Government

Frontline Wireless: US Analogue TV Spectrum Raising Much Interest
There’s a scramble for US spectrum by a collection of big-time venture capitalists.
In the same way that UK frequencies are being freed up by analogue TV going digital, a big chunk of valuable frequency will also be coming up for grabs in the US too. The big difference is that the US one is coming up a lot sooner, with the US government having mandated that their analogue switch off occurs on 19 Feb 2009.
Once freed-up, it is to reallocate the frequencies to public-safety organizations and commercial broadband networks.
According to the IHT, one of the contenders is a company called Frontline Wireless, which was formed at the start of this year to try to utilise the 700-megahertz band – by fulfilling both public-safety usage and commercial usage simultaneously.
A key part of their technical solution is the use of Software Defined Radio (SDR), which allows the same device to operate on many different frequencies, using the same chipset, switched by software.
The 700-megahertz frequency is highly favoured as it has a significant capacity, good range and can easily penetrate buildings and other structures.
Frontline has a number of advantages on their side. Not only does it have Reed Hundt, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman acting as Vice Chairman, but the company’s first public investor was K. Ram Shriram, an early Google investor known for his investment acumen. Venture capitalists L. John Doerr and James Barksdale, originators of Netscape, have also jumped on board.
They plan to offer to the public-safety network free of charge, while monetising the commercial side of the network. It’s estimated that they’d spend over $8 billion building out the network.
Frontline Wireless
11 April, 2007
Over Half Of UK Adults Have Home Broadband
Industry body Ofcom has published its Digital Progress Report, the result of taking a long goosey gander at current trends in the UK broadband industry up until the end of last year.
The report found that half of all UK adults live in broadband-connected households, up 11% from 12 months ago and a hefty seven times increase from 2002.
Folks connected to broadband lines are getting good use of it too, with 63% of adults using it daily, while 30% went online at least once a week.
Video content was viewed by 51% of adults with broadband at home, with 26% watching video clips every week.
Over two thirds (70%) of broadband-connected adults bought products or services online, and over half had carried out banking transactions.
Broadband users were found to spend on average 9.1 hours online per week, over double the amount of people still connecting via screechy modems in dial-up.
Although just under half of users had no idea how fast they were connecting to the Internet, the report put the average headline connection speed at 3.8Mbps (up from 1.6Mbps in 2005).
Voice over IP (VoIP) services like Skype have seen an increased take up, with one in ten adults making calls over the Internet, double the amount compared to the end of 2005. Of those using VoIP, 14% said they were making calls daily with a further 30% making calls several times per week.
Bundling
Bundling was found to be an important factor for consumers choosing their ISP, with 40% of all adults with broadband at home using other communications services from the same provider.
Wi-Fi
Ofcom found that just over a fifth (21%) of of all UK adults owned a Wi-Fi enabled laptop in February 2007, with a third of that total using public hotspots to access the internet. The amount of available public hotspots was counted at around 12,000 in September 2006, up 32% from the previous year.
Mobile Internet
The report found that despite one in three UK adults saying that they owned an Internet-enabled mobile phone in February 2007; only half had ever actually used the thing to go online.
It seems that a ‘lack of need or interest’ put off the majority of users (43%), with cost the second reason (31%).
Ofcom
3 April, 2007
.xxx Porn Domain Defeated By ICANN
After a long time, the organisation behind the domain names on the Internet has voted against .xxx.
The idea behind the .xxx p0rn domain extension (or Top Level Domain TLD, in domain -ese) has been floating around for a very long time.
Back in March 2004 ICM Registry, based in Florida, put a formal application in for .xxx, in response to ICANN’s request for proposals for new TLDs.
Over the time since then, there’s been many back and forths between ICM and ICANN to try and reach a settlement.
There’s been signs of encouragement from ICANN when it has gone to votes twice back in 2005.
Today the ICANN meeting in Lisbon has voted against .xxx. The reasons they list are
- ICM’s Application and the Revised Agreement fail to meet, among other things, the Sponsored Community criteria of the RFP specification.
- Based on the the extensive public comment and from the GAC’s communiqués that this agreement raises public policy issues.
- Approval of the ICM Application and Revised Agreement is not appropriate as they do not resolve the issues raised in the GAC Communiqués, and ICM’s response does not address the GAC’s concern for offensive content, and similarly avoids the GAC’s concern for the protection of vulnerable members of the community. The Board does not believe these public policy concerns can be credibly resolved with the mechanisms proposed by the applicant.
