Mb/s or 24Mb/s that is occasionally dropped to a lower speed because of quality.   Is your average home user really going to know that they’re not getting full speed.  As a result of contention ratios you’re not always going to be getting 8Mb/s on ADSL anyway, so does it really matter?

The current project is a proactive £2.5 million investment by Cable & Wireless, as part of our ongoing plan to provide faster broadband services in the Bailiwick. That level of investment hopefully provides you with some idea of the scale of cost involved in providing broadband services in a market of just 24,000 households.  Comparisons with the UK, where the market is a 1,000 times larger, are often misleading. 

I’m not going to argue that these numbers sound impressive but I wonder how they stack up against the C&W annual profits?  And what is the annual investment per-capita in Guernsey compared with the UK?  I’ve no doubt that there are economies of scale coming into play but it would be interesting to find out.

The entry level price for broadband in Guernsey is just £14.99, and when you also consider that many UK broadband services require a standard BT line, which is around 50% more expensive than the local exchange line rental (£7.99 per month compared to £12.50 per month), then hopefully you can begin to see the overall cost this into context. 

These numbers are a little miss-leading.  For entry level broadband from BT is £15.99 (not including any current offers) but if you bring the C&W entry level plan up to the same level as the BT one it shifts the Guernsey one up to £19.49.  Also, the line rental from BT is £10.50 and not £12.50.   With these numbers I make it £26.49 for 8Mb/s from BT and £26.99 for 1Mb/s from C&W - I know which I would prefer!

Since 2001 Cable & Wireless has invested more than £35 million into capital projects in Guernsey as part of our commitment to improving the Bailiwick’s telecommunications infrastructure.  

Would C&W care to share with us what this money has been spent on?  Also, what real effects of this can the average end customer see?  Because to be quite honest all I can see is that I’ve still just got a basic landline, a plain old 2.5G mobile phone and I’m still stuck in the dark ages with 1Mb/s broadband.  I fail to see where the £35 million has been of benefit to me.

Yesterday C&W release a notice on their website saying that they are entering the final phase of testing the broadband upgrade in the island and that this should be complete within four weeks.

This upgrade will bring the whole island up the the old-school ADSL (8Mbit up / 1Mb down) standard.  None of this fancy-pants ADSL2 or ADSL2+ wizardry.

I emailed C&W several days asking about what was happening at C&W regarding the upgrade but he has so far declined to respond.  I think that may be due to the fact that I questioned why the upgraded speeds would be so low and why we wouldn’t be getting ADSL2 or ADSL2+ speeds, and wondering if maybe C&W was abusing it’s monopoly position to make sure that they can get the maximum profit from a minimum investment.

After minimal research (and a lot of guessing and estimation) I figure

the pricing of broadband will look something like this:

• 2Mb - £24.99/Month
• 2Mb Premium - £49.99/Month
• 4Mb Premium - £79.99/Month
• 8Mb Premium - £99.99/Month

Oh well, here’s me hoping I’ll get included in the upgraded speed trial.

According to their website>, Cable & Wireless is working on a £2.5million upgrade of the broadband infrastructure in Guernsey that will allow customers within 2.5 kilometres of exchanges being able to get broadband at up to 8Mb - although this is still slow compared with other western countries.  News of an upgrade to 2Mb and the timescale for completion first emerged back on 31st October 2007 with a news item on their website:

A rolling programme of work will begin in December, and by March next year most local households should be able to get speeds of up to two megabits per second (2Mb).

This good news was then re-confirmed on 8th November with the same timescale:

Homes and businesses around the island will enjoy the new broadband speeds on a rolling basis from December 2007 onwards as Cable & Wireless completes engineering work on its local exchange. It is hoped that the whole island will have access to faster broadband by March 2008.

This would seem to indicate that everything has been planned and is on schedule.  Then, on 19th December the issued the follow update:

Work has already begun at the St Martin exchange, as well as in Alderney and Sark. Customers connected to these exchanges - those with phone numbers that begin with 23, 82 or 83 - will be the first to receive the improved broadband services. That work is scheduled for completion by the end of December.

In order to ensure the reliability of broadband services over the Christmas period, Cable & Wireless has decided that the switch over to the new higher speed services in the first areas will take place on January 9th 2008. All ISPs have been advised of the schedule.

They also included a roll out timescale for the whole of the island (by telephone number):

Excellent news!  I’m in the St Martin area and less than 1km from the exchange so I’m in the first area to get the upgrade.  However, it seems we weren’t being told the full picture.  The first signs of problems occurred on 9th January when I should have been upgraded to 2Mb…. but wasn’t.  On the day Cable & Wireless issued the following announcement:

Cable & Wireless engineers are currently working to resolve a small number of technical issues that have arisen during this major upgrade. This has meant a slight delay to start of the planned roll-out, however the full island-wide upgrade it is still expected to be complete by 31st March 2008.

“A small number of technical issues”?  Sounds like a but of an understatement to me but then what do I know about these things?  On the 2nd March after nearly two months with no updates on progress of the project I decided to email Cable & Wireless to find out how things were going and to inform them of my disappointment in the extortionate amount their customers have to pay for a measly 1Mb service (£25 + line rental!!!).  Their reply was:

The majority of the work involved in enabling the upgrade requires the
physical reconection of about 15,000 individual lines onto new network
equipment in all exchange areas, and it is this work which required the
longer project timescales extending into March.

Therefore, while we have postponed the bandwidth upgrade for St Martins,
the physical work migrating lines has continued in this and other areas.
We therefore anticipate that when we are in a position to roll out the
upgraded line speeds, these will now be made available in all exchange
areas within a relatively short timescale.

