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Ofcom Strategic Review of Telecommunications Gets UK Parliament Inquiry

The UK House of Commons launched an inquiry into Ofcom’s Strategic Review of Telecommunications (SRT) yesterday.

Ofcom, the uber-regulator that among other things, oversees telecoms in the UK, started its SRT in January 2004. It was long overdue in the eyes of many, as it was the first comprehensive strategic review of the UK telecommunications sector for 13 years.

Now the UK House of Commons, Trade and Industry Committee will be looking into the workings and results of the SRT, in particular how it relates to the “extensiveness and competitiveness” of broadband in the UK.

The SRT is divided in to three phases; Current position and prospects for the telecommunications sector; Options for Ofcom’s strategic approach to telecommunications regulation; and Proposals; the first phase was published at the end of April.

Ofcom identified two key problems in Phase One; an unstable market structure in fixed telecoms, dominated by BT and with alternative providers that are, in the main, fragmented and of limited scale; BT’s control of the UK-wide access network hadn’t been addressed to date. They then posed some questions; primarily about the future of BT.

Phase Two was published in November 04 and used some relatively strong language (pretty diplomatic in the normal, non-Quango world), which we summarised as “Ofcom to BT: Equivalence or else”. It’s still open for public consultation until 3 February 2005.

Yesterdays announcement from the Trade and Industry Committee, said in the light of the Committee’s Report on the UK Broadband Market, the inquiry will be looking into OfCom’s STR process to date, the interim conclusions reached in the Phase Two document, and the direction of the remainder of the Review. They’ll be paying particular attention how it relates to the competitiveness of the broadband market in the UK, including local loop unbundling, and the “functional separation of British Telecom”.

A spokeperson at OfCom told us that they “had already briefed the Committee” and “welcomed their interest” in the SRT. When we asked about the previously expected Spring delivery of SRT Phase 3, we were told that they “still planned” to meet it. Frankly they were playing their cards pretty close to their chest.

We called the office of the Committee, but given the 21 enquiries they have on currently, no one was available for comment at the time of publishing the story.

If you have any view on the area covered by the Committee, they’re asking for written evidence on these or any other related issues by Friday 18 February 2005 via email ([email protected]). If you do write please CC ([email protected]) us in, we’d be interested in see the issues raised.


Alerted by OfcomWatch
Trade and Industry Select Committee
Ofcom – Strategic Review of Telecommunications

Youth Gym Usage Up 15% After PS2 Games Installed

Liverpool Gym PS2Back at the tail end of last year, Liverpool City Council installed gym equipment with Sony Playstation games consoles fitted to them, in an effort to induce the local youth to come to the gym.

At the time, Councillor Warren Bradley, Executive Member for Leisure was quoted as saying “By fitting television screens and games consoles to the equipment, we will be able to show children that they can combine their favourite activity with exercise. And by teaching children about the positive benefits of exercise.”

Why are we mentioning today? The Sun, a well known tabloid “newspaper”, is running a brief story and editorial comment about it today, deriding Liverpool council spending money on Playstations in an attempt to encourage children into gyms.

Over the two years since we first discovered the Reebok CyberRider, we’ve written about devices that connect games consoles to exercise machines and have been keen on them. The connection of physical input to video games seems like a great area of growth and it’s certainly true that in those two years there have been lots of interesting developments. Sony and Nike MotionWorks have got together recently to bring EyeToy Kinetic to market in autumn 05, combining the camera add-on for the PS2 with fitness software.

We spoke to Donald Hurst, Operations manager of sport and recreation service at Liverpool City Council to get the accurate details on the story.

The equipment that they’re using, supplied by TechnoGym, includes running a treadmill, rowing machine, and cycle. The four machines that they have working at each of their Lifestyles fitness centres at Peter Lloyd, Everton Park and Garston have been particularly well received, both by the children and adults.

It appears particularly popular at the Garston centre, which has 2,000 members and is their busiest site, with the staff receiving quite a number of positive comments from children’s parents.

Keen children are given an introduction session which runs between 4 – 5:30 daily and are then free to choose from a selection of 30 games supplied by the venue. Hurst said they’ve made the decision to currently not let the children bring in their own games, so they have some control over the type of game being played. Once the game has been selected it has to be setup by the fitness instructor.

Hurst put some comparative usage figures together for us that show usage by young people has gone up by 15% over the same period last year since the Playstation had been introduced. He also told us that there is a growing interest from adults to use the equipment as well.

While Liverpool hasn’t yet gone the whole hog of direct connection between physical input and the games, we think it’s a good start. The increase in attendance figures also point in that direction.

