Government

Ofcom Should Force Sky To Open Its Platform: Opinion
In an ideal world, waiting near the top of the new OFCOM boss Ed Richards’ in-tray, there should be a folder marked ‘Sky Monopoly’ and on it a brightly coloured post-it with the words anti competitive clearly inscribed.
Digital Television is a standards based system with the majority of the world using a system called DVB (the Americans have something called ATSC but that’s a story for another day), the UK’s Sky TV uses the DVB standard in most respects.
Pay TV operations rely on a system of Conditional Access (CA) where channels are encrypted, viewers with a suitable viewing card can decrypt the services they subscribe to, those who don’t subscribe don’t get.
To enable the pay services to operate with the use of ‘viewing cards’ the DVB system has a standard, the standard allows for different viewing cards to co-exist and for TV services to be encrypted by more than one encryption method at a time, the so called Simulcrypt (Simultaneous encryption, get it?).
The area where Sky has decided not to use DVB is for its Conditional Access encryption.
Sky TV which is controlled by News Corporation, the large multinational media company with Rupert Murdoch at the helm, uses a special tailored version of Conditional Access a variant of Videoguard which is produced by a company called NDS that is in turn, majority owned by News Corporation.
Now you might be curious to know why this matters, well as the majority of UK householders who watch digital TV, watch via a Sky TV satellite ‘digibox’ and to have a channel that can be easily received via Sky TV the channel must contract with Sky TV to appear on the Sky Electronic Programme Guide, commonly referred to as the EPG.
If that TV service then wants to charge the subscribers to their service they have to use that special version of Videoguard CA.
So what can be done about it? Well OFCOM can and should mandate Sky TV to open up its platform to other DVB CA systems and new entrants can then offer smaller niche services and a new competitive platform to Sky should emerge.
The BBC has for some time been promising a Freeview alternative to the UK’s dominant pay TV operation Sky Digital, but with it’s struggle with the government to secure a long term above inflation licence fee settlement and its desire to start a High Definition TV service, this cause has been relegated to the back burner.
As the government ordained switchover date looms ever closer, viewers who can only receive digital TV by satellite should be able to choose a non Sky alternative even at the risk of upsetting a powerful media mogul.
11 October, 2006
Ed Richards Gets Ofcom CEO Job
Ofcom has announced that Ed Richards is taking over the uber-communications agency CEO reigns, effective today.
As we back in January), the then current CEO Stephen Carter was leaving.
Richards name has been in the frame for a long time. He’s politically very well connected, given that he was previously the UK Prime Minister’s Senior Policy Advisor on media matters.
Watchers of all things Ofcom, our good buddies OfcomWatch see the challenges for Richards to be
* Steering Ofcom through its day-to-day implementation of the various strategic reviews. This means real bread-and-butter regulatory work like conducting radio spectrum auctions and supervising BT-Openreach as it starts to deliver on its Sept 2005 undertakings. Gone – for the most part – are the days of strategic thinking combined with predictive statements about the future.
* Ensuring that Ofcom’s voice is heard on key issues. Ofcom to its credit, tend to think and act in an evidence-based manner, but are surrounded by a regulatory environment which is highly politicised. This has been particularly true in both the media and new media, an area where Stephen Carter’s Ofcom often produced good thinking, but was unable to translate that into actual policy (eg, BBC charter review). Richards comes from the political world, and this might benefit Ofcom in that respect.
* Being a champion of ‘better regulation’ in dealing with the European Commission, health advocates, and other populist causes.
Given they spend all of their time studying Ofcom, who are we to argue of them.
5 October, 2006
Expanded Euro Regulation Repudiation By UK’s OFCOM: TWF
The UK’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator OFCOM last week made clear its opposition to potential EU regulation. It fears it will straight-jacket the emerging new wave industries aiming to propel high tech growth in the EU zone over the coming years.
Currently regulation of broadcasting in the EU lies within sovereign states but the overriding policy is subject to the famous 1989, Television Without Frontiers Directive which is likely to be updated and widened in 2007. At the time of the drafting of this legislation, TV was considered as a linear broadcasting method of distribution. The danger is that now the bureaucrats have an inkling of what convergence means, they want to manage its development.
OFCOM commissioned the respected Rand Corporation to look at how the proposed changes would affect Europe’s emerging IPTV networks alongside new-fangled mobile multimedia and online games. The findings mirror the concerns of OFCOM.
