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[kitz]

Thanks NS.  It will be interesting to see what BT come up with next though.   

[pedro492]

Several High Court hearings have been held to determine this case. [1] [2] [3] [4]  Concerning BT's infringement of Claims described in two European Patents. The Court referred to those two Patents as the '495 and the '790 Patents.   Both Patents were filed and are owned by Adaptive Spectrum and Signal Alignment, Inc (ASSIA) of Redwood, CA. [5] [6].

In his High Court ruling of December 2013, Mr Justice Birss found in favour of the claimant (ASSIA); that the defendant, British Telecom plc, had indeed infringed ASSIA's patent '790 concerning its DLM (Dynamic Line Management) invention.

In particular the infringement arose from BT's implementation of an apparent clone of ASSIA's "Profile State Transition Matrix" (PSTM).  The PSTM is a software mechanism used in a Finite State Machine of a DLM System to adaptively manage a DSL; moving the line between configuration profiles, according to loop conditions, both current and historic.

The use of a Profile State Transition Matrix is described in ASSIA's patent '790.  [6]

BT appealed the December 2013 judgment. But late last month (Oct 2014) that appeal was dismissed. [3]

Further, the Court of Appeal found that BT had also infringed ASSIA's '495 patent.  Consequently, ASSIA was allowed to appeal the 2013 ruling over BT's alleged infringement of another Claim in that '495 patent.

In the most recent Court hearing, BT sought to quash ASSIA's interim award for damages of £250,000 per week. Calculated as 10% of BT's weekly revenues from its NGA products, and to be paid while the infringing DLM software remains in use.   BT unsuccessfully argued that it was too early to quantify damages.

Not the finest moment for Great Aunt Beatty.

[1] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2013/3768.html   (3 Dec 2013)
[2] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2014/2730.html   (22 Jul 2014)
[3] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/1462.html   (11 Nov 2014)
[4] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/1513.html   (21 Nov 2014)
[5] http://www.google.com/patents/EP2259495A1  (filed Dec 2004)
[6] http://www.google.com/patents/EP1869790B1   (filed Feb 2006)

[guest]

I'd imagine that might be buried in HERE somewhere:

I think you may be right in that it is 'something' to do with the vdsl system.

For those having a pop at ASSIA

I dont see that anyone has     (so far)

My personal opinion is that BT will come back to the table when they are forced to rollout vectoring - and again this is about how you MANAGE vectoring/profiling/etc, not how you implement it

The system profiles will have to change anyhow to account for vectoring.  Bet BT are busy beavers atm.

I wonder if this will motivate them into rolling out things like vectoring, who knows maybe it will help .

No it won't - BT will be the last of the Euro telecos to implement it.

[NewtronStar]

The prefered DLM for my line would be ASSAI as BT's DLM is to busy with the SNRm thats ok for users with a steady SNRm but it's not my fault the RFI is causing this would rather be capped and have the same functionality as EU's who have a stable SNRm.

[kitz]

In particular the infringement arose from BT's implementation of an apparent clone of ASSAI's "Profile State Transition Matrix" (PSTM).  The PSTM is a software mechanism used in a Finite State Machine of a DLM System to adaptively manage a DSL; moving the line between configuration profiles, according to loop conditions, both current and historic.

The use of a Profile State Transition Matrix is described in ASSAI's patent '790.  [6]

Not the finest moment for Great Aunt Beatty.

Welcome pedro.

Thanks for all that info, although I think I'd need a while to digest it all.  The PSTM would seem to explain it.

As mentioned in my earlier post >>  The patent mentions something at first glance that perhaps looks like BTs ILQ system for returning the line profile back down if deemed stable.

So I guess there we have it.

[kitz]

The prefered DLM for my line would be ASSAI as BT's DLM is to busy with the SNRm thats ok for users with a steady SNRm but it's not my fault the RFI is causing this would rather be capped and have the same functionality as EU's who have a stable SNRm.

I dunno NS.  Personally I prefer BT's DLM to SKy's.   My parent's line suffers from occasional bouts of SHINE and possibly PEIN which Ive never been able to trace.   

