Category: Government

Ofcom’s Broadband Ambitions, Appoints Telecoms Adjudicator

The UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has outlined its next steps and long term aspirations for the development of broadband.

Ofcom believes that their initial focus on rollout and coverage has paid off, with 512kbps services now common place and around 15% of the population taking advantage of broadband.

The regulator now wants to define and focus on a phase two: “the new generation of broadband services likely to emerge as competition increases between providers.”Ofcom are still as keen as ever to promote local loop unbundling, and have been successful at goading BT into faster action to improve third-party access to exchanges – they they note that the pace in the UK does not match those in other countries: “If there is sufficient progress in reducing costs and improving operational processes, local loop unbundling in the UK has the potential to deliver the same kind of growth and innovation emerging in, for example, France and Japan, where tens of thousands of local loops are unbundled each month.” Although Ofcom’s first attempts at promoting LLU failed, they are pleased that BT is finally getting the message, and is reducing costs.

By promoting greater competition in access networks, Ofcom believes that they can increase adoption of VoIP services in the next 3 to 5 years, with the majority of households benefiting from video-quality broadband by the end of the decade.

To assist in the further progress of LLU and broadband rollout, Ofcom are keen to promote the establishment of a Telecommunications Adjudicator, an independent post designed to resolve working-level implementation disputes. Indeed, they have today named Peter Black as the man for the job – a former senior executive at BT, Thus and NTL, Black is an experienced telecommunications exec.

The post is supported by BT, AOL, C&W, Video Networks, Wanadoo and others. Ofcom chief executive Stephen Carter said in a Statement: “We welcome the fact that 12 of the most significant companies have signed up to the independent Adjudicator scheme; and we hope this drives growth in the future.”

Ofcom’s aspirations

Crown Castle Sell UK Broadcasting Business to National Grid

National Grid Transco have had their eyes on Crown Castle’s UK broadcasting and mast operation for some time – and they are about to hand over $2.035 billion (€1.67 billion) for it. The deal is still subject to approvals, but is expected to be finalised on or before September 30th.

Crown Castle’s reason for the sale is that the need US$1.3 billion (€1.06 billion) of the money to pay off a credit facility from CC Operating Company.

“The sale of our UK subsidiary is expected to provide us with significant financial and operational flexibility to pursue opportunities in the larger and faster growing US market,” stated John P. Kelly, CEO of Crown Castle. “While our UK operations have been a solid contributor to our business, we believe there is substantially greater growth potential for our US business given the lower penetration of wireless services and the earlier stage of 3G deployments in the US market. This transaction also substantially improves our balance sheet, which we believe will provide flexibility to capitalize on this growth.”

“As a result of this transaction, we will significantly reduce our net debt, exposure to currency fluctuations and floating interest rate exposure,” said W. Benjamin Moreland, the company’s CFO, in a statement.

The other US$740 million (€608 million) will be invested in new business opportunities in the US and to pay off some other debts.

Crown Castle

National Grid Transco

The BBC’s Digital Future

With the BBC’s Royal Charter up for renewal in 2006, the corporation has outlined its vision for the future in a new paper “Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for the Digital World”. Apart from the two ‘the’s and that ‘for’, you can tell every word in the title was chosen in a focus group for maximum effect.

Top of the list are the BBC’s suggestions for regulation – much like BT, the corporation sees that it is better to regulate yourself than have regulation thrust upon you. Obviously, BBC management has been under criticism by the government for recent editorial decisions, and so the corporation is suggesting a reformed board of governors, independent of the BBC and open to scrutiny.

Programmes and BBC services will have to pass a ‘public value test’ before they are approved, and will be tested on quality, impact, value for money and reach. If a programme fails the value test, then the governors will hold the managers responsible to account.

The BBC is also planning to make the complaints process easier and faster, with a more open attitude and active right to reply.

As the UK government is keen to free up the analogue spectrum, the BBC is pushing access to digital services, aiming for a switchover by 2012. The corporation wants to involve the public more in the process, and indeed greater openness and public participation is a common theme throughout the entire document.

Local news, services and properties are also high on the agenda as the BBC is often criticised, often unfairly, of being too London-centric. To combat this, staff are being moved out of London and ultra-local news services are planned for up to 60 British cities.

Finally, the BBC is looking towards more successes with interactive projects – meaning more events like the Big Read, and the launch of a digital curriculum for schools coupled with enhanced learning facilities on BBC Online.

BBC

Microsoft Asks for Hearing Delay

Microsoft have asked the European Union, by way of a 100 page appeal, to delay a Commission ruling regarding its distribution of Windows Media Player.

If the stay request is granted, it may well delay the the EU court’s final verdict by several years – during which time Microsoft will be able to continue distributing Windows Media Player in its usual manner. Obviously this renders the EU ruling against Microsoft completely useless.