The report, “Assessing Indirect Impacts of the EC Proposals for Video Regulation” makes a powerful case for the online games industry to be excluded from the new legislation, seeing a risk of the development of fresh gaming, moving to countries unfettered by cumbersome legislation, ie. Outside the EU.
The study also makes clear its’ worries that excessive regulation could mean that countries outside of the EU would benefit from the expected growth in non traditional delivery of multimedia content, before it has established itself in Europe.
The model of broadcast intervention could impact much of the new wave Internet traffic; judging Youtube and Myspace by similar criteria to traditional linear broadcasters
Lobbying is expected to continue with the entrenched traditional media industry hoping to protect dwindling revenues and state players keen to politicize the situation. Some solace can be taken that the UK regulator has at least identified the danger of over regulation.
27 September, 2006
Skype Hits The Pleasure And Pain Of The Mainstream
The news that OFCOM is to review its position on Voice Over IP services (VOIP) – the way we can make low cost or free phone and video calls currently from our PC’s generally using call centre-type headsets – is part of the evolution of these types of service from guerrilla geek to middle class mainstream. Now that Tesco’s are marketing VOIP services it’s fair to say that it’s a ‘regular’ service/product.
VOIP service providers are predictably angry over OFCOM’s meddlesome intervention and have asked why such a code of practice is needed. OFCOM will try and tread a fine line between existing heavily regulated voice service providers and the new upstarts who hitch a cheap ride on the existing infrastructure.
Along with the news that VOIP is likely to face some of the requirements that traditional telcos have to deliver on, comes the announcement that Philips Electronics are bringing to market, for year end, a cordless DECT phone. If anyone asks you, DECT is the rather nifty acronym around Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications.
News of the new DECT handset, the Philips Voip841 broke at a recent consumer electronics show in Berlin. The phone will allow callers to use Skype’s service without being connected to a PC and is likely to hit both landline and mobile companies. The Phone will access your regular home line and broadband and allow you to call other Skype account holders for the grand sum of nothing.
Prices for the new device are not yet released, but industry observers are talking of a figure around a £100 to make this potentially cost saving purchase.
5 September, 2006
UK Analogue Radio Gets A Bashing
DAB in the UK has had a good week with prices dropping to an all time low, with High Street retailers are now making available a DAB radio with CD player for under £50.
To add the icing to the digital radio cake, Dixons the domestic electronics giant that made its name in radio more than 50 years ago, has announced its decision to drop conventional analogue ‘steam radio’ from its portfolio (But they appear to make a habit of grabbing press about this type of thing, having done it with VCRs already).
Although a date has been set for UK analogue TV to closedown, no such decision has been made for radio, and with radios outnumbering TVs at something like 4 to 1 any planned switchover is bound to be some way into the future.
DAB radio coverage in the UK is approaching 85% but the rollout in the rest of the world is patchy, with markets like the USA favouring a pay-model satellite-delivered radio service with brands like Sirius. Competition from the drm (Digital Radio Mondiale) standard and commercial operators like Worldspace are also creating uncertainty in territories that are characterised by dispersed populations across large land masses.
There are now over 270 UK analogue radio transmitting licences issued and they’re still leaving OFCOM’s shelves as fast as they become available, but with a promise of a further national DAB multiplexes and a likely radio presence from Channel 4, the future of radio is looking increasingly digital.
Sky’s satellite hybrid gnome receiver has so far failed to dazzle and, like the semi-portable internet radios, it’s perceived as overly complex for the average punter who prefer the Freeview-like DAB proposition.
Not all retailers of radio see the disappearance of analogue radio as inevitable in the near future. There are important extra features to tempt people, like EPG, pause live and track identification, which make digital services far ‘sexier’ than conventional wireless,
What will show DAB has arrived? We reckon that once the DAB pirates hoist their Digital aerials, the technology will have well and truly arrived.
18 August, 2006
UK Government Jumps On YouTube
The UK Government have put two of their videos up on YouTube – for all the world to enjoy.
Senior executives at the UK Cabinet Office have posted their first two short films – ‘Transformational Government‘ and ‘Sharing the leadership challenge‘, a slightly longer clip concerning Whitehall plans to save money by consolidating service departments and the leadership challenges this poses for managers.
I know, I know … given that description, you all want to shoot over to the see them without a delay, but stay with a little while longer.
Ian Dunmore, Director of Public Sector Forums broke the news saying: “This looks like the first time a government anywhere has used YouTube in this way. It’s a ground-breaking move and one other governments might well follow.” We have to admire the him keeping his head by adding, “However we don’t expect the videos to surge to the top of the popularity chart just yet.”
