Jurassic Parking for Openreach engineers

It might not be the kind of winter warning you’d expect, but if you’re out and about in the next few weeks, watch out for dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs. With 400 vans being added to the fleet to help with our superfast fibre roll-out we wanted something eye-catching on the side...

The first of our three new designs to promote the power of fibre features a roaring T-Rex "For TV services with bite".

Next up is the slightly less scary "No more humdrum TV" hummingbird

And an astronaut promoting “Stellar TV on demand’ will complete the trio.

So remember to keep an eye out for our new vans in your area.

Fibre broadband: the invisible hero

What's the best thing about fibre broadband? Well it's not TV on demand, not even HD movie streaming, and definitely not video calls with your granny. The best thing about fibre is never having to think about your internet connection again. Programmer Darryl Clark lifts the lid on life in the fast lane...

The first rule of fibre club is: you do not talk about fibre club (or at least not after the first month of having it). Why? Well, do you remember when you had dial-up? You couldn't use the phone at the same time as browsing the internet! You had to plan downloads in advance. You didn't stop thinking about your connection speed - or lack of it.

Then you moved to ADSL and were overcome by the dizzying speeds. Along came YouTube, Flash websites and possibly children to drag your connection back to a crawl. Now there are tablets, smart phones, interactive televisions, iPlayer, games consoles and a myriad of other connected devices all sucking the life out of your national average 6Mbit/s ADSL broadband speed (Ofcom Nov 2012). And you're back to thinking about your connection speed again.

Make the move to fibre optic and the connection speed average is 41.0Mbit/s. During the first month you'll shout this from the rooftops. You'll lose on average 12.4 friends on Facebook who will be bored to tears by your constant bandwidth boasting. Then suddenly your fibre optic connection will no longer be the first thing you think about in the morning. Why? A falling out? No need for it? No, because it will become like everything else useful, a stalwart, a silent hero, the 4th emergency service.

Nobody yearns for a faster electricity connection or ten times more gas pressure. If I want to turn all of the lights on in my house then I'll do it without thinking. It's the same with fibre broadband. If all four members of my house want to be connected on a device whilst we also watch Paul and Mary mock lopsided Victoria sponges on iPlayer then it will just happen.

The only time I think about my connection now is when it's cruelly robbed from me by a cursed technical glitch (less likely as fibre optic is more stable than full copper broadband). It's only then that I realise how much I need/want/depend on/demand/can't live without my fibre broadband connection.

My name is Darryl Clark. I have "up to 40Mbit/s" fibre optic broadband and the last time I checked my download speed was 38Mbit/s. Unfriend me if you want but I am superfast and proud.

Darryl is a programmer for Westhill Communications

Mission Impossible: getting into the BT Tower

In a list compiled by Time Out magazine this week, the top of the BT Tower was named as one of "London's top 10 impossible places to get into". In fact, at number 2 in the list, only the christening of the latest member of the royal family, Prince George, was seen as more of a challenge for the capital's gatecrashers.

Standing at 189m tall the BT Tower has become an iconic feature of London’s skyline. And the 47-year-old building's super-charged lifts can whisk visitors up to the 34th floor at 400ft per second. Once there, you’ll find yourself on a rotating viewing platform with breathtaking 360 panoramic view of London.

The Tower has evolved with the times. Even at the grand old age of 47 ‘he’, The Tower, can be found tweeting on Twitter - complaining about the pigeons or pointing out things to the ‘ant-like’ Londoners on the ground.

"Hello. I'm the BT Tower. I'm a really tall (189m) 47 year-old male (obviously... have you never read Freud?). follow me if you would. @bttowerlondon"

Unfortunately, the famous 34th floor revolving restaurant and viewing platform has been closed to the public since 1980, and on the rare occasion there's a tour it's almost impossible to nab a place.

So if you ever find yourself invited to an Openreach event the top of the BT Tower, cancel all your other plans (unless you've been invited to the Royal Christening) and make sure you go. You might never get another chance.

