Broadband – Page 7 – Digital-Lifestyles

Joost: The Venice Project Renamed

The next-market-to-disrupt target of the Skype/Kazaa founders – TV – has it’s latest news. The Venice Project’s working name has been changed to Joost, continuing their penchant for picking weird names – always a benefit when you want the domains(!).

Joost: The Venice Project Reborn

As to the source/root of the name … ? Well it could be that their massive fans of ’80s video game Joust or perhaps it’s a reference to the German for a friendly ‘goodbye’, Tschüss. Who knows? FYI – It’s actually pronounced Juiced.

We’ve been fiddling with the ~~Venice Project~~, sorry, Joost for a couple of weeks now, since Christopher Wood very kindly sent us an invite to join up.

Joost: The Venice Project Reborn We whacked it on an older (1.5GHz) machine and found that it really didn’t have the horsepower to run it properly. It’s a pretty greedy little number, even running out of steam on a 2.5GHz. The buzz around us beta testers is that currently, it _loves_ taking power/resources.

Clearly the Joost crew are seeing this as a product for the future (not a bad assumption), that will need to have a current processor to run it on. Queue computer and chip makers cheering and clapping.

A couple of beta testers are pointing and declaring that Joost will be the first failure of the founders. We think that it’s waaaaay to early to be calling that. Be patient my headline grabbing-friend and see how it turns out.

Let’s not forget 1) this is still in Beta, 2) Windows Media Centre was a total dog throughout many of its incarnation, taking years to get to the point where it was even usable.

Joost

Nintendo Rake In Record Sales

Nintendo Rake In Record Sales The Nintendo DS has emerged as the top selling gaming device in both the US and the UK during 2006.

According to figures from the NPD Group, the DS outsold the Wii and PlayStation 3 (PS3) over the bumper Christmas holiday period in the US, with 1.6 million Nintendo DS’s flying off the shelves during December, adding to a total sales figure of 9.2 million units.

By comparison, Sony’s much hyped PS3 only managed to sell 490,700 units in December, hindered by supply and production problems.

Nintendo Rake In Record Sales Americans certainly went waheey for the Wii, with 604,200 consoles shifted in December, backed up by brisk business for extra games.

NPD found that Wii owners bought three extra titles on average, with a huge 86 percent forking out for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Nintendo Owns Europe
Across the pond in Europe, Nintendo managed to shift 500,000 Wiis during December, while in the UK a hefty 200,000 of the next-gen consoles found themselves in the clammy excited hands of game-crazy Brits.

Nintendo Rake In Record Sales Despite the bumper sales, Wii’s still remain as rare as a Cardiff City away win, with Nintendo Europe MD Laurent Fischer admitting that the company is still “facing stock shortages.”

Record sales
According to UK market monitor Chart Track, UK consumers also bought more than 500,000 Nintendo DS handheld consoles, making it the UK’s biggest games machine last year.

With the Wii whipping up a sales storm and the DS registering record sales on both sides of the Atlantic, Nintendo look set to notch up their most successful financial year ever.

[From PC Advisor and Reg Hardware]

Sky Surf, Speak, See Triple Play Package Announced

Sky has rolled out a combined TV, broadband and telephony package, regaling under the snappy moniker of Surf, Speak and See.

Sky Rolls Out Surf, Speak And See Triple Play Package The deal serves up the usual “up to” 8Mbps connection, and comes with a free bundled wireless Sky router and a fairly generous 40GB monthly usage allowance, which should be enough to keep most multimedia fans happily gorging on new content.

Also bundled in the ‘triple play’ deal – for that’s how we industry types describe these all-in packages – is over 100 digital subscription-only TV channels (plus over 200 other free to air digital radio and TV channels) and free UK evening and weekend landline calls.

The whole caboodle comes as a minimum one year deal priced at £26 monthly (with a one-off £20 connection fee) but punters will still have to shell out £11 a month to BT for the line rental

Sky Rolls Out Surf, Speak And See Triple Play Package Before you get too excited and start flicking your cash in the direction of that lovely Mr Murdoch, bear in mind that the service is only available to customers close to exchanges already unbundled by Sky.