The Death of YouTube?
Is this the death knell for YouTube? How could a service be any less cool than to have the government using it? The truth is, of course, that YouTube welcomes all no matter how stiff the video provider.
YouTube is becoming a cross-section of society, globally. This is borne out by Peter, the self-declared geriatric1927, the 78 year old widower, living alone in the county in the middle of England. His twelve videos documenting events of his life have been watch over half a million times in the last two weeks.
For a long time Governements have been looking around for way to get their ‘messages’ out to the public without the bothersome annoyance of journalists asking difficult questions. They may see YouTube as the fix for this.
What they may not have taken account of is the video replies or text comments that people can leave in response.
UK Gov on YouTube
18 August, 2006
Rural WiFi Boost From Ofcom?
UK regulator Ofcom is looking at plans to introduce high speed Internet access to broadband-starved remote areas by boosting the power of Wi-Fi signals.
Talking to the BBC, James Saunders, chief marketing honcho of Wi-Fi suppliers, The Cloud, welcomed consultation from Ofcom, adding that the turbo-charged Wi-Fi could, “provide great opportunities in rural areas that are currently without broadband. It makes it much more possible to put up a wireless network.”
Current limitations on the strength of Wi-Fi signals in the UK makes it prohibitively expensive to provide coverage to sparsely populated rural areas, but cranking up the power would make it possible to reach far more users without breaking the bank.
The bigwigs and boffins at Ofcom are currently mulling over the pros and cons of three proposals.
The first would see wireless signals (which are restricted to a tenth of the power permitted in the US) in all parts of the UK; the second would see the power increase limited to rural areas only; while the third option would include a balance of the first two plans, backed by a code of collaboration to minimise signal interference.
City networks
Although most UK towns and cities offer outside Wi-Fi access through hotspots in cafes, pubs and libraries, city-wide seamless networks are yet to be established.
Known as mesh networks, these let Wi-Fi’d folks roam freely from hotspot to hotspot without any interruption to their Internet access.
Although such networks are already starting to roll out in the US, the restricted Wi-Fi transmission levels in the UK mean that mesh networks would currently be prohibitively expensive in the UK.
Selina Lo, chief executive of home Wi-Fi antenna firm Ruckus explained, “With lower power you have to use a lot more access points to form the network.”
“A typical network will have hundreds or low thousands of access points. If you have power limits, these nodes have to be closer together and you need a lot more nodes,” she added
Ruckus, who are currently working with Google to test a free mesh network in Mountain View, California, have developed a new Wi-Fi antenna to help home users connect to city networks.
“People running city networks know that the Wi-Fi in customers’ home equipment is not powerful enough to do an outdoor long range connection….our device is designed to bridge that connection,” said Ms Lo.
Interference
Although boosting Wi-Fi signals looks to be a top notch idea, it’s not without its drawbacks in urban areas, where US hotspot operators are already experiencing “significant” interference between suppliers.
Despite this, Saunders said The Cloud was committed to making mesh networks happen in the UK in the future, but warned that, “a number of factors are needed to make mesh networks economical”.
The company is, however, already working with the Corporation of London to deploy a mesh network in the City.
The Cloud
Ruckus
Offcom
1 August, 2006
Whitehaven First English Digital TV Town
Today it was announced that Whitehaven, Cumbria will be the first area in England to have its TV reception changed over from analog to digital.
Ahead of expectations, Broadcasting Minister Shaun Woodward and Industry Minister Margaret Hodge announced their intentions today to switch over the analogy signal in Autumn 2007.
A year later (don’t rush it will you), Selkirk in the Scottish Borders will start the transition in Q4 of 2008, with the whole of the Borders area being converted by Q2 2009.
Whitehaven has been specifically selected as they have always suffered from a weak analog signal, and following the switch they will end up with 18 channels rather than the four they currently receive.
The first area in the UK to switch over was two villages, Ferryside and Llanstephan, situated on either side of the River Tywi, in Carmarthenshire, Wales back in March 2005.
Who will bear the cost of the hardware in each home to change to digital has been unclear for quite a while. The have government appeared steadfast in insisting that the generally the public must bear the costs, with assistance available to some.
Today they’ve finally made it clear who will get support
Extra help with switchover will be available to: all households with one person aged 75 or over; all households with one person with a significant disability (receiving attendance allowance, disability living allowance); help will be available free of charge to households with one person aged 75 or over/disabled households receiving pension credit, income support or jobseekers allowance; other households will pay a modest fee; specific support for households where one person is registered blind or partially sighted.