From HD to 3D to 4K – how TV is changing broadband, and vice versa

The way we watch TV is changing. Before it was all quite simple: TV in the living room for broadcast programmes, computer (whether laptop or PC) somewhere else for the internet. Smart TVs and online video content began to blur the boundaries, and now television and the internet are becoming even more entwined.

A whole range of new media streaming services, such as Netflix, NowTV and LoveFilm, are taking off on the back of increased broadband speeds. Now set top boxes come bundled with browsers to integrate catch up, real-time and on demand content, like BBC iPlayer and 4OD. And this content is increasingly available in high definition.

But as we start to take control of when and how we watch TV – and the content gets bigger and bigger in terms of HD and 3D – it starts to squeeze our broadband capacity. Something has to give. So you either go back to scheduling who can get online when, or you step up to fibre broadband, to let everyone get on with it without groaning about buffering – and still have plenty of bandwidth in reserve.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Remember when flatscreen TVs were the stuff of science fiction, available to a few wealthy individuals to hang from their ceilings (for some reason)? Now they’re commonplace. They used to cost thousands of pounds – not any more.

And remember when TVs were HD ready? The numbers of channels and programmes shown in HD has rocketed recently and some people will now refuse to slum it with standard def!

The first generation of 4K TVs are now being showcased in shiny department stores. The screens these TVs use are four times the resolution of full HD (4096 x 2160 pixels compared to 1920 x 1080). In layman’s terms, it means you can get a massive TV in your home, sit closer to it and still be blown away by the level of detail on display. They cost thousands just now, but they’ll quickly come down in price. And the BBC is already filming programmes in this new ultra HD standard.

But all this data to produce all these pictures needs bandwidth. And that means beefing up your broadband so it doesn't hamper the potential for everyone in the home to get online and stream what they want, when they want.

Superfast broadband: life's number one 'bare necessity'

It was interesting to see the results of a fun survey conducted by Disney recently, which asked people to name the "bare necessities" of modern life. Top of the list, ahead of central heating, a car, TV and even a best friend, was internet access.

The survey quizzed 2,000 British adults aged between 18 and 65, to mark Blu-ray release of The Jungle Book. And paw-paws and prickly pears were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the top 20 bare necessities of modern life included a pint, a full English breakfast and an occasional "I love you".

The result hints at just how important broadband access has become. It's now seen as a utility rather than a luxury and something people can't do without.

The top five things that helped people forget about their worries and their strife were:

1. an internet connection
2. television
3. a cuddle
4. a trustworthy best friend 
5. daily shower

We just need a budding entrepreneur to bring all of these together and we'll be in paradise...

You can see the full list at metro.co.uk.

Digging into the details

In the third and final round-up of the resources available from Openreach, we’re going to look at where you’ll find our business process documentation and B2B XML definitions and take a quick tour round the customer information zone.

We’ve already covered getting started and moving around the website, as well as showing you how to personalise the portal and use its search engine. Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty.

Using the business process models

These essential tools are now available for every single product. They’re also interactive, meaning you can drill right down into the supporting documents from within the diagrams themselves.

To find the business process documents you need to click into Products on the Openreach website (after logging in) and choose the process view.

Every product has a business process model for both orders and faults. And each business process page includes a table of contents to the left, enabling you to dive into the exact section you need.

You can also zoom into the diagrams to focus on certain sections within the overall process and click on interactive links to dig a bit deeper into the documents that underpin the diagrams.

Find out more about business process models and how to access and use them

Finding the B2B XML definitions

If you switch from the process view to the technical view while you’re in the Products section of the website you’ll get access to XML definitions for every product.

All XML definitions for each function area within a product are included in a zip file so you can download them to review offline.

Watch a video to see how to access the B2B XML definitions

The customer information zone

We have a comprehensive website, but with over 800 pages it’s not always easy to jump straight to the info that’s needed. So we’ve created the customer information zone to provide a quick and easy way for our customers (and others) to gain access to the latest news and briefings. It also incorporates a range of social media tools – keeping us bang up to date.