This currently works out at around 50 percent of the UK population, although Sky hopes to crank this up to 70 percent by July.

Commenting on their new offer, Sky boss James Murdoch shrugged off the growing competition from NTL and BT boasting, “I would say we are more confident every day with our short, medium and long term prospects.”

Sky

BT Broadband Hits 10m Connections

BT Broadband Hits 10m Connections It may only be a few days after the New Year, but the party poppers and drinks cabinet have been rolled out at Chez BT as the company is poised to rack up its 10 millionth broadband connection this week.

Way back in the distant dial-up days of 2002, BT had set what seemed liked a wildly ambitious target of 5 million connections by the end of 2006, so with the target doubled we reckon there’ll be a fair bit of a-whooping at the top of the BT Tower (and, no doubt, some fattening pay cheques).

The 10 million wholesale connections are split between BT Wholesale and BT Openreach, with 8.7 million customers connecting through BT Wholesale.

BT Broadband Hits 10m Connections The remaining 1.3 million lines are supplied to big names like Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB via BT Openreach.

When the 5 million target was set back in April 2002, less than 150,000 DSL connections existed in the UK, with broadband availability in the UK pegged at just 66 per cent – a figure now standing at a near-complete 99.8 per cent.

Purring with delight, Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of BT Group, claimed that the UK is now the most competitive broadband market in the world, offering customers a choice of over 200 service providers

“That means fantastic choice and value for consumers, and a constant stream of new and innovative applications,” he enthused.

“There are still many, many areas in the market where you can see people really looking for new applications and it’s the applications that drive people to broadband. Look for example at the way people want to make and share their own content, on a narrowband basis that’s almost impossible,” he continued.

“As social networking becomes more and more a thing of today, this presents fantastic opportunities for broadband.”

It wasn’t all backslapping and cigar-puffing at BT though as their rival BSkyB passed the 2 million subscriber milestone, with sales of the Sky+ box increasing by more than 50% last year.

BT
Sky

Xbox 360 outsells Wii And PS3 in US Over Xmas

Xbox 360 outsells Wii And PS3 in US Over Xmas It truly was a battle of the consoles this Christmas, with big-hitters Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all looking to set the Yuletide cash tills ringing.

According to analysts at the US research firm NPD, Santa’s bags were mostly straining with Xbox 360’s over the festive period, closely followed by the Nintendo Wii, with the PS3 trailing in third place.

Preliminary findings from NPD revealed that the Xbox 360 outsold both the Wii and the PS3 in the US, with around 2 million Xbox 360s shifted between the start of November 2006 and Christmas.

Xbox 360 outsells Wii And PS3 in US Over Xmas
Not far behind was the eagerly awaited Nintendo Wii which registered 1.8 million sales, while the PS3 could only muster a mere 750,000 Stateside sales.

According to NPD, these figures represent a huge leap from November’s figures which saw 511,000 Xbox 360s, 476,000 Wiis and 197,000 PS3s flying out of the stores.

It’s worth noting that Nintendo’s Wii didn’t launch in the US until 19th November – nearly three weeks behind the Xbox 360 – with the first batch of stock reported as selling out in hours.

Xbox 360 outsells Wii And PS3 in US Over Xmas It was a similar situation in the UK, with Nintendo Wii’s near-impossible to find in the shops (yes, we were looking too and someone’s still waiting for their Christmas present!).

One of PC World’s flagship stores in the West End told Digital Lifestyles that their consignment of Wii consoles went almost as soon as they came through the door, although we noted no shortage of XBox 360s in the store.

NPD is expected to release the complete figures for December later this month.

NPD

Ofcom Proposed Spectrum Auction: Analysis

Ofcom Consulting On The Auction Of Spectrum In The 2GHz Band There’s a fair chunk of spectrum that’s sitting there not being used in the 2GHz band. The various bits are 2500-2690 MHz, 2010-2025 MHz and 2290-2300 MHz.