- The ICM Application raises significant law enforcement compliance issues because of countries’ varying laws relating to content and practices that define the nature of the application, therefore obligating ICANN to acquire a responsibility related to content and conduct.
- The Board agrees with the reference in the GAC communiqué from Lisbon, that under the Revised Agreement, there are credible scenarios that lead to circumstances in which ICANN would be forced to assume an ongoing management and oversight role regarding Internet content, which is inconsistent with its technical mandate.
Reading their application back in March 2004, there’s chance for a bit of a laugh.
The proposed .xxx string is clearly appropriate for the sponsored community as other strings were deemed too Anglo-Saxon and had the potential to lead to confusion (see above).
“too Anglo-Saxon” – brilliant.
Many people feel the .xxx TLD to be a good idea, the theory being that if all porn is pushed on to it, children and those not interesting in seeing p0rn won’t just stumble across it by accident. Given the sheer amount of p0rn on the Internet, that’s not a bad idea, but thinking that p0rnographers will adhere to any rules is wishful thinking.
Frankly if ICANN’s thinking is that by not allowing .xxx they think people won’t think there’s p0rn on the Internet, they’re living in a different world.
Rejection of Proposed sTLD Agreement with .XXX
Public comments on .xxx
30 March, 2007
Ofcom To Regulate VoIP In UK
Ofcom have just announced a new regulatory code for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers operating in the UK.
With predictions estimating that there could be as many as three million VoIP users in the UK by the end of this year, Ofcom clearly felt it was time to set some base rules for the industry to adhere to.
They’re broadly divided in two – prescribed information to tell the consumer before they sign up and once they have signed up, making them aware of the limitation of their access to the emergency services.
For a long time the lack of solid emergency (999) number access has been used by the incumbent telecos to try and stem the growth of VoIP. Their argument? If someone calls 999, there is no assured way of telling if that person is calling from Basildon, Birmingham, or Beijing, as the handset just needs to be on an IP connection, to attached to the end of a specific piece of wire, like a landline is.
Before June 2007, all VoIP providers will be required to make it clear :-
- whether or not the service includes access to emergency services (some operators may choose not to provide any support at all);
- the extent to which the service depends on the user’s home power supply (Standard telephones are powered by the phone line itself, where as Broadband services require external power to a number of different boxes to function);
- whether directory assistance, directory listings, access to the operator or the itemisation of calls are available; and
- whether consumers will be able to keep their telephone number if they choose to switch providers at a later date. (This is known as number portability, and would seem reasonable to offer, given it is standard throughout the rest of the telecoms markets).
If a customer decides to sign up for a VoIP service, the provider has additional obligations around emergency calls:-
- secure the customer’s positive acknowledgement of this at point of sale (by ticking a box, for example);
- label the capability of the service, either in the form of a physical label for equipment or via information on the computer screen; and
- play an announcement each time a call to emergency services is attempted, reminding the caller that access is unavailable.
29 March, 2007
Ofcom Announces Premium Rate TV Inquiry
There’s been three weeks of hoo-har in the UK about television stations using Premium Rate Telephone Services (PRS) to extract income from the phone-willing programme viewer. Whole TV channels have been stopped in the process.
Ofcom has just announced that it will be carrying out an inquiry into the whole area.
It sounds like there’s going to be a few feathers ruffled. Viewers and a range of other stakeholders have raised serious concerns with Ofcom regarding apparent systematic compliance failure on the part of a number of broadcasters, whose actions appear to contravene existing consumer protection rules.
Hearing how serious this is, does give clues as to why the TV stations acted so swiftly in suspending the availability of their PRS.
Many have criticised some UK broadcasters for creating programs whose sole driver appears to be collecting as much money as possible from the viewers.
The inquiry will be led by Richard Ayre, a former Deputy Chief Executive of BBC News. He is expected to receive extensive input from the premium rate services regulator, ICSTIS, who are already investigating a number of individual cases.
The fragile relationship between TV viewer and the TV stations appears to have been damaged further by the PRS announcements over the recent weeks.
Ofcom Chief Executive, Ed Richards said: “Widespread concern about the use of premium rate telephone lines by broadcasters and editorial standards in those programmes has raised serious questions about trust between broadcasters and viewers.”
