Candidate Statement
Charlie Boisseau – Commsworld
My Perspective
We’re currently experiencing a pivotal moment in Internet history, particularly in the UK. We are seeing the rise (and fall in some cases) of new ISPs and infrastructure providers that is completely changing the ‘eyeball’ landscape. We are also seeing a continuing shift in how content is being delivered to the eyeballs by the big media organisations and CDNs, specifically shifting it away from public peering towards local caches and private peering arrangements. Meanwhile as an ISP owner/operator, I’ve watched as LINX has diversified from being solely London-focussed to becoming a Regional IX operator, to a Global player in the space. As one of the main supporters since inception of LINX Scotland, I agree wholeheartedly with Regional Peering (but with limits!), but don’t see as much benefit behind the Global ventures. My understanding is that this diversification has been, in LINX’s eyes, necessary to keep the organisation sustainable as there has been waning demand for public peering (relative to the overall bandwidth demand for content distribution).
Why Now?
It has become a bit of an internal joke with several people who have threatened to nominate me for the LINX Board in past years, with my response being “don’t you dare!”. For whatever reason they’d thought I would be well placed, but I have never had a reason to get involved. I’ve felt that the board have largely been doing a good job and there has never been a compelling event for me to stick my oar in. As I have watched these changes happen over recent years, I’ve become increasingly curious to understand the motivation behind them and understand whether alternative paths were investigated thoroughly enough.
I’m not saying LINX has been going in the wrong direction, but it does feel like this direction is potentially unsustainable in the long term. Is there a way to stem the flow away from public peering, or are there other things (that don’t compete with members) where LINX would add value in the industry? Surely with the surge in alt-nets in the UK, it’s worth exploring potential opportunities for LINX to provide interconnection services to support wholesaling of one another’s networks? With the PSTN switch-off looming, maybe there’s an opportunity for LINX to provide services to allow VoIP service providers to meaningfully interconnect with each other, particularly as there’s clearly been a failure in regulation with centralising number porting and the likes.
My Contribution
My greatest strength has always been thinking outside the box. Yes, I’m technical, but I’m also entrepreneurial and always have one eye on the strategic view. If I am successful in being voted onto the board, I hope to challenge the status-quo, and use my position to ensure the executive team are really exploring LINXs future strategy options fully. LINX probably doesn’t need yet another CTO-type character on the board, but it does need people who intimately understand the market, the product and have good leadership and governance skills – all of which I have.
About Me
I have been fascinated by telecoms and networking since an early age. I funded my way through university developing and selling an award-winning Mac Networking utility (remember ‘shareware’!?) that taught me networking down to the bits-and-bytes level, and I’ve been working my way up the stack since then. I built a small IT support business in my 20s which I eventually realised I hated whilst simultaneously realising I could do a better job than the ISPs I was using at the time for my customers. In 2010 I founded Fluency Communications to kill these two birds with one stone! In 2012, having just got the business off the ground I was approached by the then CEO of Commsworld, Ricky Nicol who sold me a dream of joining forces – which I did, and that’s still where I am. Over the last 12 years that fledgeling network has grown from 2 PoPs to 125 PoPs, we operate our own national DWDM ring, have nearly a thousand kilometres of our own fibre in the ground, and we have broken into Public Sector in a big way which has led to massive growth in the business. We completed an investment in 2019 to Lloyd’s Bank private equity arm, LDC which has accelerated the growth even further. It’s been a real roller coaster, but the experience that has given me – both technically and in the boardroom is something I never would have got out on my own.
I have been heavily involved with LINX through leading the LINX Scotland steering committee in the early days. I’ve been a regular at industry events for the last 15 years, regularly taking the stage to share experience and insight.
Outside of telecoms I act as an investor and non-exec for a few start-ups and other small businesses. I’m a Dad of three small kids and love getting my hands dirty with a bit of DIY.
