Category: Broadband

Anything that uses or touches broadband

Sony Eyes P2P Venture

A new partnership of opposites may be in the offing, one that will allow you to download pay-for and free songs from the Internet. The partnership called Mashboxxx, first reported in Friday’s Los Angeles Times, will happen between Sony BMG Music Entertainment and online peer-to-peer software distributor Grokster. This is quite an historical venture really, being the first earnest public partnership between a major recording company and an established file-sharing outfit. There have been many rumours (whispered behind the hand) of these schemes already being run.

Yes, Sony BMG has broken ranks with the rest of the entertainment industry by embarking on this venture with Grokster, that combines free music sampling with paid downloads. The free downloads will be promotional versions of songs by Sony BMG acts, and / or you can buy licensed, higher quality versions. Punters already use Grokster to search, download and distribute a wide variety of music files, but most of these are only copies of CD-quality recordings.

To many, this looks like a case of joining the enemy when you can’t beat them – a tactic that has worked well in many instances throughout history. As it happens, Grokster only recently settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against them by recording companies, over a Spanish Web site that was selling music downloads without permission.

But why go down the expensive and lengthy road of litigation when, like Sony BMG and Grokster, you can settle on a legitimate business model that allows you to work together, using each other’s expertise in a mutually beneficial way?

Well finally the music industry is starting to acknowledge that Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are very efficient at distributing files. Not only that, but they get to save money by not paying all of the bandwidth charges for distributing the files, as the consumer bandwidth is used to share the files around.

Mashboxxx is expected to employ some kind of digital fingerprinting technology that will be able to filter out unauthorized song copies from file-sharing networks, and a version of this type of filtering technology has been developed by San Francisco-based Snocap Inc.

Broadband BBC – Ashley Highfield

Ashley Highfield, BBC Director of New Media and Technology, outlined the BBC’s plans to harness broadband technology to reduce the digital divide in Britain in a speech to the Broadband Britain Summit in London.

Alluding to Harold Wilson’s prophetic comments over forty years ago where he described a ‘new’ Britain forged from ‘the white heat of technology’, Highfield asks, “Can we move this ‘linear’ digital content leadership into the broadband ‘on demand’ world? Or will the white-heat prove to be nothing but hot air?”

Highfield describes “a new world of media consumption only made possible by a faster always-on connection.” He outlined the corporation’s vision for a broadband Britain, and urged the cooperation of Government and industry to avoid a digital underclass.

It is obviously hoped that the BBC’s interactive media player, iMP, which has just undergone a technical trial, will be a leading protagonist in the unfolding broadband drama. “iMP enables people to download television and radio programmes, choose to record whole series such as EastEnders, catch up on programmes they have missed and watch or listen to them on any device they want – all through peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing on a broadband connection”, explained Highfield.

“iMP is just one of a suite of products in development that makes up our BBC On Demand strategy”, says Highfield, “including the Creative Archive, the Radio Player, and the Broadband Console, with the express aim of finding the right content and services to put the British media industry at the forefront of this technology tidal wave and narrow the digital divide.”

The creation of “Underclasses” are not a healthy development in any environment, including the digital one, and Highfield outlined some proposals that should help to avoid this – the BBC’s planned scheme ‘Music for All’ and a ‘Get Britain Connected’ week.

The ‘Music for All’, will be firmly rooted in broadband. It aims to “transform music education giving children the opportunity to hear live performances, experience master classes in all music genres, create and perform their own pieces and work alongside leading musicians who can help them to develop their musical passions.”

Highfield also floated the idea of FreeBand (in the mode of the BBC’s FreeView and FreeSat). The BBC would supply broadband ready material, “compelling content” in his words, that would be delivered via services providers to UK citizens. Sadly he didn’t go in to any more detail, so it’s not clear how this would differ from services they currently freely deliver, or have spoken about publicly previously. It is perhaps just a new catchy way to label it.

In his speech, Highfield also proposed a ‘Get Britain Connected’ week to happen later next year. He envisaged this as being “a joint initiative with Government, players in the broadband supply chain (both commercial and public sector) and the BBC with its airwaves and cross-promotional opportunities to target those members of society who might find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.”

Harold Wilson was the first British Prime Minister to successfully use television as a political tool. Hopefully the ‘white heat’ Wilson referred to forty years ago will indeed prove to be more than hot air.

Text of Ashley Highfields speech

SBC’s $20 DSL Red Herring

Baby Bell phone company SBC Communications has launched a promotion that breaks a barrier of sorts. It’s offering DSL for $19.95 (£11) a month. It only comes in a bundle though. You must also subscribe for one year to SBC’s unlimited calling plan at $48 (£26) a month.

