Distribution

The new digital ways content was becoming distributed

Hello? I’M ON THE PLANE!!!!
A survey by technology researchers IDC revealed that passengers aren’t too keen on the prospect of spending long flights listening to fellow passengers bellowing into their mobile phones.
The comprehensive survey was set up in response to reports that the US Federal Communications Commission was considering lifting its in-flight cellphone ban.
IDC discovered that a mere 11 percent of its 50,000 survey respondents wanted the ban lifted, but a hefty 64 percent approved of the use of mobile phones for purposes besides voice calls.
“While the passage of this proposal appears to offer solutions to the wireless industry, it has spawned disapproval among some consumer groups as the potential for in-flight usage would create disturbances to passengers,” IDC commented.
The growth of clever-clogs smartphones phones like the i-mate JAM and PalmOne Treo would allow connected passengers to check their email and surf the web during flights.
IDC’s survey aimed to identify which wireless services were most appealing and, not surprisingly, of the eleven activities offered, text messaging was the most popular activity.
As you might imagine, the market would love to see the in-flight ban lifted as it would provide a party pack of opportunities for wireless carriers and airlines to brand and market mobile commerce, provide new channels to squeeze more cash out of consumers and send smart phone manufacturers into mobile heaven.
“Whether a mobile-device vendor is interested in the in-flight market or not, the key finding from this survey remains the same: By comprehending the needs and criteria specific to the user segment and location, mobility companies can enhance their products to better serve and target the desired customers and market segments,” said Dana Thorat, IDA research manager/mobile users, in a suitably analytical manner.
IDC
21 June, 2005
AOL Is King Of The Zombies
A recent study by security vendor Prolexic Technologies has declared AOL to be king of the zombies, with their customer’s machines accounting for more infections than any other ISP.
A well as being a scary 1960s monster, zombies are also computers that have been infected with a daemon that puts it under the control of a malicious hacker – with the computer owner remaining blissfully unaware.
Zombie machines are often used by malicious hackers to launch Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and Prolexic spent six months studying the data from real-world DoS attack attempts from hijacked machines.
Their findings put AOL right at the top of the Zombie league with 5.3 percent of all infections, followed by Deutsche Telekom in second place with 4.67 percent, and Wannadoo third with 3.27 percent.
Country by country, the good ol’ USA led the way, totting up a global market share of 18 percent of the total detected.
China lagged behind at 11.2 percent, with Germany on 9.6 percent,and the UK and France both with 5.1 percent.
If the figures are calculated on zombie numbers on a per capita basis, the most infected countries were – in descending order – Hong Kong, Germany, Malaysia, Hungary, and the U.K.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise to find that some of the most high profile Internet Service Providers are most susceptible to providing a safe haven for large numbers of Zombie PCs,” says Prolexic CTO Barrett Lyon. “It is these networks which are continually being exploited to support large scale DoS attacks.”
“Just because a home user subscribes to a reputable brand doesn’t mean they’re safe from the online criminal fraternity,” he says.
AOL was having none of it, saying that the suggestion that it is the most infected network on the Internet was “silly.”
In full-on PR schmooze mode, AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein declared the numbers to be “great news” for the company, pointing out that the number of Zombies on its network is actually low in relation to the total number of its members.
“We’re the largest ISP, so we’re going to have the largest of everything,” he whooped.
“Even though we’re several times larger than the next largest ISP, the rates of infection for those next-largest ISPs are basically the same.”
Although Weinstein acknowledged that over 10 percent of the Zombie attacks came from AOL, he was quick to point out that the company accounts for roughly 40 percent – or 21.7 million – of US Internet subscribers, thus making AOL customers three to four times safer than the average user of another ISP.
“I think this report is kind of silly; it’s like saying the US is the most dangerous country to drive in because we have the most cars,” he added.
Although Prolexic are yet to comment on AOL’s response, the company has emphasised that its Zombie data was culled from attempted real-world attacks, and not sneaky “honeypots” designed to lure in Zombie hackers.