Our communications provider customers will benefit from having:

• a single point of reference for news and briefings
• increased levels of accessibility
• links to multimedia content and social media tools
• and less email traffic. 

This is not to say that we’re changing everything – the info zone complements rather than replaces our established forms of communication. So briefing-based material will still be found on the website in the usual place, and certain types of emails will still be sent.

What does it contain? 

Latest articles and press releases  
These sections focus on everything from new product launches to the progression of the superfast broadband roll out.

Recent briefings
The top twenty briefings are presented in date order. Product types are displayed for each briefing so you can easily pinpoint what’s of interest to you. And each briefing can be clicked on and read in full on the Openreach website. A separate RSS feed can be subscribed to just for briefings.

Events calendar
We’ll regularly be posting dates for upcoming roadshows and industry forums on the Events calendar, along with information on Openreach/industry meetings, such as design and collaborate sessions.

Twitter
We already use a Twitter feed to inform people of the latest places up and down the country that have, or are about to gain, access to superfast fibre broadband, and this facility is now visible on the info zone too.

Video channel
We have our own Openreach-branded channel on YouTube. Our most recent video, or the one we feel is currently most important, is displayed on the info zone, while a link provides easy access to our other videos.

Check out the customer info zone now

It's snow time to stop

The weather may have de-railed train companies, grounded airlines and put the skids on commuters, but it took more than a bit of snow to stop our engineers – with one or two even stripping off for work, despite the Arctic conditions.

Engineers prove they
have "the white stuff"

Amid heavy snow across the UK, our engineering teams pulled out all the stops to ensure that, wherever it was safe enough to do so, they maintained services – dealing with customer faults in the sub-zero temperatures.

Conditions were so severe in many areas – particularly in Wales – that major disruption was caused to airports, railways and roads.

But special snow socks for the wheels of Openreach vans proved vital in ensuring the vehicles were able to drive along icy roads. Some crews also used 4x4 vehicles to get around in the worst of the weather.

Howard Pugh, Openreach senior operations manager for Mid Wales and Shrewsbury said: “The snow plan we put in place has worked really well and the troops have been fantastic as we put more customers back into service than I ever thought we would have done. And, above all, we have had no accidents reported.

“The snow socks made a huge difference, keeping the fleet as mobile as possible. I’m very proud of the team.”

Giving a whole new meaning to the term "ice pole"

Engineers Paul Thompson and Jim Parry from the Network Delivery South West team proved they're made of stern stuff as they carried on working in the snow – and stripped to the waist after building up a sweat locating and digging out manholes.

Openreach chief executive Liv Garfield praised teams for doing “an amazing job”. She said: “It’s a huge step forward from previous winters.  The work we have done on the last few months planning for the snow has been massively beneficial.”

Why you might need to upgrade your 100Mb circuits sooner than you think

How things change. I can remember when owning a Walkman was cool; when mobile phones were just for making phone calls and the unmistakable sound of the dial-up modem. Well it wasn’t that long ago was it?

You only have to go back a few years when transmitting data at 300 bits per second over PSTN was considered state-of-the-art. Today, our Ethernet networks run over 3 million times faster.

The impressive bandwidth 1Gb offers is the natural choice for network backbones, but with traffic growing rapidly on networks across the UK, 1Gb Ethernet will soon become the preferred high-speed network solution. Despite the inherent benefits of upgrading to 1Gb, however, many don’t think it’s worth the cost or trouble.

Some are worried about the cost of adopting new technology. Others don’t feel there’s any need to rush, and that they’re actually saving money by postponing their upgrade until they’re entirely sure they need it, or a specific application requires it.

But are you really saving money by postponing your upgrade to 1Gb EAD? The answer is probably not; in fact, not upgrading may actually be costing your business.