The scope of the inquiry includes
- Consumer protection issues and audiences’ attitudes to the use of PRS in television programmes;
- The benefits and risks to broadcasters in the use of PRS in programmes;
- The respective compliance and editorial responsibilities of broadcasters, producers and telecoms network operators and others involved in those programmes;
- The effectiveness of broadcasters’ and telecoms operators’ internal compliance procedures, guidelines and arrangements to ensure compliance with Ofcom and ICSTIS codes;
- The inquiry will also propose recommendations on actions necessary to restore confidence and trust.
Ayre expects to report his findings to the Ofcom Board and the Content Board by early summer.
22 March, 2007
HDForAll Pressure Ofcom on HD Freeview
On the day after news of the date of the first English town to start to go full digital on the delivery of TV, we’re reminded by HDforAll that Ofcom currently doesn’t have plans to set aside any of the freed up frequencies for HDTV usage.
Despite a successful trial run in London during 2006, where HD was delivered over Freeview, the only available ways currently to watch HDTV is via Sky satellite or cable.
One of the major reasons that the UK Government, and in turn, Ofcom is so keen for transferring everyone from the current analogue TV service to digital, is that it will free up large swathes of frequency. Ofcom’s plans are to auction this, and other frequencies off to the highest bidder, as we’ve covered a couple of times.
Not wishing to be left out of the HD world, the BBC are also keen to not just rely on Freeview delivering HD and to this end the BBC Trust have been given a provisional Yes for a FreeSat service capable to deliver their HD.
HDForAll are a pressure group made up of TV manufacturers, retailers and public service broadcasters including DSGI, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba and BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. They’re keen to remind people that there’s only a limited amount of time left to contact Ofcom to make their views known on auctioning off spectrum to the highest bidder. Background on this and how to respond are available on Ofcom’s site.
The public appear to be behind having HDTV on Freeview, nearly 5,000 have signed an e-petition (now closed) and there’s another one urging that
spectrum be made available for citizen and community uses – a la open access cable in the US.
A survey carried out at the end of last year, also found that the vast majority of people, no matter what platform they use, want HD to be available on Freeview – 96% of Freeview, 91% satellite and 92% cable users.
HDforAll
Ofcom’s Digital Dividend Review
16 March, 2007
Nearly Half Of All UK TVs Digital-ised: Ofcom
The number of UK TVs connected to digital devices – ones that can receive digital TV signals – has increased to 48.5% reports Ofcom.
The quarterly report snappily titled, Communications Market: Digital Television Progress Report, covering the fourth quarter of 2006 (October-December), shows the figures are up from 39% in the same period the previous year, and also from 44.7% in the Q3 2006.
The run up to Xmas is traditionally a time where many more new TVs are bought, in a desperate attempt to increase the ‘enjoyment’ of Xmas by numbing their brains watching ‘entertainment’ on TV. It appears no different this year as a further one million UK homes acquired digital televisions for the first time.
Previously, Ofcom used to highlight the number of UK households that were digital-TV-enabled, which has now reached 77.2%. This figure received a fair degree of criticism as, although it sounded impressive, didn’t give a true reflection of what the impact of switching off analogue would be for UK TV watchers.
There’s been an interesting announcement in the US, where the American households will be offered up to two $40 vouchers to switch to digital TV. The UK government has actively discouraged thinking like this in the UK.
As ever, there’s a huge pile of numbers that will be poured over by those in the industry who get quite excited about this type of thing. We’re normally in this category, but for some reason were not too excited about this quarter.
Communications Market: Digital Television
Progress Report, Q4 2006
14 March, 2007
BT Try To Vary Payphone Pricing
In their constant pursuit for higher profits, BT have put a request into the UK uber-regulator Ofcom, to allow them to charge different prices for phone calls depending on where the phonebox is located, claim TelecomTV.
BT is under a legal obligation to provide phone boxes up and down the length of the UK, which they claim numbers 63,795. BT say that 40,500 of these phone boxes are unprofitable.
BT is attempting to negotiate a three-year deal that would let BT “determine the acceptable pricing of pay-phone calls.”
Try to get out of their obligations is not really playing the game is it? It’s not like their obligation to payphones is news to them.
It’s got the ring about it along the lines of charging for directory enquiries. When BT was allowed to start charging for calls to directory enquiries, it was only ‘normal’ landlines that were effected. Calls to find out phone numbers were free from Payphone, as BT removed the printed telephone directories from them. A few years later BT had the rules changed and started charging from payphone, despite not returning the printed directories.