The DSL service promises download speeds of between 384kbps and 1.5mbps, and an upload speed of up to 384kbps. It also includes increased e-mail account storage, safety and security features and a parental control package.

SBC Communications, who markets DSL high-speed services in partnership with Yahoo, say the $19.95 (£11) a month plan, effective from 1st November, is available to new broadband subscribers or for customers who want to change from cable to DSL.

It’s a regular tussle between the phone companies and the cable companies. Approximately 60% of US homes with broadband access, use cable modems, but broadband penetration nationwide has not yet hit 50%. By the end of 2004 roughly 30 million of the 110 million US households will have broadband access – still only 30%.

At the end of the second quarter (2004) UBS said cable firms had 16.7 million Internet customers, while phone companies had 11.3 million DSL customers – still a considerable gap.

Looking ahead, Local Bells plan to replace ageing copper wiring in affluent urban areas with fibre-optic wiring that will also handle video, hoping obviously to stop wireless and cable service providers at the pass. Indeed, only last week SBC granted Alcatel a $1.7 billion contract to install fibre-optic lines in its network infrastructure, so that it can eventually handle video, while Motorola will supply equipment to Verizon for their video service.

But cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable remain the market leaders for household broadband customers. While phone companies like SBC, Verizon Communications, BellSouth and Qwest Communications are upgrading their networks to handle higher bandwidth applications such as video.

While SBC added 402,000 DSL customers in the third quarter and Verizon added 309,000 DSL customers, cable firm Comcast signed up 549,000 broadband customers in the same period. Comcast did target college students though with a $19.95 (£11), six-month promotion, which may go some way towards explaining their third quarter success.

WiFi Pricing in Europe is Over Complex

At the IBM sponsored Wi-Fi Business Development Summit in Paris, consultancy BroadGroup has warned providers to pull back from complex pricing systems for Wi-Fi services, while it also warned major industry players to increase marketing emphasis on monthly subscriptions.

In simpler language – more transparency is needed. The more schemes and user choice on offer, the more complex pricing structures become it would seem, and BroadGroup define the current schemes as being ‘too finely segmented’. Using source material based on two recent European surveys of 122 Wi-Fi service providers and 83 GPRS operators, BroadGroup said that the findings suggested Wi-Fi is trending towards tariff structures that would leave users unable to comprehend what they were being charged. Whether this is the intent of the WiFi operators isn’t clear.

But what alternative is there for WiFi service providers if differentiating offerings is the only way to drive marketing strategies, the current mix leaving users with 365 tariff schemes across 28 countries – one for each day of the year.

It’s true, when you are bamboozled with too many price-saving schemes and special offers you end up being so confused that you just opt for the one you understand the best, and not the one that necessarily cuts your bill. And this is borne out by the fact that BroadGroup provided examples showing that if users did not know how many MB they consumed each month, they could be penalised by selecting an inappropriate tariff.

Furthermore, most Web sites did not provide an interpretation of MB usage anyway. Even if they all did, you’d wonder how many customers would actually have enough time to study them in detail. BroadGroup is currently conducting a study of business travellers in Europe to provide insight into data usage and what users understand as mobile data.

BroadGroup research also found that average pricing in the most popular timebands – 1 hour, 24-hours and 1 month had remained largely unchanged over the last 18 months. 24 hour pricing is now offered by 58% of all service providers in Europe with an average price of €15.08. However in a market where prepaid methodologies now dominated, the consultancy believed there was a need to concentrate on the promotion of monthly subscriptions to sustain business growth.

The consultancy also noted that European Wi-Fi prices continued to be more expensive than the US and Asia.

BroadGroup

Akimbo IP-VOD to Sell Through Amazon

Akimbo IP-VODWe’ve been keeping our eye on Akimbo, an IP-delivered VOD (Video-On-Demand) service and have learnt that they are launching and have signed on Amazon.com as its official retailer. Akimbo has just launched its video-on-demand service and signed on Amazon.com as its official retailer. Akimbo is to video what Apple’s iTunes is to the iPod. The Akimbo Player, utilising an easy “Queue and View” format is a set-top box that delivers hundreds of mainly niche program videos to television through a broadband-Internet connection allowing consumers to choose content and view it on-demand – or maybe even later.