The company also noted that Zombie attackers now favour the brute force “full connection based flood” approach, using real IP addresses in such numbers that they might overload blacklisting systems.
Prolexic
17 June, 2005
Broadband Wales Gets Mobile, Gets Smart
In a novel move to publicise the benefits of broadband for regional dwellers, the Welsh Assembly Government’s Broadband Wales Unit sent mobile Internet gateways scurrying around the valleys and mountains of lovely, lovely Wales.
As part of the multi-million-pound Broadband Wales Programme, three Smart Cars have been wired up so that so they can provide broadband access into Welsh communities on a six month road trip, snappily labelled Get Smart – Get Broadband.
Andrew Davies, Minister for Economic Development and Transport and e-minister donned his Steve McQueen racing gloves and opined: “We believe the very best way to spread the good news about broadband is not by sitting behind our desks but by hitting the streets of Wales.”
“That’s why we’re taking broadband on the road so that many people will be able to chat to our team of experts face-to-face, and get hands-on with broadband.”
The Get Smart – Get Broadband campaign revs up at Swansea Party in the Park this Sunday, where fans will be able to send messages (known in the vernacular as “shout outs”) from the Smart Cars to a giant onstage screen.
Launched in July 2002, the Broadband Wales Programme is tasked with achieving a competitive and sustainable broadband infrastructure across Wales by March 2007.
The Programme aims to increase access – and take up – of affordable broadband by individuals, communities, businesses and public sector organisations.
It’s hoped that increased availability and usage of broadband will play a part in “generating “a step-change that will help to underpin the successful transition from an industrial to a modern, knowledge economy.
Broadband Wales
17 June, 2005
T-Mobile Wi-Fi Usage Soars
T-Mobile USA today revealed that nearly half a million are currently signed up to access their hotspots with hourly, daily, monthly or yearly accounts
The company’s figures revealed that 450,000 people accessed their high-speed Internet access at locations such as Starbucks coffee shops, airports and hotels in the past twelve weeks.
Although the company declined to provide year-on-year access figures, the figures showed that not only are there a lot more T-Mobile Hotspot users – they’re staying online longer too.
In the first quarter of 2005, users stayed logged on for an average of 64 minutes per login in 2005 – up from 45 minutes last year and just 23 minutes in 2003.
The total number of T-mobile Wi-Fi log-ins reached 3 million in the past three months against around 8 million for all of 2004. In this year’s first quarter alone, more people became customers than in all of 2003.
Although many early Wi-Fi adopters were laptop-toting business suits connecting in airports, hotel rooms and lobbies, the demographic is now far broader, with students, music fans, backpackers, silver surfers and others hitting the hotspots with their PDAs, smartphones and laptops.
T-Mobile’s figures show fast accelerating Wi-Fi usage, with 90 terabytes (i.e. 90 million megabytes) of Wi-Fi data flying across their network in 2004, with December accounting for 10 terabytes alone. By May 2005, 18 terabytes had swooshed across the ether.
T-Mobile dished out the stats as it announced an expansion in the provision of US and overseas hotspots.
New locations include the provision of roaming access throughout another 39 more airports in North America (making a total of 75 airports covered), with Wi-Fi guest room access being installed at 525 more hotels in the Marriott, Hilton, Ritz-Carlton, Doubletree and Renaissance chains.
In the US, every single Starbucks, FedEx, Kinko’s and Borders Books & Music store in the United States is covered by a T-Mobile hot spot, “unless they got built within the past five minutes,” quipped Joe Sims, VP and GM of the company’s hot-spot operations.
This brings T-Mobile’s hotspot tally to 5,700 locations in the US and 6,500 in Europe.
Roberta Wiggins, a senior research fellow with the Yankee Group was impressed with figures: “The numbers show that Wi-Fi is no longer an obscure, upstart technology. It’s gaining credibility.”