This would seem to indicate to me that the hardware in the exchanges has had to be replace as it simply wasn’t up to scratch as it hadn’t been touched since Cable & Wireless bought Guernsey Telecom from the States of Guernsey - I can’t remember exactly when that was as the Cable & Wireless website incorrectly states “We were here right from the start of telephone services in the Bailiwick in 1898.”

With the deadline looming, Cable & Wireless finally made another announcement on 20th March:

Equipment has been fully installed to enable the upgrade of Guernsey’s broadband network.

The initial work to upgrade equipment at the exchanges has been completed successfully. However the final activation of the upgraded service will only take place once we are certain that there will be no impact to our customers’ experience. We hope to reach this point in the next few weeks.

Well, the end of March has been and gone and still there is no sign of a speed increase or any news as to when it might happen.  I dare say it will be another month or so before we finally see increase in broadband speeds.  What is more important, I believe, is why Cable & Wireless are spending £2.5millon on a upgrade that will only allow broadband speeds of up to 8Mb?  Bulldog Broadband (C&W broadband in the UK) is offering 16Mb broadband (unlimited) at £25 - that’s the same price as I’m paying for 1Mb.  Sweden (top for broadband in Europe) offers 24Mb over copper and 100Mb or even 1000Mb over fibre.

Sometimes it feels like this island is being held to ransom by Cable & Wireless, and they wonder why they have been refused a 3G Mobile license.

I’ve noticed recently that Jersey has recently had an update in Google Maps so that it now has roads and road names.  Although it doesn’t yet appear to have driving directions.  This is good news for Guernsey, as it was only a short time after Jersey had an image resolution update until Guernsey got the same treatment.

The only worrying thing at the moment is that it appears that the west coast of Guernsey and the north of Jersey seem to have a degradation of coastal definition when viewed in Map mode.

View Larger Map

Sometimes whilst using Google you happen across a website that is completely off the subject you were looking for but that is absolutely fascinating. Today this happened to me. I’ve completely forgotten what I was originally looking for, but I found a website for someone living in Guernsey that is building a Personal Submarine (psub).

When I first started reading the site I thought it must have been in one of the Guernsey’s in the USA, but as I continued reading it became obvious that it is indeed the little island on which I live.

I still haven’t been able to work out who it is, he is only referred to as Jim or James, and I don’t recognise him from the pictures or where the pictures are taken. He seems to have links to Peter and John Frankland but that is all I can work out. If anyone knows who the builder is or where it is being built please can you let me know.

I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on the site and I’m going to make sure I’m there when it has it’s maiden voyage. It’s not every day something like this happens on this tiny rock and I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.

Technorati Tags: guernsey

I just finished watching Michael Moores new film Sicko which hasn’t yet been released to cinemas. Its a real eye opener about the state of health and medical care in the USA today. It seems that in the USA, even those that think they are fully covered by medical insurance are still getting a rough deal, with insurance companies finding any loop-hole to get out of paying for their clients care.

This is what happens when services are provided on a “for-profit” basis. Those that stand to make the most money will damn well make sure that they make as much money as possible and wont hesitate for a second to think about what affect that may have on other peoples lives, and I do mean lives. The Health and Medical Organisations (HMOs) of the USA are treating peoples insurance policies as if they are warranties for a computer or a car, rather than the difference between life and death, which they really are.

When I took my one and only holiday to the USA in 1996 (I think) I had an accident whilst ride the mountain bike I had just bought (Americans decided to switch the front & rear brake levers >_<). I sustained a cut to my leg that required stitches and so the person we were staying with took me to the local hospital. I’d heard stories about going to hospital in the USA but it still came as a shock when the first question asked was “How are you going to be paying?”. The fact that I had blood pouring out of my leg seemed irrelevant at the time, the hospital just wanted to make sure that they were going to get their money. Luckily we had good travel insurance that covered the treatment.

As with all Michael Moore files you need to watch the film with a rather large bag of salt, as he tends to take a rather extreme view of things. For example he paints a rosy picture of the British NHS, which anyone the reads the British papers will know isn’t doing too well at the moment. However, it is a very thought provoking film and well worth watching.

Surely most people must by now know that the processing key for the DRM system used by HD-DVDs and Bluray DVDs has been broken and has been circulating wildly on the internet (thanks to the actions of Digg).

I read today on Wired.com the following statement released by the AACS-LA:

“it has taken action, in cooperation with relevant manufacturers, to expire the encryption keys associated with the specific implementations of AACS-enabled software. Consumers can continue to enjoy content that is protected by the AACS technology by refreshing the encryption keys associated with their HD DVD and Blu-ray software players. This refresh process is accomplished via a straightforward online update.”

Well thats great, they built into AACS the ability to send out new decryption keys should a key be compromised. All users need to do is complete a simple online update of their players and everything continues as normal.

Well, hang on a minute. Old DVD produced with the compromised processing key will sure need that old key in order to be decrypted and played. However new DVDs will require the new processing key in order to be played. What happens when a player is updated to get the new processing key? Is the old processing key removed from the player? If this is the case is then is it still possible to play the old discs?

I assume that the designers of AACS would make it impossible to play of DVDs should the processing key need to be revoked, unless they think they can keep reselling the same DVDs to consumers. But then again they were foolish enough to think that they could implement a content protection system that wouldn’t one day be broken.

Surely now that hackers know how to extract the processing key it will only be a matter of time until the new processing key is compromised. Does this mean that new processing keys are going to be released daily until one side of the war gets bored and gives up? I suspect that the first side to give in may well be the consumers, at which point the losers by default will be the movie studios that thought they could pull one over on the consumers.

More of this story on:
Digg
Slashdot
BoingBoing
Wired.com
Google

Technorati Tags: Crack, Decryption, HDDVD, Blueray