Amazon.com will be the exclusive retailer for the 2004 holiday season, and the Akimbo Player which can hold about 200 hours of video, is now available in the Amazon.com Electronics store for US$229.99 (~£125, €180) [Buy]. Consumers can sign up for the Akimbo Service by visiting their site at a cost of US$9.99 (~ £5, €8.10) a month. Sadly, for content licensing reasons we assume, it’s only available in the US currently.

The service offers consumers 50 categories of content, including mainstream, classic and independent films, foreign language, news, health and fitness, sports, children’s programs, and education. At no additional charge you can download old series such as “The Jewel In the Crown” from Granada International, consult comprehensive independent film catalogues from Undergroundfilm, GreenCine, Amaze Films, and IFILM.  Or you can receive news specials and features from CNN, more conventional classic movies from Turner Classic Movies and cartoon episodes from the Cartoon Network. Premium services are also available for access to foreign language programming.

The Akimbo Player utilizes widely adopted technology for playback including Windows Media 9 technologies for audio and video compression, and digital rights management. The Akimbo Service automatically delivers an onscreen program guide and subscribers choose which programming they would like to download to the Akimbo Player. Then, each time Akimbo Service subscribers turn on their TVs, they have new videos, previews and editorial information waiting for them.

Akimbo has competition from other VOD suppliers waiting in the wings, including Disney’s Moviebeam, TiVo and Netflix, all who have plans for 2005.

Akimbo

Buy Akimbo Player from Amazon

WiFi – it’s Everywhere … and Now With Voice

My local coffee shop and corporate America have one thing in common – they are adopting wireless. WLAN hotspots today are as exciting as the record store of the 1950’s. 

There are lots of players in the market and already some of them are joining forces to increase their chances of success, small operators needing the resources of bigger players.  The enterprise community needs wireless for its notebook wielding road warriors, and consultants Frost & Sullivan expects total subscription revenues in the European WLAN hotspots market to rise from around € 18 million (~$22,664,522) in 2002 to in excess of € 1 billion by the end of 2006.

Frost & Sullivan’s study indicates that the key to success lies in selecting the locations most frequented by business travellers, and it would seem that a marriage of convenience between WiFi and VoIP would be very beneficial.

Boingo Wireless, a CA-based Wi-Fi hot spot operator and aggregator, have just done deals with KPN HotSpots in The Netherlands and The Public Network (TPN) in Switzerland, adding 290 Wi-Fi hot spots in key travel locations in these countries to the Boingo Roaming System. With these new additions, Boingo’s worldwide network includes more than 11,000 hot spots with 5,600 locations in Europe.

Boingo have also set up shop with Vonage Holdings Corp., a leading broadband telephony (VoIP) provider in North America, in an effort to simplify voice over Wi-Fi services and make them more accessible to customers. This move is the first phase of their VoIP strategy, whereby mobile travellers using the Xpro from Xten, can access the Vonage service from almost any Internet connected personal computer.

Boingo and Vonage will conduct a trial before the end of the year and the proposed bundle will include a Xpro SoftPhone from Xten and a headset that will allow the user to communicate over the Internet from any of the Boingo hot spots.

Frost & Sullivan
Boingo
Vonage

London Schoolchildren to get Broadband Learning at Home

Soon, too soon for some, there will be no excuse for not having your homework done as London education authorities are planning to install broadband in the homes of London schoolchildren. , This initiative by the London Education authorities is timely in the light of a recent OECD report that identified “Disappointing” the use of ICT (computer & technology) in upper secondary schools, even in the most advanced countries, despite major investment outlays over the past 20 years.

With broadband already in more than 80 per cent of London classrooms, the plan now is to extend the initiative and allow pupils at primary and secondary schools, access to high-speed Internet services at home. That means a portal that supports a million people, who will have a personal log-on, 25MB of space, their own email and of course, access to a cornucopia of online learning materials.

As we’ve previously reported extending learning to the home has been very successful in trials in Kingston Upon Hull in the UK where, using the KIT TVIP service, pupils are able to work on the school’s servers using a keyboard, a Set Top Box and their television.

It looks like there will be very few excuses left for not attending class either, unless you are at death’s door, since the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) has created an education network that shares IT resources through classes held via video-conferencing, virtual field trips and personalised pupil programmes. Virtual field tripe, eh?  Looks like you won’t even be able to say the damp brings on an asthma attack when the tree identification trip can be done from the comfort of that lovely classroom. The personalised learning feature will facilitate a managed learning environment, through online facilities.