T-Mobile hotspot
14 June, 2005
Freeview Breaks 5m Barrier. UK Digital TV Now ~62%
Ofcom has today reported its quarterly figures on the rate of take-up of digital TV in the UK.
The number of homes that are connected to a digital TV service through some means has increased 2.5% to just short of 62% (61.9%). No big surprise there as this has been gradually increasing over the previous quarters.
The bigger news, we feel, is Freeview, the UK’s Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) service reaching 5,059,350 homes – breaking the significant barrier of five million homes.
This is bad news for Sky, as it’s starting to get close to the around 7.5m homes that they have. What’s worse news for them is in the detail of the report. Sky’s all-important ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) has dropped from £386 in Q4 2004 to £382 in Q1 2005. This might not sound huge, but for an organisation that is trying to constantly increase their ARPU, it’s not encouraging. Another figure of note is their rate of churn, that’s up to 11.1% form 9.6% in the previous quarter.
Xmas has previously been a strong time for Sky as people with little imagination and less conversation buy in Sky to keep them happy over the Turkey dinner.
The growth of aerial-delivered Freeview has been gaining more momentum of late, still spearheaded by the BBC using the Freeview channels to first-show a lot of its content.
For the fact spotters, a minor point of interest is the number of old ITV Digital STB’s that are in use in the UK. This is in steadily decline since they went bust and is now running at 290,000, down 60,000 from 350,000 in the previous quarter.
I actually run one of these and have increasingly found problems with it as the ‘digital rust’ sets in – box freezes, etc. (I’m not looking for sympathy. The problems with the box are significantly offset by the fact that I paid the princely sum of 1p for it, timing its purchase, as I did, during the week of uncertainly before ITV Digital went bust).
The breakdown of the figures is as follows
Sky Subscribers – 7,349,000 Freeview & free satellite – 5,504,350 Digital cable – ~2,500,00
Ofcom Digital Television Update – Q1 2005
10 June, 2005
Islington’s Free Wi-Fi ‘Technology Mile’ Goes Live
Wi-fi enabled North Londoners can now gorge their connectivity needs with the announcement by Islington Council that its ‘Technology Mile’ has gone live.
Located in Upper Street, Islington, the ‘Technology Mile’ runs from The Angel to Highbury Corner, providing one mile of unbroken free wireless broadband access to residents, businesses and any passing freeloader.
The service will be available to anyone with a suitably enabled Wi-Fi device, with surfers being directed to a customised council page featuring a comprehensive menu of council services, information and communication options including jobs, travel, e-Govt options, child care and advice services
Happily, there’s also direct access to the World Wide Web – all for nowt.
The second part of the project is to dish out computers to businesses in the area, so that customers can use these for free access.
The council are anticipating that locals may use the free access to pay off council bills and are hopeful that the service may stimulate commercial activity in the area.
“As London’s largest ‘hotzone’ Islington’s Technology Mile is a landmark in providing wide reaching community services directly on the street,” says Cllr Bridget Fox. “By offering free access to important council services and to the internet, the project addresses social inclusion head on and supports our ambition to turn Islington into an A1 Borough for all.
“The technology mile builds on other schemes the council has in place to help everyone to gain the benefits of internet access. I’m especially pleased with the second phase of the project, when we hope to begin work with selected local businesses, supplying PCs along Upper St business so they can offer free access to their customers.”
We like this scheme. There’s not much point in having free community Wi-Fi if only well-heeled laptop-toters can use it, but by ensuring public access to computers in the area, the walls of the digital divide could come crashing down.
The scheme comes with a few commercial risks – if the service proves to be fast and reliable, locals may cancel their commercial subscriptions and this may result in ISPs fighting back – in America, several commercial providers have already managed to get legislation passed to prevent free or low-cost municipal broadband services arguing that they’re uncompetitive.
