Business

UK ISP Freeserve has now struck a deal to sell cable provider, NTL’s broadband product to their client base in an effort to try and make them less reliant on BT. This is a good thing that will start to get BT on their toes and not thinking they rule the broadband roost.

John Malone’s Liberty Media bought an interest in OpenTV yesterday, giving him 87% of the voting rights in the company. I feel this is the type of significant deal that gives the iTV the gravitas it needs.

TiVo have just announced a deal with one of their current investors, AOL, to include their instant messaging and live chat on to the Series2 TiVo. Interestingly TiVo/AOL users will be able to set their TiVo recording schedule via AOL – I thought it was pretty stunning that remote programming wasn’t build in from the outset.

In a speech given by David Edmunds (Head of UK regulator Oftel) yesterday he outlined Oftel’s commitment of broadband through a strategy of keeping the Public’s aware of broadband, maintaining competition, controlling anti-competitive practises and regulatory guidance on widely available access.

Real’s RealOne monthly subscription service for audio and video content now has 600k paying members with consumer content now accounts for 49% of their total revenues.

A piece about how the VOD providers are marketing their products to studios as a way of protecting their content, by making it harder to copy that DVD and as a way for the studios to stop being dictated to by Blockbusters.

There has been a lot of worried people in the film world since Napster became mainstream. They’re paranoid about people stealing movies, in the same way that they were with VHS, but as history has shown, VHS was a boon for them, not a threat but that doesn’t stop them discussing how to control consumers seeing their content. Through their strong links with government they are trying to fashion the future in their image. I can half understand why they take this approach, it being better for them to be in an all powerful position, but this is not only controlling how content is copied but how and when it can be used. I’m sure most consumers feel they should pay for content and not be free to give it away to everyone at no cost. I hope the consumers will start to see the content owners ultra aggressive attitude and start to view them in their true light. After all we’re buying the product, why shouldn’t we use it in the way we feel?

UK cable company NTL have defaulted on their debt, making it the World’s largest default, even larger than Enron. Fortunately for 3.5m NTL UK customers, control of the UK company will pass to the bondholders rather than just shutting down. Less fortunate are the shareholder – the shares, have lost more than 99 percent of their value in the past year, yesterday closed at 9.4 cents.

BT has signed a deal with Microsoft UK enabling 1,500 of their workers to access MS network from home via a secure ADSL connection. From experience I know this is something that has a strong appeal to large companies as it give them the potential to significantly reduced their overheads.

Apparently the BT group see broadband access as they key to its future. They plan to have five million UK customers by 2006. A figure that, out of context, sounds impressive, but when compared to the six and a half million that Korea currently has, less so.