On Thu 5th July Nominet (the domain registry for .uk) held an open day for registrars (people who register domains). This was a chance for Nominet to explain what they do, and what services are available currently and what will be introduced in the future.
Continue reading Nominet Registrar’s Open Day
Category: Government
Digital SwitchOver: The Rubbish Dump Awaits! UK MPs
While the UK Government is keen as mustard for the Digital Switchover of TV in the UK, there’s now discussion of the impact that disposing of the analogue kit will bring on – that of further waste generation.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) was under discussion yesterday at Westminster Hall by UK MPs.
Continue reading Digital SwitchOver: The Rubbish Dump Awaits! UK MPs
4 Digital Group Gain 10 National DAB Licenses
The champagne corks have been popping in the 4 digital group offices this morning, as they hear from Ofcom that they have been successful in their bid to gain 10 national DAB radio licences.
The group, lead by UK TV network Channel 4, has the ambition of providing a serious competitor to the dominant national BBC radio services, to provide a “distinctive and different experience of radio.”
Continue reading 4 Digital Group Gain 10 National DAB Licenses
FoxNews Mic Nicked – iPhone Left Untouched!
Just as it appears that the whole of America goes mad over the blooming iPhone, there are some there who have different priorities.
Fox News was in the street in New York interviewing Steven Levy of Newsweek who had an iPhone before their release (BTW, He’s posted on his blog how unsatisfactory he found blogging from his iPhone was).
Just as the ‘news’ watching people hear from the reporter that Steven was one of only four people who got to test the phone before it was released, some tricky rascal comes along and pinches the reports Mic – _Not_ the iPhone! (Brings to mind the iDon’tWantOne coverage that we published back in January).
Watch the video after the jump
Continue reading FoxNews Mic Nicked – iPhone Left Untouched!
Children Risk Becoming Social Outcasts With Internet Access: Report
OfCom’s Consumer Panel has released a report, Children and the Internet, based on recent research whose findings state that children who do not have an Internet connection at home can become socially disadvantaged.
By way of illustrating how key the Internet is to the younger people in the UK, the report found that “From about age ten, most children believe that Internet access is a ‘must have’.”
Continue reading Children Risk Becoming Social Outcasts With Internet Access: Report
Sky Probed Over ITV Share Holding
The UK Department of Trade and Industry has referred Rupert Murdoch’s Sky purchase of nearly 18% share holding in major UK broadcaster ITV.
In the words of Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, “My decision reflects consideration of the reports I have received from both the Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom and of other representations I have received about this matter.”
This action won’t be unexpected at Sky, Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading recommended this back on 27 April this year.
Sky has released the following statement
EU Mobile Roaming: Proposed Prices Detailed
The members of the European Union have reached a preliminary deal on fixing the cost of Europeans roaming to other countries.
The proposal would have the price caps lasting for three years with Year 1 seeing 49c (Euro)/min to make calls and 24c to receive. The second year this would drop to 46c/22c and the last year 43c/19c. All prices would exclude sales tax and after the third year the market would then again be free, presumably because prices would be significantly lower than that already.
Continue reading EU Mobile Roaming: Proposed Prices Detailed
Age Concern Launches Digital Inclusion Network
New research has revealed that seven out of ten old folks aren’t down with this new fangled keyboard- compu- interwebby thing, and Age Concern is worried that their lack of PC skills is making them miss out on workplace opportunities.
Age Concern’s figures have been released to tie in with the launch of their UK-wide Digital Inclusion Network which is tasked with “plugging the gap in opportunities” for crumblies and getting them up to speed with Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Continue reading Age Concern Launches Digital Inclusion Network
Vint Cerf Wants YOU In ICANN
Vint Cerf is well known as being one of the founders of The Internet.
One of his roles (besides being Google’s ‘Internet evangelist’) is as chairman of ICANN.
ICANN performs a number of central roles in the inner workings of the Internet (explained), but is best known for handling and controlling domain names.
Well, this years he’s stepping down and is taking the intervening period to try and encourage many other people to get involved with ICANN.
Vint has issued a video giving an overview of ICANN and the sort of people he’s looking for to join. He calls it “a grand experiment”, and underlines its need to co-ordinate standards as, “in the absence of interoperability, we don’t have an Internet.”
There’s nine places becoming available within ICANN this year, including three at board level. Those hoping to jump from their jobs and join the ICANN payroll will be frustrated as the roles are “uncompensated effort,” although the travel arrangements look pretty good (see vid below).
We found it interesting that Vint referred to ‘Internets’, in the plural, a few times in his video (about 3:10 in), where most people rarely think of it as more than a blob called ‘The Internet’.
If you’ve got a bit of downtime, take a watch, or listen to Vint, may be you’ll be inspired, but act quickly because you have to get your application in by 16 May.
I’ve been on committees of this sort before, so here’s some personal advice – Getting change to happen through them can sometimes be like walking through thick mud, so make sure you’ve got a whole heap of patience.
Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2
With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.
Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).
Over three days we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.
Yesterdays piece gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK.
LLU Penetration
All the large operators are going into around 1,000 DLEs (those being the most densely populated), since there are only around 1,200 of them, all the operators are targeting the same DLEs and there’s a lot of overlap.
Since the operators all want to get into the same exchanges, there’s overcrowding and BT have to install new hostel space (the space where operators can put their own equipment into) which causes delays. It can take more than 6 months from when an operator puts an order in to being granted access to an exchange.
LLU (un)Economics
When LLU was announced it was prohibitively expensive, mainly due to Ofcom (or Oftel as it was then) allowing BT to set the pricing models.
Over time the economics have become fairer to operators, with BT being forced to set-up BT Openreach which looks after the physical infrastructure. If they hadn’t formed Openreach, it’s likely Ofcom would have pushed for a split of BT.
Ofcom then made BT not reduce wholesale pricing for their broadband services to give LLU operators a chance to gain a foothold. BT would have to maintain their pricing until April 2007 or 1.5m unbundled lines, whichever came first.
In Dec 2006 there were 1,000,000 unbundled lines and last week Ofcom announced that 1,700,000 unbundled lines had been reached (there was no distinction between Option 2 and 4). BT Wholesale has over 9m broadband customers.
Also Carphone Warehouse (CPW) released their interim results showing they had 2.31m broadband customers, 700,000 utilising LLU.
So out of the 1.7m unbundled lines, CPW have .7m which means there’s 1m split between the rest (mainly the big players, Wanadoo, C&W, Easynet Pipex and Tiscali).
As a rough model that’s 1.7m lines, spread over 1,000 DLEs which makes 1,700 lines unbundled per DLE. There’s 6 big players which means around 280 customers per operator per exchange.
Unfortunately the economics of LLU only work if there’s a lot of customers per exchange i.e. massive scale.
Now that the milestone of 1.5m unbundled lines has been reached, BT Wholesale will be allowed to reduce their pricing (which they’ve said they want to do) which will make the economics even worse.
To get the scale, further consolidation will occur which means fewer LLU operators in the future (Pipex has already put itself up for sale with CPW rumoured to be the front-runner for buying them). They need to do this in order to get the customer penetration per exchange.
The next and final section will cover the possibility of competition to BT and what could happen in the future
Images are courtesy of wb-internet and the BBC, respectively.