Liverpool City Council

Intel Reshuffle Around Platforms

Sensing the changes in the micro-electronics industry, with the growth of tech/media convergence, Intel are to reorganise themselves around Platforms.

The new groups of interest are Mobility; Digital Enterprise; Digital Home; and Digital Health.

Mobility will deal with, surprise surprise, portable devices such as notebook PCs, handhelds and communications devices. A major focus will be getting the expanding numbers of mobile devices working better together using, we assume, wireless networking.

Focused on living room entertainment applications and consumer electronics devices, the Digital Home group will focus on developing computing and communications platforms for consumers.

Digital Enterprise Group will cover end-to-end solutions in businesses. With digital delivery of content, this is becoming more and more important to content owners/current broadcasters and an area that IBM is putting a lot of effort into try to capture.

One of the big areas of excitement for the connected home is its use of health sensing. Intel are jumping on this with the Digital Health group.

This is a clear illustration of the growth of the electronics business away from its business focused roots, maturing in to a new phase, one where technology will be everywhere.

Intel

Chernin Hints News Corp. to Buy into Video Gaming

News Corp., the media giant built by Rupert Murdoch is reportedly looking to get into the games business.

The FT is running a story today that Peter Chernin, News Corp. chief operating officer, told a conference in Phoenix, Arizona that they were “kicking the tires of pretty much all video games companies,” as “We see as a big business and would like to get into it.”

Normally used to buying huge companies like Fox, News Corp is clearly looking for the best value company, but finding a big disparity between the largest, Electronics Arts (EA), and the rest of the video games companies. “We are struggling with the gap between companies like Electronic Arts, which come with a high price tag, and the next tier of companies. These may be too focused on one or two product lines.” Chernin said.

There are many reasons why a move into gaming would make sense for News Corp. Numerous studies have shown that people, particularly the young, are moving away from watching television to play video games and the next generation of Set Top Boxes (STB’s) have considerable power. Using News Corps. satellite distribution platform, such as Sky and DirecTV, to distribute games to these STBs makes total sense.

We imagine there is a state of confusion at EA, if not the whole of the games industry, switching between a state of high excitement and nervousness. As the many corporate corpses that litter in the trail of News Corp. attest to, when they do it, they do it big.

News Corporation

Apple iTunes Selling 1.25m Tracks per Day

During his MacWorld keynote, Steve Jobs took time to tell the Apple faithful about the success of iTunes.

Back in mid-December, we were rather dismissive when we heard that iTunes had sold 200m tracks, so when we heard Jobs saying that the figure had now reached 230m songs, it didn’t set our world alight.

What we did find interesting was the current rate at which tracks are being sold per day. From their combined online stores in the 15 countries they have running (covering 70% of global music market), they are currently selling at the rate of 1.25m per day.

Jobs was quick to point out that ‘at this rate’ the annualised sale of tracks would be 0.5 billion tracks.

While this tracks/day rate initially sounds enormous, it has to be put against the explosion in the sales of iPod over the last quarter of 2004.

In the run up to xmas a very impressive 4.5m iPods were sold (a 500% growth over the same quarter last year) and dropped in to people’s xmas stockings, bringing the total sold to 10m. Clearly these arrive empty and have to be filled with music, some of which may be already owned, but experience tells that the common action is for people to take this as an opportunity to buy more music.

The number of tracks downloaded will have been helped by the 1m prepaid card that Apple has sold since US Thanksgiving (25 Nov).

These combined factors may account for the big hike in tracks/day and could point towards this being a seasonal blip. Sustaining it will require a continued enthusiastic appetite for new music from the current owners or legions of new iPod owners continuing to arrive.

Apple iTunes

iPod shuffle. Apple’s Flash Music Player

apple iPod shuffleThe success of Apple’s iPod range is well known. They have to date sold over 10 million units and have total domination of the hard disk-based portable music players. The only market they weren’t in was the solid state memory, or Flash memory players. To address with the hope of being the winner there too, Jobs announced the Apple iPod shuffle.

Shown in iPod white it’s 3.3 inches x 0.98 x 0.33 (8.4 cm x 2.5 x 0.84) and weighs only 0.78 ounces (22.11g). In summary it’s very small, about the size of a pack of chewing gum.

The controls are very simple, numbering just five – play/pause; volume up and down; next and previous track. Unexpectedly it has no display, so there is no visual way to know which track is playing. Apple being Apple, worked this idea to their advantage, suggesting that receiving your music in a random, unexpected order was fun. We’ll see if the market agrees.