The ruling was intended to force MS to share interface information with competitors so that they could integrate their own media players with Windows, and to provide a version of Windows which does not have Media Player pre-installed.

Brussels also fined the company €497 million (US$602 million), but this will make little impact on a company with at least €50 billion (US$60 billion) in cash reserves.

Since the appeal may take up to five years, which is effectively forever in digital media terms, Microsoft will be able to expand the installed base still further without sharing information with competing software manufacturers, or providing a choice of media player to those who don’t want WM9 – or WM11 as it may well be by the time the ruling comes into effect. Microsoft originally had (from March 24 this year) 90 days to offer Windows without Media Player, and 120 days to begin sharing information.

Europa

Ofcom’s Media Literacy Strategy

Centring around the principles of research, partnering and labelling, Ofcom have published a report outlining a strategy for media literacy in the UK.

Ofcom recognise that the public are now faced with a huge choice of media, and that familiarity and media awareness are essential to managing this choice, protecting children and understanding the world around us. The regulator wishes to promote media literacy as “A media literate person will have the potential to be an efficient worker, an informed consumer and an active citizen. People who are not able to use effectively the new communications technologies will not be able to take full advantage of the benefits they bring and may become marginalised in society.”

Ofcom’s strategy is based around three main work strands:

“Research. Key to the success of our early work and in defining future priorities is to develop an evidence-base of research. This will help us to identify the issues, to direct our work and inform progress towards achieving our goals.

Connecting, partnering & signposting. We aim to add value to existing media literacy activity, to stimulate new work and to promote and direct people to advice and guidance concerning new communications technologies.

Labelling. Viewers and listeners need to have clear, accurate and timely information about the nature of content so that they can make informed choices. Our prime concern is to ensure consistency in the presentation of information related to possible harm and offence, in particular to help protect young and vulnerable people from inappropriate material. This advice can be effectively delivered using a content labelling framework. Ofcom will work with industry players to explore the possibility of creating a common content labelling (information) scheme for electronic audiovisual material.”

Of primary interest to many, the call for a universal e-content label covering TV, internet, mobile products and games presents a considerable challenge to industry. Ofcom isn’t even sure it can be done – and of course the regulator has no remit when it comes to internet content.

Ofcom’s strategy and priorities for the promotion of media literacy

Cable and Wireless Buy Bulldog – What’s the Threat to BT?

Cable and Wireless’ recent purchase of Bulldog means that they acquire four years of local loop unbundling experience, 38 ready-equipped exchanges and a number of well-marketed, innovative products. All for the bargain price of UK£18.6 million (€28 million) – though Bulldog’s net assets at the end of 2003 were only UK£1.6 million (€2.4 million). This puts C&W in a position to offer unique services, and not just resell products from BT Wholesale.

Bulldog have long been critical of BT, and have said some fairly dramatic things over the last few months. My own personal favourite quote was from Richard Greco, when talking to The Register in 2001: “Oftel needs to force BT to move. And if BT doesn’t, then Oftel should point the gun – and pull the trigger.” However, he was quite gushing about BT when agreed to carry their SDSL products some months later: “It really is a powerful combination.”

Bulldog’s frustration at BT stemmed from the glacial pace that the communications giant was unbundling the local loop. Bulldog have installed their own equipment into 38 exchanges, a figure that C&W now want to raise to 200. They will doubtless use this position to tempt more ISPs to jump from bitstream services to LLU – as C&W chief Francesco Caio said in a statement: “The acquisition of Bulldog will accelerate our ability to deliver directly connected DSL solutions for our existing and potential customers with an experienced team specialising in LLU services.”

Bear in mind that it’s not just BT that is causing frustration with LLU – across Europe the entire process has been slow and as yet only a small percentage of lines have been unbundled.

BT has already demonstrated that it’s worried about complaints about its LLU conduct and progress by making huge cuts to wholesale prices and promising faster progress. With C&W breathing down its neck even more, expect those exchanges to be unbundled faster than ever before.

About Bulldog

Japanese Consumers Protest at Broadcast Flag

Japanese television viewers have begun complaining to broadcasters over the sudden removal of editing and copying freedoms they’re experiencing now that the country’s version of the broadcast flag has been rolled out on digital terrestrial and cable channels.

NHK and and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters launched the broadcast flag on 5 April, limiting viewers to a single copy of programmes carrying the signal. As programmes can only be copied once, no editing can be performed either. Within a week NHK and other broadcasters had received 15,000 complaints and enquiries.

This move also means that Japanese consumers will not be able to remove adverts from programmes they have recorded for archiving, or make a backup in case an offline recording is destroyed.

Furthermore, viewers have to insert a user identification card, B-CAS (from the company who manufactures them, BS Conditional Access Systems), into their digital televisions in order to watch broadcasts.

