How to build, buy and sell broadband services that are fit-for-purpose for business use? These slides are extracted from a one-day workshop that explores the topic in depth.

1. Fit-for-Business Broadband Workshop
London, 27th March 2014
Dr Neil Davies
Predictable Network Solutions Ltd
Peter Thompson
Predictable Network Solutions Ltd
Martin Geddes
Martin Geddes Consulting Ltd
Andrew Macdonald
NG Events Ltd
Marit Hendricks
NG Events Ltd
© 2014 All Rights Reserved
SELECTED INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY SLIDES

2. • The following selected slides are extracted from a one-
day workshop on how to build, buy and sell broadband
business services.
• The workshop explains the key issues, and gives outline
answers to the core questions.
• The workshop covers: Quality of Experience (QoE) and
business hazard analysis, technical QoE drivers,
broadband supply characteristics, service assurance,
resilience management and network design and
operation.
• We also offer private workshops, and network
performance measurement & management services.
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014
FIT-FOR-BUSINESS
BROADBAND WORKSHOP

3. INTRODUCTION
What this workshop is about
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

4. Risk tolerance in telecoms users
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014
TOY “BLUE LIGHT”
SAFETY
CRITICAL
ENTERPRISECONSUMER
SOHO
.COM BOOM
FUNDABLE
PUBLIC
SECTOR
LOWHIGH TODAY’S EVENT

5. Our offer to you today
• Help you to understand the mismatch
between:
– What people are aspiring to achieve (demand)
– What the broadband industry is doing (supply)
• Propose how to close the gap
– Technically grounded in reality
– Practical advice on how to proceed
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

6. Our four key messages
1. Speed (‘bandwidth’) is no longer a
helpful model for broadband.
2. Suppliers are being forced into a death
spiral.
3. Regulators and government are
unintentionally driving unhelpful
behaviour by focusing only on speed.
4. Users and suppliers need to re-frame
the resource model to be sustainable.
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

7. RECOMMENDATIONS

8. What operators
should be asking themselves
1. Why am I trying to solve my scheduling
problems with more capacity?
2. For my key customer applications, am I
delivering the network supply that enables
good QoE?
– i.e. am I delivering the right loss and delay?
3. Given that there is a trading space, am I
constructing and offering the right data
transport products?
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

9. What regulators
should be asking themselves
1. What is the value that society is getting from
demanding more speed?
2. Measurement is de facto regulation,
therefore are we measuring the right thing?
3. What are the key applications that need
managed QoE and cost to drive societal
benefits?
4. Are the trades being performed in a manner
that is transparent and non-discriminatory?
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

10. What users
should be asking themselves
1. What are the unserved needs of enterprises and
their dispersed workforces?
2. How to get the right broadband performance
for the least cost?
3. What are the risks in buying and delivering new
fit-for-business services?
4. What are the best ways to mitigate and manage
those risks?
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014
DESCRIBED IN DETAIL
ON FOLLOWING SLIDES

11. What are the unserved needs of enterprises and
their dispersed workforces?
Retrospective: Measure QoE slack/hazards
• Based on what you’ve already got, know what
broadband-related business QoE hazards exist.
• Exploit full upside of QoE slack safely in future.
Prospective: Model QoE requirements
• Make business promises on QoE that can be delivered,
or represent a managed and quantified risk.
• Cost-in the capacity and QoE requirements to continue
to keep your promises of business performance.
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

12. How to get the right broadband performance
for the least cost?
• Time-shift your own demand
– At all timescales
• Engage in graceful degradation
– Proactively manage the consequences of supply
failure
• Manage supply and demand at key system
elements (under your control)
– Keep those elements within their predictable region
of operation
– Avoid becoming part of the problem
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

13. What are the risks in buying and delivering new
fit-for-business services?
• More speed ≠ more value
• Beware the ‘frequentist performance fallacy’
– Things can get worse, and do
– The past is not a good guide to the future
• Beware correlated failures & correlated loads
– Understand how failures are linked
– Understand your business processes which cause load
to be correlated
– Consider these issues in your business continuity
plans
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

14. What are the best ways to mitigate and manage
those risks?
Buy and provision:
• Characterise and document your own appetite and
capacity for risk
• Understand properties of bearers from different
suppliers (DSL, FTTC, cable, FTTP, MPLS, carrier
ethernet, etc.) and their failure modes and likely time
to repair
Operational:
• Don’t over-drive (unless you know the consequences)
• Manage your own contention and its QoE effects
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

15. SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS

16. Anticipating the new landscape
• Suppliers:
– Hiding behind existing Ts&Cs based on bandwidth will not meet the
market and regulatory needs
– The money will move to suppliers who deliver a value proposition
expressed in customer terms, not network-centric terms
• Regulators:
– Measure the right thing! (Performance and resilience, not ‘speed’)
– Ensure that the industry is delivering value
• Customers:
– Understand not all broadband is the same
– Become more discriminating and sophisticated buyers
– Articulate the value of hazard mitigation to suppliers and regulators
© Predictable Network Solutions 2014

17. To learn more
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Follow Martin Geddes on Twitter:
@martingeddes
Other presentations: slideshare.net/mgeddes/
White papers on network performance:
www.pnsol.com
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