Connecting to either a Mac or PC via its USB 2.0 port, it also takes its charge onto its 12 hours battery this way. This is a great feature that players like the Jens MP-130 had used, which we found a real boon.

While we’re on the Jens MP-130, it had a really excellent microphone build into it which enabled quality recording of interviews and the like. It’s noticeable that the iPod shuffle doesn’t have a mic onboard or even a jack for an input. This is for playback only.

It comes in two models; 0.5 GB and 1GB – pretty beefy for a Flash player. Prices are $99 (~€75, ~£53) and $149 (~€113, ~£79) in the US, £69 (~€98, ~$130) and £99 (~€141, ~$187) in the UK and is “shipping from the factory” yesterday.

The integration with iTunes is strong and features AutoFill. This gives various methods of selecting music tracks to go onto the iPod shuffle, filling it to capacity.

The experience that we’ve had in the Digital Lifestyles office with USB music players is that the ones that have a clip-on lid end up having problems with the lid dropping off. The iPod Shuffle is using a removable lid as the attachment to the lanyard which then hangs around the neck.

The reaction throughout most of Jobs’s presentation was pretty ecstatic as is the norm, with them cheering and whooping on cue. Strangely during the presentation of the iPod shuffle, it was pretty restrained, even quiet. The only audible excitement was during the announcement of the price of the base model.

We’re sure Apple will be hoping the public has a more enthusiastic reaction to it. We’ll be getting our hands on it this Friday, so we will update you after that.

Apple iPod shuffle

UPDATED – Mac Mini Announced by Jobs – $499/£339

apple mini mac box In what isn’t a surprise move Steve Jobs has announced the Apple “Mac Mini”, a low cost addition to the Macintosh computer range. Priced at $499 (~€380, ~£265) and $599 (~€457, ~£319), it can sit in the palm on your hand (measuring 6.5 inches (16.51 cm) square and just 2 inches (5.08 cm) tall and weights just 2.9 pounds (1.32 kg). True to form for Apple, it looks great.

Disappointingly Apple plan to sell the Mac Mini for £339 (~$634) and £399 (~$746) in the UK. Which, when converted back in to dollars at current exchange rates, don’t sound quite so sweet. Quite why UK uses will have the privilege of paying more is currently unclear.

The bargain-basement prices are because it comes with quite a few things not included – like keyboard, mouse, screen – or “BYODKM, bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse” as Jobs put it.

What do you get for your money? The different prices give you either a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 or a 1.42GHz (you know when they’re talking about 0.02 of a GHz they’re talking about a budget machine) processor and a 40GB or 80GB hard drive. Two included optical drives are available; a combo, that reads CD & DVD and writes CDs; or a SuperDrive, that reads and writes CDs & DVDs.

Interestingly, the video output is via DVI (Digital Video Interface) and support up to a 1920 x 1200 resolution. DVI is used on many Plasma TV and large LCD screens as the standard interface. Additional adaptors will enable the DVI to be connected to a VGA, S-video and composite video output.

Cleverly they are including lots of software – iLife 05 ( iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand); Quicken 2005 and AppleWorks 6, providing word processing and spreadsheets.

It’s connectors to the outside world are – One FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports. The keyboard and mouse (extra cost) can be connected using these. An optional internal Bluetooth module enabled the connection of a wireless keyboard and mouse. 10/100Mb Ethernet and a 56K modem.

Wireless networking is possible using the internally fitted AirPort Extreme Card – which comes at extra cost.

We see this as Apple’s chance to cash in on all of the non-Macintosh owning iPod users, whether they be computer-virgins or current PC owners who are looking to upgrade.

We were wondering what the final cost of the machines would be when spec’d up with wireless networking, etc. It appears that many other people around the planet were thinking the same thing, as the ordering section of the online Apple Store has fallen over from the demand.

This baby is going to sell – by the truck load. First truck load arriving 22 January 2005.

Apple Mac Mini
Watch Jobs keynote

SmartDeck from Griffin gives iPod control

Griffin SmartDeck iPodGriffin Technology has announced what they call SmartDeck Intelligent Cassette Technology.

At first glance it appears to be a “seen it” product, a bit of audio cassette-shaped plastic that you pop into your cassette player to let you play the music you’ve got on your digital music player.

Take another look beacuse this device is smarter than that. Rather than having to fumble for the control on your iPod while you should be concentrating on things like … driving. This little beauty lets you use the buttons on your cassette deck to control your iPod. The fast forward and rewind buttons take you to the next or previous playlist track; the Stop and pause buttons do as would be expected; and hitting Eject or selecting car stereo’s radio also put the iPod on pause.

