Karoo, KCom and Kingston Communications in the news..

[The Dominator]

Just a few snippets of info for people to feast upon..

This one makes interesting reading.. (then read the last story in this post...)
http://www.vnunet.com/crn/news/2199323/speculation-affiniti-bid-3497766

This one stinks of irony... 

"It is an attempt to increase competition in Scotland. It will make those guys sit up and take notice,"

http://www.sundayherald.com/business/businessnews/display.var.1675110.0.0.php

A quote about Fridays share dealing:

KCOM was the biggest faller after it said recent turbulence in financial services has created some uncertainty going forward, adding that trading for the first half is in line with expectations.

“The recent turbulence in financial services, which is one of the sectors we address, has created some uncertainty going forward,” said chief executive Malcolm Fallen.

“In the light of this, our focus in the second half will be on maintaining tight operational control across the business,” he added.

(source)http://www.sharecast.com/cgi-bin/sharecast/story.cgi?story_id=1627650

This one was rumor of the day on "Times Online" website back on the 14th Sept..

Rumour of the day

KCom Group, the former Kingston Communications, which has a local telephone monopoly in the Hull area, is coming under pressure to break up, demerging its Affiniti national IT and telecoms consultancy arm from its phone business. Landsbanki believes that private equity firms could bid 85p a share. KCom was down 1p at 71½p.

(source)http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article2449605.ece

[stormy]

Interesting stuff, Kingston is coming under more and more pressure. But I don't understand this 'different copper' business, surely when the lines were owned by the PO back in the day the copper was the same nationwide. You cannot tell me BT have subsequently replaced their entire network. Smells like BS to me.

Also this fibre unbundling, what that's got to do with Cable? I There would be no way on earth a cable company (like Virgin) could setup here.

Sometimes these articles make me laugh, but its nice to see Kingston coming under continuous pressure.

Mike

[The Dominator]

Hi Stormy,
i don't think the lines have ever been owned by PO - i think that is the main problem.  KC (i am led to believe) use a thinner cable (0.3mm?) rather than the standard 0.5mm?  (i will try to get references here). (added later) Try Wikipedia theres a little bit of info on there.

I found this link History of KC which adds a little info..

thanks

[marko]

Interesting reading, Dom.

I had to laugh at the following. Maybe they could re introduse it in place of their broadband max 

Initially, boys were used to relay messages orally between subscribers. An early document describes how the preference for boys rather than women was soon reversed. ”In the first exchanges, boys were generally engaged as operators, but due to their inquisitive spirits, mischievous behaviour etc they did not give their best attention and girls began to replace boys in this role.”

marko...

[dylan]

You know, reading that history is bloomin' sad. It's a shame that a company which launched so many innovative ideas which where copied by other companies worldwide, is now face down in the dirt, reckoned to be one of the poorest Internet providers in the land. 

[The Dominator]

Hers one that came in about 5 hours ago..



   

Mistral Internet, the Brighton based Internet Service Provider which was acquired by KCOM Group PLC earlier this year, is to be rebranded as Kingston Communications which is part of the KCOM Group.

 

KCOM Group acquired Mistral in order to deepen the Group’s expertise in the managed services sector of the broadband internet services market.

 

Andrew Tapley, Managing Director of Kingston Communications explained, ‘Kingston Communications is widely recognised as a top level network and internet services provider, so this brand provides many synergies with the high bandwidth connectivity and leading edge hosting services that Mistral delivers to businesses across the UK. We think it is a natural progression to phase out the Mistral Internet brand and replace it with Kingston Communications’.

 

Kingston will begin the rebranding process on 01 October. As part of this change, the Mistral Internet Group Ltd business and its assets will transfer intra-group to KCOM Group PLC. Mistral’s customers’ terms and conditions are unaffected by this change and they do not need to take any action. All Mistral contact details, administration portals and banking details will continue to operate.

 
(source) - Mistral Internet

I did a quick comparison of the KCom group ISP's vs one of the known good providers - Zen...
Link to comparison on thinkbroadband.com

Pictures speak more than words.. i think its a case of more of the same...

[stormy]

Hehe, I am not sure what KCs agenda is with Mistral, does it provide business services? I mean they already had their clutches in Eclipse which is a national provider anyway.

Mike

[The Dominator]

Heres a little bit about some of the new services Kingston Internet will be offering to business.
Link to ePages info on openPR.com

[stormy]

More takeover rumour....