It’ll be interesting to see the scale of protest when America’s broadcast flag system rolls out in just over a year and a month – whilst not requiring an ID card to access broadcasts, the flag will tell all new television sets what can and can’t be done to a signal – right down to preventing any copying whatsoever.

Japan Times coverage

Slashdot debates the issue

Ofcom’s LLU Proposals

UK regulator Ofcom have published proposals intended to open up competition in broadband provision for data, content and voice services.

As predicted, Ofcom have announced a market review consultation of local loop unbundling (LLU) – it was the threat of this review that many believe prompted BT to make huge cuts in its charges for LLU. BT hopes to avoid regulatory intervention by improving access to the local loop and charging fairer rates.

To help with local loop unbundling Ofcom are also proposing the establishment of a Telecoms Adjudicator, who will be entirely independent of Ofcom and the industry.

Ofcom Chief Executive Stephen Carter said: “These proposals, combined with the recent proposals on migration charges, mark an opportunity to accelerate the prospects for sustainably competitive investment in Broaderband Britain. Furthermore, Ofcom particularly welcomes BT’s commitment to both price and process improvements in these key wholesale products.”

Ofcom’s release

Data-over-DAB: GWR/BT partnership announced

The widespread understanding of DAB is in its use to provide the next generation of radio and many have found the advantages that the CD-quality audio broadcast bring.

We at Digital-Lifestyles have been excited about using DAB to broadcast data efficiently to many devices since 2002 when it first came to our attention. DAB has a theoretical total output of up to 1.7 Mbits per second and has the major advantage that is broadcast. The costs of distribution of content is fixed, no matter how many people receive it, – the opposite to other data delivery channels such as GRPS or 3G.

Last year we saw a number of devices being demonstrated at IBC2003, some which used GSM and DAB, others combined GPRS and DAB, all featured the receipt of data over DAB and the provision of a back channel over the cellular services.

A number of trials have also been run. There was a six month trial in the UK which started in October 2003, run by Capital Radio PLC, NTL Broadcast and RadioScape Ltd which delivered Dolby 5.1 surround sound over live Internet Protocol (IP) datacasting using the Windows Media 9 Pro CoDec.

Today we are pleased to see that UK broadcaster GWR and BT wholesale have come together to create a new digital multi-media UK broadcast operation. The new entity will create mobile broadcast services to deliver multi-media content such as news, sports and entertainment. They plan to launch a London-wdie service during 2005, and expand across the Uk in 2006.

The new venture will utilise Digital One’s digital broadcasting capacity, running alongside eight national digital radio stations. Digital One is 63% owned by GWR. The rest of details for the deal are fairly complex and we would suggest reading the press release to get a full understanding, but GWR are confident of additonal earnings from it with an estimated £5m in the year ending March 2008.

Data over DAB sounds like a great idea – it is but sadly there are currently a couple of obstacles to everyone receiving broadband-type delivery speeds of content to portable handsets.

The most significant is that enshrined in UK law is a restriction on the balance between the bandwidth that must be used audio broadcast and that for data. The original 1996 Broadcasting Act specified that data must take up no more that 10% but in a 1998 review by the Secretary of State this was changed 20% of the multiplex over a 24 hours period. Glyn Jones, Operations Director of Digital One told Digital-Lifestyles that through negotiation with the UK regulator OFCOM they have agreed to alter their licence by changing two of the radio services original included Digital One’s licence – a rolling news service from ITN and a financial information service from Bloomberg – which were withdrawn in 2002. They will be replaced with the GWR/BT wholesale service and Digital One is confident that this will not exceed their 20% data allocation.

DAB receiver cards have been developed as add-ons for portable devices, but there will be a delay before it becomes mass market as the DAB chipsets need to be incorporated into mobile phones and devices before it can really fly.

Keep your eye on this one. We feel it is still a very exciting means of wide spread delivery of content.

 

Examples of possible services provided by GWR/BT:

News and sport: – There would be no need to dial-up to find out the news & sport. Every time the user picks up the device the very latest information will be available to browse. It is similar to having a news portal on the phone without the need to pay each time the user wants to look at it nor the wait to dial-up and down load information. It is already there and can be used 24/7 for a low fixed fee.

Traffic congestion: – Breaking traffic and travel updates would be always available on the phone or PDA, ready to be checked when the user is on the move. There would be no need to dial-up each time to discover delays, the information is constantly pushed onto the phone memory and can be accessed for a low fixed cost. The latest information replaces out of date information automatically making it very efficient and simple to use.

Live entertainment device – the mobile phone or PDA becomes a live entertainment device as it will automatically receive games downloads and movie previews to be played at any time. Games can be played at any time with others using the mobile phone connection as well as movie clips forwarded.

Stock market information – the PDA could have a stock market ticker and share updates constantly refreshing. There is no need to dial-up for the latest business and financial information as it is directly broadcast to the device.

GWR Press release – GWR and BT create mobile digital datacasting operation