Marc Meyohas, Chief Executive of Cityspace, the company who built the network gave out his love for the borough: “Islington is a progressive council with great vision; the Technology Mile proves what can be achieved for the community by taking the internet out of the restrictive arenas of homes and offices and truly integrating it into people’s lives.”
Islington Council
Cityspace
8 June, 2005
ASA Rules NTL Broadband Not “5x faster”
NTL’s claim that 300K broadband offer was “more than 5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up internet” has been happy-slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), who condemned it as being in breach of TV Advertising Standards Code.
The offending broadcast appeared on Broadband UK (NTL’s own, self-promotional channel) and extolled the virtues of NTL’s “3 for £30” package, which lumps in a telephone service, a digital television service and a broadband internet service.
The advert claimed that NTL’s broadband service was “more than 5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up internet” with the presenter adding that subscribers could “e-mail your friends and family all around the world a lot faster, in fact five times faster”.
A viewer was having none of it, convinced that the advertisement was misleading, because he believed that NTL’s service was only five times faster than standard dial-up internet for downloading, with upload speeds creaking along at a stately 150K.
In other words, it definitely wasn’t five times quicker a standard dial-up internet connection. No way, Jose.
Issue was also taken with the curious suggestion that emails would somehow be received “five times faster.”
NTL put up a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to back up their claims when they were hauled in front of the ASA.
The telecoms giant insisted that it was standard industry practice to refer to the speed of broadband only in terms of download speed and, to back up their case, readily snitched on a host of competitors making similar claims.
The ASA were having none of it, pointing out that with consumers increasingly using the internet to upload digital content (e.g. photo files) they were “more likely to interpret the claim as meaning that all internet use (downloading and uploading) would be five times faster unless told otherwise.”
The ASA ruled that the advertising was misleading and that NTL should have made clear that its claim “5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up” was limited to download speed.
The Authority also found that the claim about the “five times faster” email was equally likely to mislead viewers.
Suitably chastised and ‘umbled, NTL have agreed to change the wording of future advertisements. They now have a “grace period” of three months from 8 June to ensure that their wording stays within the ASA guidelines.
NTL Broadband
ASA
8 June, 2005
United B757-200 First Certified For US Inflight Wi-Fi
United and Verizon Airfone have become the first companies to receive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to install Wi-Fi for use on US domestic commercial aircraft.
After extensive trials, approval was forthcoming after the two companies successfully demonstrated that using 802.11 b/g wireless technology within the cabin didn’t send the airplane into a loop-de-loop or spark off random explosions of Star Trek-esque white smoke.
Although the FAA approval currently only applies to the cabin of United’s B757-200 aircraft, it’s an important landmark on the way to enabling full high-speed wireless Internet access on board all United aircraft.
“Our research shows that connecting to the Internet is customers’ most preferred form of communication to the ground, and this certification is a crucial step to bring this inflight wireless access to our customers,” said Dennis Cary, United’s senior vice president-Marketing.
Verizon Airfone currently provides voice services and JetConnect(SM) Messaging services on United’s flights, and securing in-flight Wi-Fi Internet access is sure to be a coffer-filling money-spinner.
Verizon Airfone really had no option but to lead this initiative, someone was going to do it, and once done, all of Verizon Airfone’s high prices call revenue would be gone, as the Ilses started to run Skype on their laptops or PDA’s phones.
“Our wireless broadband system will require only the addition of an avionics box, a wireless access point and a directional antenna, making it the faster and more affordable choice for United and its passengers,” said Bill Pallone, president, Verizon Airfone.
Passengers desperate for some in-seat network fragging are going to have to wait on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) scheduled “Air-to-Ground” spectrum auction to be held in the coming months. At the auction, providers will battle it out for lucrative service rights and the range of frequencies for onboard passenger access to the Internet.
Once a service provider is selected by the FCC, United should be able to meet their passengers’ Wi-Fi needs in double quick time with, no doubt, zillions of other airlines following their lead.