Many feel see the expense of having to buy extra equipment as a tax on the citizen to enable to government to then sell off the analog spectrum to the highest bidder, raising income for the government. Todays clarifications will have taken some wind out of their sails.
Digital UK
20 July, 2006
Microsoft Gets Huge €uro Fine
Microsoft have been fined by the European Commission for failing to comply with an anti-competitive ruling.
Their fine is unprecedented at €280.5 million ($375m, £193.8m) and covers a period from 16 December to 20 June at 1.5m Euro/day.
The EC threatens that it will raise the fine to 3m Euro/day if they continue to not comply beyond 31 July.
This tiff between Europe and Microsoft is related to the Media Player and “work group servers,” which Europe want to become more open, enabling other companies to compete against them.
The EC made a previous ruling against Microsoft in March 2004 when they threatened fines up to €497 million ($632m, £330m).
Europe have acted far more harshly that the US Justice Department which has been waiting for papers from Microsoft on a similar issue since 2002.
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes was quoted by Reuters as saying, “Microsoft has still not put an end to its illegal conduct. I have no alternative but to levy penalty payments for this continued non-compliance. No company is above the law.”
12 July, 2006
Shaun Woodward Paints A Rosy Picture For UK Digital TV Switchover
Shaun Woodward (right) the MP famed for the twin disgraces of his defection from the Conservatives to Labour and a stint working with Esther Rantzen on That’s Life, is now Creative Industries minister and is busy singing the virtues of the UK’s Digital TV switchover plans.
According to the minister, there’s going to be a golden digital age in the UK as more and more employment is provided by the creative industries, our children enjoy interactive education, the sick benefit from Tele-medicine and the new technologies even help the government with transport and defence industries.
Woodward speaking last week at a Royal Television Society event, Digital Switchover- Making it Happen did not seem to think that finding the £26.99 that you can now buy a Freeview box from Argos for, would pose a problem amongst the financially challenged members of the electorate in the deprived St Helens constituency he now represents. Woodward in fact hinted obliquely that although they might fail to feed their children properly and many have high levels of debt, he’d observed some good ‘entertainment kit’ in their homes.
Accompanied by Ford Ennals (below right) the Chief executive of Digital UK, the body charged with making it happen, he made clear that BBC licence fee; although not yet agreed, would be settled by the end of the year and this was would fit in with the digital switchover schedule. ‘The Government needs to be satisfied that licence fee payers are getting value for money,’ he told the audience but he was ‘confident that they’ll get the right number’ at the end of the process of negotiation with the BBC.
Ennals revealed that surveys from trial areas indicated high levels of satisfaction particularly amongst the over 75s, who along with other vulnerable groups that might find the new technology challenging, would be getting assistance. Ennals is busy co-ordinating Digital UK’s nine project strands that include the thorny issue of resolving the platforms being made available to those in Multi Dwelling Units (that’s flats and the like to you and me).
The switchover which is being rolled out region by region, will swap out the old analogue transmissions with super new digital ones starting in what was the Border TV region in 2008 and finishing up, not as originally planned in London, but in the less challenging areas of Tyne Tees and Ulster thus avoiding any conflict with 2012 Olympic games coverage in the nation’s capital.
Digital UK had the current 98.5% coverage as a target and expects to meet this with additional coverage being by satellite, cable and broadband. Current figures indicate a rump of around 2% of refuseniks, those viewers content with a meagre 4 or 5 channels who see no value in multi-channel viewing, but expectations are this number will shrink as the digitisation spreads across the country like a warm front.
The average cost per household is predicted to be around £130 the extra costs are likely to be those second and third TV sets that are so easily forgotten, new rooftop aerials and replacement of analogue video recorders.
Woodward repeatedly refused to answer the question as to why the government felt it was the BBC’s responsibility to handle switchover issues rather than Government, who have been happy to find funding to subsidise the over 75s TV licence fees.
The Minister agreed that there were questions still to be resolved, like the value of continuing the current ‘gifting’ of spectrum to Public Service Broadcasters after switchover, and how the desire for High Definition would be met, but they were being evaluated so no need to worry there then.
Digital UK with stakeholders across industry and broadcasting would not make the mistakes seen in Italy, where a planned ‘big bang’ switchover for 2006 had not even registered as a moderate whimper. In the UK it is all so far going swimmingly and Ford thinks the BBC will be keeping up the good work as long as the BBC licence fee is agreed by year end as Shaun assured us it will.
12 July, 2006