Ofcom has a duty to ensure spectrum isn’t wasted and as a consequence of the auction will end up driving revenue for the Government. Previously, and famously they did very well when they auctioned the 3G licenses, raising £21bn for the Treasury.

They recently auctioned some GSM spectrum and that only raised £3.8m, but it was much less than the 3G lot with many more restrictions.

Under its new face, and following EU directives, Ofcom likes to offer technology neutral licenses, which means the licensee can use the spectrum for whatever they want – as long as they meet the radio restrictions on that band (power, spectral masks, etc). They hope this will stimulate innovative services which is good for the economy.

There’s a lot of interest in the spectrum, as it could be used for lots of services including 3G and WiMAX, but that’s where the problems start.

Possible European Interference
There are various blocks of spectrum which are coordinated at a European level and each EU country uses the spectrum for the same things. That’s pretty much what happens for GSM and 3G, as well as some TV and radio bands.

It’s all organised by CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications) and the Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC), CEPT is represented by 47 countries and the RSC by 25 EU states. They ensure that radio usage is coordinated. Unfortunately radio waves don’t abide by national borders, so it would be no good if one country was using spectrum for say TV and another for radio as they’d interfere with each other.

Ofcom Consulting On The Auction Of Spectrum In The 2GHz Band

Though the UK is an island, interference issues are quite common, especially in the south east with France and the north east with the Dutch and even the Nordic countries. The west has to worry about Ireland (and of course Northern Ireland abides by UK policy).

These particular bands are already allocated for 3G, 10MHz in 2010 – 2020 MHz, is already designed for license-exempt self-provided, self-coordinated IMT-2000 use. In the UK none of the 3G networks have actually utilised it, though in other parts of Europe it has been used for this purpose.

2500 – 2690 MHz is currently mainly used for video broadcast systems, all licensees have been given notice to vacate by 31st December 2006. This is a significant amount of spectrum (190MHz) which is greater than is currently allocated to the whole of 3G use (140MHz). It was reserved for a “new” entrant if the current 5th 3G operator failed or for existing 3G expansion.

Ofcom’s suggestions summarised

Ofcom are currently holding UK consultations to see what stakeholders think should happen. They are proposing the following: –

2500-2690 MHz Packaged on the basis of blocks of 5 MHz as lots of paired spectrum (2×5 MHz, 120 MHz duplex spacing) and unpaired spectrum (5 MHz), with the eventual amount of lots in each category to be determined in the auction. The reference point is as per the CEPT band plan: 14 lots of paired channels (14x2x5 MHz with uplink in 2500-2570 MHz and downlink in 2620-2690 MHz) and 9 lots of unpaired channels (9×5 MHz in 2570-2615 MHz).

One guard channel will be necessary at adjacencies between paired and unpaired spectrum, at 2615-2620 MHz, and possibly another in the top part of the band.

There is a possibility to allow paired lots to be converted into the equivalent of two unpaired lots in the event that demand for unpaired lots exceeds that for paired lots at a given lot price.

Each bidder should receive contiguous lots in each category, except potentially one assignment of unpaired spectrum which could need to be split into two blocks of contiguous lots.

2010-2025 MHz Package for award as a single 15 MHz lot.

2290-2302 MHz Package for award as a single 10 MHz lot and retain 2300-2302 MHz for possible inclusion as part of a future award together with 2302-2310 MHz.

What might the response be?
The consultation will close in March 2007 and it’s likely the 3G operators will be extremely vocal in their claim to this spectrum, as they paid so much for their original licenses.

Once Ofcom digest the responses, they’ll then have to argue the case at the European level to ensure it can be licensed off in a technology neutral manner without upsetting our neighbours, however getting agreement from at least 47 countries tends to be a time consuming process.

Luckily CEPT are already discussing the issues and are expecting to make a statement in July next year. RSC will follow shortly after.