When you put the words children and Internet together the result sparks fear in the hearts of many parents, so readers will be relieved to learn that the content filtering and managed access in place on the machines in schools is being extended to the children’s homes.  In fact a service called ‘LGfL at Home’ will filter the home broadband service.  Parents can have a password to circumvent the filtering while children can access the online learning resources.


Last April Digital Lifestyles looked at Kingston Communication’s collaboration with an East Yorkshire school that has led to an exciting project to engage pupils in interactive learning, both at home and in the classroom. (story link)

London Grid for Learning

Philips’ Connecting the Community Project

Philips have kicked off a new project in Singapore to bring together content and service providers to equip a sample of households with broadband and connectivity products. Under the auspices of Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority, the project will run for six months and residents will will participate in various ‘e’ services, including, Philips say, e-health, e-learning and e-security.

Philips are particularly interested in healthcare and the company are looking at options for providing services within the consumer’s home via a broadband connection. Applications include pop-up reminders for mediation appearing on TV screens, and the company currently delivers the service through SMS.

“We believe e-health services over broadband is one of the driving forces for establishing connected communities where patients are empowered to manage their health more effectively, and in the process help healthcare providers control costs,” said Andreas Wente, President and CEO of Philips Electronics Asia. “These personalized healthcare services would not only aim to help people with chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure manage their health more effectively, but ultimately help in maintaining a healthy digital lifestyle – for example, delivering weight management or employer health programs via a broadband enabled TV.”

The Connecting Community project is supported by Philips’ own InnoHub test bed facility, which crates a linked environment of communication and home entertainment devices that speak to one another. The InnoHub also will function as an ‘idea management facility’ for exploring the feasibility and commercial potential of innovations.

“This collaboration in Singapore embodies our vision of an emerging Connected Planet since it observes the daily habits and routines of normal families and, more importantly, identifies how their natural behavior responds to the latest state-of-the-art connectivity solutions,” said Cesar Vohringer, Chief Technology Officer, Philips Consumer Electronics. “Through an understanding of how these families interact not only virtually within the home but now through their communities, Philips can further realize its new brand promise by applying these discoveries in the creation of products that are advanced, easy to experience and designed around these consumers.”

Singapore’s IDA

Disney and Intel to Launch “Mickey Symphony”

Disney and Intel are to launch an interesting broadband content service in Japan – an interactive version of some segments form Fantasia 2000. The three initial sections are “Pomp and Circumstances”. “Rhapsody in Blue” and, always a favourite, “Carnival of Animals”.

Users will be able to enjoy interactive special effects, arrange the scenes’ backgrounds, and dance with Donald and Daisy. Which can’t be too bad. There’s a preview that I’ve linked to below – though when they say broadband, they mean broadband: it takes ages to load.

Though currently rather limited in scope, the product hints at what Disney might be able to offer in the future with its rich range of intellectual property.

Koji Hoshino, President of Walt Disney Japan said: “As a leading media company, Disney is committed to delivering content which satisfies a broad range of consumer demands utilizing new technologies … The achievement with Mickey Symphony has taken us to a new level of content creation and distribution. Intel and Disney, leaders in technology and media respectively, joined forces to create this milestone product in Japan and expect to continue further expansion of our collaborative relationship.”

Disney believe that this will be just the first of many such products, and that it will act as a catalyst for increasing public demand for broadband content and services.

Have a look at Mickey Symphony

Akimbo Showcase Internet-toTV VOD Service, Make Deal With TBS

Still can’t find anything worth watching on TV? Akimbo have demoed their internet-to-TV video-on-demand service at the Digital Hollywook show in California this week.

The service is planned to launch in October, and will deliver thousands of hours of video content to a set-top box, the Akimbo Player via subscribers’ broadband connections.

The Akimbo system uses a “Que and View” interface and dedicated remote control to allow users to select programmes that they wish to see – for delivery to them for later viewing.

The Akimbo player holds about 200 hours of video at 1.5 megabits per second, and two of the key advantages are that it doesn’t tie up subscribers’ PCs, nor do they have to watch programmes on a monitor — they can cosy up in their front room. The service will launch at US$9.99 (€8.10) a month, and will include films, music, sports, comedy and drama content amongst others.

Akimbo, founded and managed by execs from ReplayTV, Macromedia, Microsoft and Apple, has also signed a deal with Turner Broadcasting Systems to license thousands of hours of content from CNN, Cartoon Network, TCM and Boomerang.

Kevin Cohen, senior vice president and general manager, interactive/enhanced television for TBS said in a statement: “We are pleased to work with Akimbo and are looking forward to learning how consumers respond to this new subscription on-demand technology.”

Akimbo