How does it do it? The cassette adaptor has sensors on it (note the teeth inside the holes in the middle of it) and passes this information down a single white cable to the four-pin top accessory port on the top of the iPod. Clever isn’t it?

Griffin are also claiming it automatically sets optimal volume on the iPod for best audio quality and the devices innards are the highest-quality to give crystal clear quality sound.

It should be available in the second quarter of 2005, priced at $24.99 (~€19, ~£13.50). If you can’t wait until then to see it, it’s going to be on show on Booth #1917 at current MacWorld show.

Griffin SmartDeck

Digital Lifestyle extolled by Bill Gates at CES

In what has now become a tradition, Bill Gates opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas extolling the virtues of Digital Lifestyles (thanks for the plug Bill).

In a “casual” interview style, US TV chat show presenter, Conan O’Brien, lead Bill through the wonderful world of digital media.

O’Brien started his shtick with a great joke, “When Bill Gates walks onto this stage in a few minutes, the average net worth of each person in this room will be(come) $128 million.”. He then went on to be reasonably rude about most people in the industry. Of particular note was the “CES – The Movie” spoof casting, where well known characters in the industry were matched up with their acting doubles. It’s worth watching, just fire it up and jump to 11m 30s.

Bill Gates then came on stage to give Microsoft’s view of Digital Lifestyles.

Not surprisingly Microsoft pitches the PC as the centre of it, “The PC has a central role to play, (in that) it’s where it all comes together.”

As has been the case since the public started recognising the iPod and iTunes, Bill and his promotional videos took every opportunity to feature ‘other’ music players, while subtly highlighting the virtues of the Microsoft approach.

This covered “Windows Plays For Sure”, the certification process that labels all devices that are able to understand and adhere to Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. Read as, music in Apple’s format can’t play on other devices except Apples.

For the trend spotters among you, Bill referred to this as a “rights management system”, dropping the Digital prefix.

He also pitched monthly subscription services where you have access to all of the music you desire – another thing that Apple iTunes doesn’t offer. He failed to mention that with most subscriptions services, the ability to play the music you’ve paid for access to, stops when the monthly subscriptions fees do.

Media Centre featured large with Gates announcing that PC manufacturers have sold 1.4 million Media Centre models worldwide so far.

Media Extenders, which enables households with networked homes to pull content from their Media Centres to rooms around the house were also brought up again. Dedicated boxes from companies like LG were mentioned as well as a software upgrade for Microsoft’s xBox to provide the same function. The fact that 6.3 million people had bought Halo 2, was also dropped into the conversation.

The LG example was of note. A dedicated DVR with DVD burner, it featured a cut-down version of the Media Center software that retained the familiar user interface (UI), while offering access to music and photo’s stored on the Media Centre PC. Not only that but content recorded on this dedicated device could be transferred to the Media Centre PC and in turn to a smartphone or Portable Media Centre (PMC).

To easily operate the Media Centre, the “simple, single remote control” was also touted, more than once. Microsoft have formed partnerships with Philips, NiveusMedia and Logitech to produce universal remote controls that work with Media Centre, as well as many other devices. All these remotes will feature a “signature” Green Start button. Bill had previously mentioned that some remote controls will have small colour screens on them, allowing video content to be shown on them.

New content partners also got a nod. Discovery will be creating “unique content” that fits on Media Center, with Yahoo and Fox Sports also getting a mention.

One key item was the launch of the Media Centre as a platform. Not just a means of accessing and playing back content, but of broadcasters creating interactive content specifically for it, that combines broadcast and IP delivered content using Online Spotlight. We feel this is the most important item to come out and will be covered in more detail in another piece shortly.

It’s also worth watching the video, if nothing else then to see Bill looking less than comfortable with the interview technique.

Bill Gates CES – Opening Speech

6 PSP Games Due from EA

SIRIUS SportsterToday Electronic Arts (EA) used CES to announce its line-up for the US launch of Sony’s handheld entertainment system, the PSP due in March.

The six games are FIFA Football and MVP Baseball, (only available in the US and not in the UK) along with four previously announced franchise greats; Need for Speed Underground Rivals, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, NBA STREET: Showdown (working title) and NFL STREET 2: Unleashed.

EA say each game has been specifically designed for the PSP, as they found that trying to port the games didn’t work visually and they wanted the handheld titles to take advantage of the unique PSP functions such as WiFi head-to-head game play. To create the games, EA created the very dramatic sounding Team Fusion.

More details of the games are on their dedicated PSP site. It has some screen shots of the games which looks most impressive.

EA’s dedicated PSP site