Although there’s no guarantee that discussions will go in Ofcom’s favour, they are hoping an award process can start in the Autumn of 2007, though it may well be delayed until 2008.

Potential Cash
With 16 national licenses available, there’s a fair amount of cash the government can expect to raise. Even if Ofcom set the minimum price at £50,000 then that’s £800,000 – they are likely to reach much higher values, although not the silly pricing that the original 3G licenses fetched.

Ofcom
CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications)
Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC)

Sky Anytime: Murdoch Flexes Cross Media

Sky Anytime: Murdoch Flexes Cross Media Wow … things are really starting to gel across the Murdoch media businesses, as James Murdoch starts showing his hand. Perhaps this is the first real example of seeing James’ talent on with what we’ve been told was his passion – that for convergence.

First is a typical Sky masterstroke – naming their services with a fantastically concise moniker.

They’re re-branding the previously-named-to-appeal-to-techies service, Sky by Broadband, swapping it for the far more concise Sky Anytime.

The message – don’t worry that it’s broadband, that’s not important. What is important is that you … yes, you can pay to see content when ever you want to. In fact, you can do it – Anytime.

It’s genius. A typical application of what Murdoch publications do – speak to people in a language that they understand.

The simplicity of the service cleverly removes the need for talented sales people at retail, you know the type of store I mean … “Well Sir, it’s like Sky … but it’s available at Anytime.” Genius.

Sky Anytime: Murdoch Flexes Cross Media A number of Sky One shows will be available over the service. Sounds great, until you imagine that 93% of the those using Sky By Broadband already own a Sky+ box – having the ability to see the shows when they want to anyway.

The second example – Sky One putting out its content on another strongly-branded service. Luckily it’s in the family – MySpace.

Two episodes of the watched-by-the-obsessed running series Lost were available until Sunday via MySpace UK for UK viewers only. Fans of Lost reacted angrily when Sky out bid Channel 4 for the current series. I suspect that Sky Inc, will see it as a way of perhaps signing up more subscribers.

They’re on the move
Here’s the reality – Sky is starting to work it. They’re small steps so far, but at least they’re actually doing what other people are talking about doing – moving media between platforms.

Here’s the worrying part for all people who hope to be able to compete in this Digital-Lifestyle. They’ve stolen the march on the rest of the market, they own their own IP delivery channel.

3 X-Series Launch: Analysis

3 X-Series Launch: Analysis 3 has seriously stepped up the offerings for providing services to mobile handsets. Their new service, X-Series, offers viewing of your own TV using Orb and free voice calls using Skype.

The general data use will be flat-fee, or “all X-Series services will be free at the point of use, subject only to fair usage limits,” as Three puts it. Initially there will be an additional fee for the use of Slingbox and Orb.

Hutchison Whampoa, the owners of 3, haven’t been doing this all by themselves. The partner list is extensive including Skype, Sling Media, Yahoo, Nokia, Google, EBay, Microsoft’s MSN, Orb and Sony Ericsson.

The service is launching in the UK on 1st December, with Three’s other markets (Italy, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Israel, Ireland and Sweden) during 2007.

The service will launch with two handsets supporting all of the features, the Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson W950i

3 X-Series Launch: Analysis Comment
Three are playing to their strengths. They and their network know how to shift data around – they’ve been pushing video (the most dense use of data) on their networks commercially for over two years. As Frank Sixt, Group Finance Director of Hutchison Whampoa, said, “This is why we created 3, and what our network was designed to deliver.”

3 have taken a number of applications that have been available to the technically aware for some time, but cleverly brought them together into a single package that all consumers should be able to understand.

It’s companies like Hutchison Whampoa that start moving industries. Significant innovation within the mobile business has been static for a long time, with only small changes to their offerings. There’s been a near unanimous ignoring of VoIP services running over networks – not surprising really when it would remove a significant source of income for them.