United Airlines
7 June, 2005
Orange EDGE To Launch With TV In France Next Week
Coming hot on the heels of their 3G Mobile TV launch, Orange France has announced that their high-speed EDGE mobile service for consumers will go live next week.
Although EDGE technology is slower than 3G services it has the distinctive advantage of being cheaper and – unlike the “walled garden” approach of 3G – the technology gives customers direct access to email, the Internet and television.
Orange, the mobile phone arm of France Telecom, has shuffled its expectations of EDGE take-up in a downward direction from its initial forecast of 500,000 subscribers by the end of December.
“We expect to have more than a million high-speed clients (EDGE and 3G) by the end of May 2006,” Orange Chief Executive Didier Quillot told a news conference.
Quillot added that he expected the total to stand at between 500,000 and 1 million by Christmas 2006, with the number of EDGE subscribers reaching 2 million by the end of 2006.
Monsieur Quillot revealed that Orange had 110,000 3G subscribers by the end of May – nudging higher than their rivals, SFR, with 100,000 subscribers.
SFR expects to have scooped up around 500,000 3G subscribers by the end of the year.
Currently, Orange’s EDGE service offer coverage of some 85 percent of France’s population, against the 45 percent coverage offered by its 3G network.
3G coverage is expected to rise to over 50 percent by the end of 2005 and continues upward to around 60 percent by end of 2006.
Orange has stated that it will invest over 200 million euros in 2005 and 2006 to make its network compatible with EDGE.
EDGE stands for Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution and is a radio based high-speed mobile data standard, which enables television, video and music to be received on an Orange Intense mobile phone at any time.
Orange France
EDGE explained
3 June, 2005
8Meg Bulldog DSL Goes UK Wide
Bulldog Communications, the Internet and telecom group owned by Cable & Wireless, is rolling up its sleeves and shouting “Oy! Let’s be ‘aving you!” at its rivals as it doubles the speed of its broadband offering to a super-swifty 8 megabits-per-second from 4 megabits, and spread it across the UK.
With its local loop unbundling (LLU) cutting BT out of the loop, Bulldog can offer highly competitive prices, letting subscribers get broadband at speeds of up to 8 meg.
Prices start at £15.50 (~US$28 ~€22) for eight hours online a month with their ‘Start@ctive’ package.
The unlimited ‘Inter@ctive’ 8 meg product costs £29.50 (~US$53 ~€42) a month, with the ‘Super@ctive’ package bundling in free unlimited local and national calls for £41.50/month (~US$75 ~€60).
It should be noted, however, that punters have to install Bulldog’s telephone service to enjoy the @ctive prices.
Like a crack dealer giving out free samples, Bulldog is offering the first month’s broadband service for just one pound in the hope that customers will get addicted to their high speed service.
A bullish Bulldog CEO Emanuele Angelidis insisted that the launch of the 8 meg service showed how the LLU operator was “redefining the boundaries of the broadband market”.
“Eight meg from Bulldog, with no download caps, gives customers the freedom to use the Internet as they wish,” he growled before retiring to his executive kennel.
Elsewhere, a spokesman for BT could be heard conceding that Bulldog’s pricing was “an interesting proposition … and a sign of a very healthy broadband market”.
Although competition in this sector is white hot, BT remains the King Dong of the UK telecoms market, although it is yet to announce anything as fast as an 8 megabit broadband service.
Currently, entry level broadband products tend to offer miserly speeds of around 256Kbps, although pricing pressure has seen major players such as BT, Tiscali, AOL and Wanadoo offering 1Mbps or 2Mbps broadband deals for around £14.99 (~US$27, ~€22) to £29.99 (~US$54, ~€44) per month.
C&W have been embarking on a broadband spending spree recently, announcing last week that it was doubling its investment in LLU to provide broadband coverage to 800 telephone exchanges – adding up to around 30 percent of homes and businesses across the UK.
Bulldog Broadband
1 June, 2005