Investing in your local network

[miken]

Dear KC customer

We would like to keep you up-to-date on the developments following the recent investment announcements to improve the performance of the network in the East Yorkshire region.

If you are not already aware, KC has committed £2.75m for its broadband network as part of its ongoing investment to the East Yorkshire region. This involves upgrading our core network to improve network performance and provide a more effective platform for the launch of new products and next generation services. Overall this will improve the reliability of the network, meaning a better online experience for KC customers.

We want our customers to have the most resilient digital network in the UK.

Ensuring our customers are getting the best!
There are over 40,000 residential customers who still haven’t yet made the move to ADSL2+ (the latest generation of broadband technology), which in the majority of cases will improve both their connection speed and line reliability. We would urge anyone who has not yet made the switch to contact us (free from their landline) on 602300 and get upgraded. It doesn’t cost a penny to change packages and you can be up and running in 6 days.

The future for ISPs?
Demand on ISP’s networks is only set to grow, in fact, by almost 400% by 2012! So we don’t want to hide behind the curtains and pretend these issues are going to go away – which is why we recognise we need to work closely with the content providers (like the BBC and SKY) to ensure we can not only support new online technologies but deliver them at a level they are designed to be viewed.

We don’t have an answer to this yet, but we can assure you we are working on it and will keep you, our customers regularly updated on our progress.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=12708&uid=100668908521

From the last part where they mention content providers, I wonder if they are looking into some kind of cache of iplayer and sky player programs with unlimited access - which would probably save them money and free up bandwidth for other uses and should provide a fast connection to the data if its within KC's network

[gusgormen]

complete bo11ocks!

"It doesn’t cost a penny to change packages and you can be up and running in 6 days."

they want to charge me £50 to move from the old karoo max to one of the newer packages.

[dylan]

They also want to put you onto a new 12 month contract and change you from a package that is 'unlimited' (yeah I know there isn't such a thing) to a package that has overuse charges.

[Adrian]

You can buy a lot of kit with £2.75m

Hopefully it will be used for FTTC deployments, like in their expansion areas, but in Hull to give those "dead spots" that can't get decent broadband speeds e.g. Kingswood.
There also quite a few other areas that spring to mind due to their distance from the exchange, poor cabling or cable route.

I'm guessing it's not just for more ports in the exchanges and cramming as many people onto "ADSL" as possible, or switches for all of the traffic, or even fibre links as they can be upgraded as an when capacity is needed.

[bashdabish]

complete bo11ocks!

"It doesn’t cost a penny to change packages and you can be up and running in 6 days."

they want to charge me £50 to move from the old karoo max to one of the newer packages.

As far as I am aware it is free to upgrade. The only scenario in which you would pay £50 (actually £47) is if you wish to opt for the rolling 1 month contract.

[gusgormen]

definately not, i spoke to one of their customer services staff,  £47 for the privelege of changing.  a connection fee they called it

[bashdabish]

Double check with them, you may have either misunderstood or spoke to a customer services staff who misunderstood. I am 100% sure there is no cost to upgrade or change to Karoo Mid/Pro unless you want a 1 month rolling contract which costs £47.

Email them if you don't want to speak to them again. customerservices@karoo.co.uk

[miken]

Read on http://twitter.com/karoobroadband

@AlanRoberts yes, the investment is to the IP core meaning improved resiliency and performance throughout the KC network

How far does the cash go towards raising IP core capacity?

[The Dominator]

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/12/15/isp-karoo-broadband-issues-uk-network-investment-update.html

hmm i think they have a good idea, lack of cash is causing problems with buying internet bandwidth me thinks.

Do Karoo dare increase prices sometime early/mid next year to help raise cash?

[dylan]

I notice Karoo keep banding about the term next-gen. What exactly do Karoo mean by next-gen? To me it means fibre to the cabinet (at least).

[The Dominator]

They have quite a lot of cabs in Hull, do you know if they are powered?
They would have to use some sort of 'box' in the cab to distribute the fibre, otherwise it would be a passive fibre and I can only see that working if they carried the fibre to the home?

[The Dominator]

soz - I didn't reply to your question, I agree that next gen at the minimum is FTTC
It really should be FTTH.

Just think of the possibilities if we had Fibre To The Home! 

Hull would be at the forefront of the UK, it would be a magnet for high tech industries. 

It would provide endless opportunities for home employment.

It could provide World Class home education facilities, be a leveller for anyone with any form of disability, it could save millions off the Health budget alone by allowing home monitoring similar to the telehealth scheme that is used on the OnsNet FTTH setup in the Netherlands.

It could also help improve political inclusion as we could interact better, and more cheaply, with the local council.

It could  provide 24/7 connection for any smart metering, and unlike copper its resale value is worthless so will never be striped from a house by our less 'salubrious' members of society.

Just a few benefits that we could get from FTTH...  IMHO

[richardmyers]

Thanks for the explanation on this, I've heard it talked about a lot here and other than 'it's fast' I didn't know it'd be such a massive benefit to the City.