3 X-Series Launch: Analysis There will be repercussions – not least from the TV companies who really don’t like the idea that people can watch their TV when they’re on the move. To be precise it’s the fact that they don’t make any money out of it, is the bit they don’t like.

Phrase Spotting – Mobile broadband – the second time we’ve heard that phrase in as many days. We wonder if Orange had heard what 3 would be announcing and decided to scoop them on the first usage.

Three X-Series

UK Broadband Consumer Satisfaction Hits New Low

UK Broadband Consumer Satisfaction Hits New Low A new YouGov survey has found that “free” broadband deals have resulted in lower customer satisfaction levels.

The figures released by the uSwitch Customer Satisfaction Report show that most providers aren’t managing to keep their increasing customer numbers happy, with a 9% drop in broadband satisfaction levels registered among the 11,000 customers surveyed.

The report also puts consumer’s trust in their Internet suppliers at an “all time low”.

Scraping along the bottom of the customer satisfaction levels is the notorious TalkTalk service run by Carphone Warehouse, which could only muster 70% of punters happy with their service.

UK Broadband Consumer Satisfaction Hits New Low The service was the subject of a recent BBC Watchdog investigation after thousands of customers failed to get connected and were forced to endure lengthy waits on costly pay-per-minute helplines.

Orange fared just as badly, coming joint bottom, while Virgin.net scored the highest customer satisfaction levels at 85%, ahead of Telewest and Tiscali.

uSwitch said that despite1.5 million new customers signing up broadband over the past ten months, providers had failed to match the growth with improvements in customer service levels.

UK Broadband Consumer Satisfaction Hits New Low “It’s disappointing to see that the majority of providers are failing to accompany the growth in customer numbers by sufficient growth in customer service operations and the required investment in their technology to ensure that they are looking after customer needs in an acceptable manner,” said Steve Weller, communications chief services at uSwitch.

“These results should provide a clear signal that customers are demanding a more comprehensive, sophisticated range of services, and it is becoming more important than ever before for providers to offer value for money in terms of both price and service,” he added.

uSwitch.

Dis-Connexion By Boeing: Now Free WiFi

Disconnexion By Boeing Recently while travelling on an SAS flight, I had the pleasure of trying out the Connexion by Boeing service, which is an Internet service offered on long haul services.

Trials for the service started back in two carriers in June 2005.

The system provides a WiFi connection on the plane and connects back to Boeing using some kind of magic (a satellite service, somewhere on the plane a dish or dishes always stay in site of the satellite signal).

It’s all transparent to the user, just connect to the WiFi signal (and there really aren’t any others to connect to at 30,000 ft) and then go to the Boeing portal and sign-up.

It’s free
Although the sign-up page requires you to enter your credit card details the only price plan currently available is priced at $0.0, which means you aren’t charged (I’d imagine for security purposes, so any naughty activity can be traced back to someone). You then get a username and password and can sign-in to using the actual service – which then lets you out in to the wild world of the Internet.

It all worked rather well. Email was speedy and even logging into a remote system worked well, though there was a lag between what you typed and what appeared on the screem – it was usable though (much better than GPRS or some 3G connections have been). Updating MacOS X was doable with download rates of around 70KB/s. Lag was a good 600ms, but that’s what you get from sending data 30,000 miles up to a geostationary satellite and down again and back.

A business user could gainfully use the 10 hours or so in the air and be productive.

The end is nigh
Unfortunately the reason that it’s free is that Boeing are discontinuing the service and as they can’t guarantee any service levels – they’re giving it away until the service ends (Jan 2007). They argue that not enough airlines have signed-up and are cutting their losses.

It’s a real shame as the service worked well and the pricing was sensible for passengers even when they had to pay.

It’s not as though the airlines can keep it going either, as Boeing are physically removing all the equipment they installed in the planes.

Panasonic have said they will introduce a service to replace Boeing’s, but it could be a while, so in the meantime, passengers will have to make do with working off-line or catching up on movies they wouldn’t dream of watching normally.