BT claim that calls from payphones have dropped off by 40% in the last four years, no doubt due to the considerable rise in uptake of mobile phones.
Digital-Lifestyles thinks this doesn’t make it right that people who live in remote locations should have to pay inflated prices for using the same payphone and connecting to the same phone network as everyone else, just because BT wants to make more profit.
(via)
12 March, 2007
EU Comments Add Pressure To Apple iTunes
The heat on Apple to open up their iTunes/iPod combination went up another notch following an interview with Meglena Kuneva, the European Union’s Consumer Protection Commissioner.
In the interview with German weekly magazine Focus, published today, she poses the following question, “”Do you think it’s fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod?” It’s followed by a couple of words that are going to make uncomfortable reading for Apple, “I don’t. Something has to change.”
Music bought on the Apple iTunes online shop cannot be played on any other music player, apart from Apple’s iPod.
Kuneva is carrying out a review of the eight basic laws which govern cross-border consumer rights.
Pressure has been building for quite a while against Apple, with the latest, most significant one being in January as the Norwegian Consumer Watchdog, declaring iTunes to be illegal.
Previous actions have been, the approval of France’s ‘iTunes Law,’ after Apple narrowly avoided the French courts over their FairPlay DRM back in 2004.
Apple leader, Steve Jobs, wrote an open letter at the start of last month, entitled “Thoughts on Music,” where he said he’d drop DRM “in a heartbeat,” but was hamstrung by the content owners not allowing him to do so.
Meglena Kuneva – EU site
12 March, 2007
Army invades MySpace
This just feels wrong on just about every level we can think of, but in an attempt to reach out to Da Yoot, the US Army have created a slick and highly polished MySpace recruitment site.
Boasting around 15,000 friends (they’ve still kept the grinning picture of founder ‘Tom’ in there, bless) they’ve already surpassed Osama Bin Laden’s 13,500 MySpace friends so it looks like “mission accomplished” in cyberspace.
The page – a heavily customised number – features a rather spooky looking Sgt Star character who implores you to strike up a chat.
Sadly, any hopes of an in-depth chinwag about the merits of unsigned death metal bands are quickly dashed when clicking on the icon transfers you off MySpace to a ‘Go Army‘ site.
A warning next to the psychopathic-looking Sgt Star warns, “The information you enter is to be used only for recruiting Soldiers into the U.S. Army and the Army Reserve.”
Still, we thought we’d give him a go anyway and typed in, “We want to go to Iraq and kick some ass,” but were immediately warned to mind our language by the disembodied computer voice of the strangely unblinking Sgt.
We apologised: “OK. Sorry. We want to go to Iraq and bomb some soft Johnny Foreigners back into the Stone Age in the name of peace.”
The Sgt didn’t seem to understand.
We tried a few probing questions about Guantamano Bay and human rights but the Sgt wasn’t having any of it, delivering a terse lecture about needing American citizenship to become a US soldier, so we decided it was time to leave (after childishly testing the bad word filter, natch).
Back on the MySpace site, the US govt has spared no expense in its quest to coax sofa-loving music fans into a life of short haircuts and being shouted at, offering a free download of a video game with lots of, like, cool explosions, big guns, missiles, more guns, backed by a high octane techno soundtrack.
Clearly a sizeable wad of defence budget has been thrown at the slick game, which purports to offer realistic battlefield scenes (although we couldn’t find any options to rain friendly fire on Brit troops and then try and cover up the investigation afterwards.)
And if all that hasn’t convinced America’s surfers to sign up, there’s loads more goodies on the site, including a video going on about “The New Army Ethos,” free wallpapers, podcasts, RSS feeds and action pictures of fun-loving, Oakley-toting soldiers doing rad things like skydiving, driving man-sized va-he-icles, holding big guns and helping lots of poor people (if they’re not busy carpet bombing them, natch).
Of course, there’s sound business reasoning behind the US Army shoving its shiny size nines onto a social networking site like MySpace, with the site able to interact with the community, make friends and receive comments and – possibly – make the Army look vaguely cool and enticing.
But we just wish they’d bugger off and leave it the bands.
http://myspace.com/army
More reading: The Ties That Bind: Connection Beats Page Views
9 March, 2007