So why aren't you using 1Gb EAD?

Being frank, there isn’t a reason to rush to upgrade your network immediately if you’re not experiencing any performance issues. But, if you’re in the early throes of setting up a network backbone, you’ll be seriously hampering your network and thus your business’ growth by continuing to use 100Mb Ethernet. You’ll probably end up spending more money and expending more effort when you eventually upgrade.

Sometimes a lack of funds gets in the way; budgets may not be able to stretch to accommodate a full upgrade. There’s always the option of using Ethernet switches with combinations of both 100Mb and 1Gb. It depends on what applications you need to support and you may be able to meet some of your present and future needs.

Whatever approach you believe is best, one thing is clear: there has never been a better time to upgrade your Ethernet circuits.

The Openreach EAD 1Gb upgrade offer is a great way to reclaim some of your investment costs, with rebates of up to 75 per cent of the upgrade connection fee. But you’ll need to hurry as the offer expires on 31 March 2013.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of this offer you'll need to opt-in by adding your details in our opt-in form. This will ensure that any 100Mb to 1Gb upgrades you make in the special offer period between 1 October 2012 to 31 March 2013 are eligible for the rebates.

Don’t forget that EAD 1Gb rental prices have been reduced by up to 42 per cent, so it’s a great opportunity to make 1Gb Ethernet part of your network development plans. Even if you don't think you need 1Gb Ethernet now, you need to make sure you’re prepared. The time to upgrade will come sooner than you think.

It’s funny how quickly things change.

If you have any questions, please speak to your Sales & Relationship Manager.

Juwon Adenyin

Helping you to help yourself

Just before Christmas, we outlined some of the resources available on our website to help you get more out of it. Now that the tinsel has been packed away it’s time to delve a little bit further and show you how you can set up the portal in the way that suits you best and get everything you need right at your fingertips.

Last time, we focused on getting started and moving around the website. This time we’ll give you some tips on personalising the portal, searching generally and locating pricing documents in particular.

First you need to go to our website homepage, where you’ll see a Help & Support tab in the top menu. In this section there’s lots of advice and guidance, but the best place to start might be the computer based training modules as you’ll get top tips in short, easy-to-digest video presentations.

Personalising the portal

It's definitely worth taking a few minutes to personalise the portal to suit your needs. This is really easy to do. The ‘My Dashboard’ homepage you see immediately after logging in offers three main ways to tailor things:

1. My Tools 
You’ll find the My Tools section on the top left of the page. By clicking ‘other tools’ you’ll be able to access pricing, dialogue services, fault tracking and order tracking tools, among a whole host of options.

2. My View
This tool enables you to set up defaults for your preferred products (Ethernet, WLR) and view (eg business process or technical). You can even set the default for the release number you’re most interested in so that these appear at the top of any search results.

3. My Favourites
Any time you’re logged in and you see the My Favourites star icon in the top right corner of a page, just click on it to add the page to your list of favourites so it’ll always be just one click away from the pages you use most.

Find out more about personalising the portal

Searching the portal

The search button at the top of every page is a really quick way to find what you need. A powerful, intelligent search engine sits beneath the portal with two main choices:

1. Simple search
Just type a word or phrase for a list of results sorted by relevance. Then refine the results to drill into things and home in on the info you need – for example, narrowing results by type or finding related content.

2. Advanced search
The advanced search enables you to set parameters before starting to search – rather than doing a simple search and then digging down. With a more comprehensive starting point you’re refining the results before you search.

Don’t forget we also have an extensive glossary so if you ever need to know your ALK from your ETSI, it’s all spelled out right here.

See how to make the most of the search function

Where do I find pricing information?

One of the most frequently asked questions, and one of the most important parts of the website. The pricing information is stored in the products section, within the Business View.

This short presentation shows you how to access pricing information

Next time we’ll show you how to access and use the business process documents, find the B2B XML definitions and stay on top of the latest updates through the Customer Information Zone.