The result on Sky was anything between 1.6 to a little over 2Mb.  It also applied interleaving at a massive depth and despite numerous phone calls the least latency was something stupid like 56ms to BBC and on occasions was nearing 98ms.   Because the system worked backwards you have to prove your line is stable, before it will move up to the next step.  Dads line couldn't manage the stability level to get up to the next step.

In the end he moved away from Sky in March this year because he was sick of the line performance, he couldnt stream anything and was sick of trying to speak to Sky about it.   The line sync'd straight away at around 8Mb.  I thought the BT DLM would get him quite soon, but as it turned out it left him alone for a couple of months before applying interleaving.   Last time I looked he's syncing at about 7Mb with Interleaving,  latency to the BBC is around 24ms.

When I say it works backwards, look at it this way, currently you are struggling to get off Interleaving, but the BT DLM only applied it because you'd hit the threshold which deemed your line as unstable.   With dads line on Sky, it was never even given the opportunity to at least try it and see.   

[adslmax]

DLM : http://www.google.com/patents/EP2415208A1?cl=en

[guest]

So BT are essentially arguing against an award which costs them £13 million/year and have thrown their toys out of the pram 

I find it completely unbelievable that BT group have a weekly revenue of only £2.5m on FTTC products.

Pull the other one lads, it has bells on 

[adslmax]

BT will going to reprogramme and have their own DLM system soon (probably far better than ASSIA DLM and will not deal with them in future to save BT's cost).

[guest]

The prefered DLM for my line would be ASSAI as BT's DLM is to busy with the SNRm thats ok for users with a steady SNRm but it's not my fault the RFI is causing this would rather be capped and have the same functionality as EU's who have a stable SNRm.

I dunno NS.  Personally I prefer BT's DLM to SKy's.   My parent's line suffers from occasional bouts of SHINE and possibly PEIN which Ive never been able to trace.   

The result on Sky was anything between 1.6 to a little over 2Mb.  It also applied interleaving at a massive depth and despite numerous phone calls the least latency was something stupid like 56ms to BBC and on occasions was nearing 98ms.   Because the system worked backwards you have to prove your line is stable, before it will move up to the next step.  Dads line couldn't manage the stability level to get up to the next step.

In the end he moved away from Sky in March this year because he was sick of the line performance, he couldnt stream anything and was sick of trying to speak to Sky about it.   The line sync'd straight away at around 8Mb.  I thought the BT DLM would get him quite soon, but as it turned out it left him alone for a couple of months before applying interleaving.   Last time I looked he's syncing at about 7Mb with Interleaving,  latency to the BBC is around 24ms.

When I say it works backwards, look at it this way, currently you are struggling to get off Interleaving, but the BT DLM only applied it because you'd hit the threshold which deemed your line as unstable.   With dads line on Sky, it was never even given the opportunity to at least try it and see.

It doesn't work that way now and what your dad's line needed was the line history erased. Anyway I hear you on older DLM stuff - it really does work these days though kitz

[guest]

BT will going to reprogramme and have their own DLM system soon (probably far better than ASSIA DLM and will not deal with them in future to save BT's cost).

Cool, then they can sell it to most of the rest of the world's ISPs too. I doubt they'd trust anything from uk.gov's prime contractor though.

YMMV

[NewtronStar]

BT will going to reprogramme and have their own DLM system soon (probably far better than ASSIA DLM and will not deal with them in future to save BT's cost).

We know the way the current DLM works as a system but we do not know the threshold parameters, if BTw re-programmed the software those TS parameters will be left unchanged for FTTC until a different type of broadband technology is added to the BT infrustructure

[adslmax]

I just powered down Billion 8800NL and wait for 30 minutes and turn back on. It's the same line rate max, and the same snr. Look like it make no difference of DLM on or off. The interleave depth still 1.1

[NewtronStar]

I just powered down Billion 8800NL and wait for 30 minutes and turn back on. It's the same line rate max, and the same snr. Look like it make no difference of DLM on or off. The interleave depth still 1.1

The DLM has not been turned off it's a headline there will be no effect to EU's today tomorrow or 6 months on yes the headline looks bad but thats the way media is used these days to shock and grab your attention 

[adslmax]

Hang on...are you saying BT DLM is not turned off yet? If the DLM still active then BT is lying to ASSIA in court!