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=19947&email=html

[Adrian]

Interesting stuff, Kingston is coming under more and more pressure. But I don't understand this 'different copper' business, surely when the lines were owned by the PO back in the day the copper was the same nationwide. You cannot tell me BT have subsequently replaced their entire network. Smells like BS to me.

Mike

Perhaps they have replaced a lot of it, but certainly not all..
On the streets of Hull and surrounding areas (Hessle, Beverley etc..) there are still some "manholes" which have either P.O, G.P.O, Post Office Telegraphs or simply BT on them (various BT past and present logos) not to mention some of the old green PCP wiring cabinets which have P.O or G.P.O engraved onto them...

I guess it is possible that they were either all taken by the council/KC, shared amongst KC, BT and possibly others, or just left to rot away while KC laid new cable ways etc...

[dylan]

To be honest I've heard from a number of different people - some of whom work in the industry, others who don't - that KC uses a different thickness of copper to that used elsewhere in the country.

Although to be fair we can't say that they've done this to be anti-competitive, I think it's pretty safe to say that it adds more costs to anyone else wanting to set up.

[Adrian]

To be honest I've heard from a number of different people - some of whom work in the industry, others who don't - that KC uses a different thickness of copper to that used elsewhere in the country.

Although to be fair we can't say that they've done this to be anti-competitive, I think it's pretty safe to say that it adds more costs to anyone else wanting to set up.

Can't see the thickness of the copper in the telephone wiring make a blind bit of difference to the costs of anyone else entering the market...

1. A company can rent off KC wholesale who will supply and manage the local side of things, so the third party just pay for their equipment (BRAS possibly) and bandwidth etc... The existing copper, wiring, network is all in place and would stay the same...

2. A company rents space in a KC exchange and puts in their own equipment (DSLAMs etc..), in which case the customers wiring from the premises to the exchange is the same, but will connect to the third party's equipment instead of KCs in the exchange, and they would have control over the line etc...

The only way that "thinner" cable is worse is that the ADSL signal is weaker over longer distances, so therefore potentially you aren't able to give people on longer lines a service or such a good service as if they would receive by having a "thicker" cable...

Code:

Gauge (mm) Attenuation (dB)
0.32                   12.348
0.4                     11.55
0.5                     10.301
0.63                    9.297
0.9                      7.86
attenuation table based on the BTm model at 300kHz for 1km length

[dylan]

Can't see the thickness of the copper in the telephone wiring make a blind bit of difference to the costs of anyone else entering the market...

'Ello mate,

I did come across this comment made about the KC infrastructure. Something of a similar ilk is repeated here and there on the net:

The first 1Km of wire from the exchange is normally 0.5mm sq. KC have chosen to use 0.3mm sq. Remember the problems they had with KIT - the wire size played a part in the problems... The key point here is that the DSLAMs in the exchange for connecting the ADSL are much more expensive for 0.3mm cable.

Might explain what people mean about it being more expensive to connect. I have heard it said before from people who should know and it does make sense.

Cheers

Dylan.

[Adrian]

The first 1Km of wire from the exchange is normally 0.5mm sq. KC have chosen to use 0.3mm sq. Remember the problems they had with KIT - the wire size played a part in the problems... The key point here is that the DSLAMs in the exchange for connecting the ADSL are much more expensive for 0.3mm cable.

Might explain what people mean about it being more expensive to connect. I have heard it said before from people who should know and it does make sense.

Cheers

Dylan.

KIT had problems because the DSLAMs they were using weren't very good, along with thin cable meant that not that many people could receive a decent quality service, resulting in lack of customers, and therefore leading to the service been unviable and been shutdown.

Regarding the cable, it doesn't make a difference what so ever to the type of DSLAM used or the costs involved (other than not been able to give people further away a DSL service, or not been able to offer closer customers a higher quality of service as if you could if you was using thicker cable), as the cables come in from the various PCP cabinets into the exchange to a rack which connects them all to the various telehphone equipment, there is a seperate cross connect taking the pair of wires into the DSLAM, therefore not making a difference which cable you use... for KC to offer a non-standard tie pair isn't really a problem as so long as it can be jumpered at the exchange, all is fine...

I cannot understand where these arguments are coming from

[dylan]

That's really interesting stuff Adrian thanks.

To be honest, I don't know where the rumours originated, just that you can find them knocking about on websites here and there. To be fair, I have to take you at your word as I'm not in the ISP trade myself and what you're saying makes sense.

At a guess - Are you a telecomms engineer of some type I doubt that you'd compromise yourself by admitting that you work for KC if you do, but regardless it's still good to have someone like yourself around to offer a techie slant on news 

Dylan