Networking

UKTV Sports Live Broadband Euroleague Basketball First
UKTV Sports have announced that they will be premiering Euroleague Basketball live on Broadband, rather than their more normal means, on the goggle box (TV).
PremierTV, a sports rights agency, are working with UKTV to provide clearance of the content and are providing the technical aspects of the delivery. They have built a broadband subscription site, UKTVSlam.tv, and plan to deliver live streaming of two key Euroleague Basketball games each week.
We spoke to Martin Henlan, Sports development manager at UKTV Sports to dig a bit deeper into the story.
Henlan raised a very valid point. Currently there’s no research available for how, or even if, people will consume niche sports over broadband in the UK. If UKTV were to commission a study it would cost them considerably more money than them just getting down and carrying out the trial themselves. We love this let’s-just-do-it approach, but suspect media consultancies all over the world will be meeting is little huddles trying to figure out how they can counter this plain common-sense.
Interestingly, and quite against normal conventions, UKTV will be using the TV shows to promote the broadband, pay-for content. Henlan said they were “looking to build a community and a service, where we can learn valuable lessons, with the potential to take this knowledge to coverage of other sports.”
We find the pricing slightly confusing – either a one-off annual payment, £39.99 (E57, $70) ; annual direct debit payment, £34.99; or a monthly direct debit payment, £3.99.
In our book, at those prices you’ve got to be a pretty devoted basketball fan (and it’s claimed that there are over a million in the UK), to be happy to pay £35 and up to. For the cash they will see only two basketball games a week, delivered as it will be for most of the viewers, to a PC. Clearly the whole offering becomes more attractive if you have your home media centre attached in your cinema room – but the number who currently have this is an insignificant number.
PremierTV will also provide the video-on-demand technology for basketball fans to access video highlights of every other Euroleague Basketball match played each week, as well as Euroleague Basketball news and features.
Due to content licensing deals, the content will be geo-blocked – in an effort to try and ensure the content is not seen outside the UK and Eire.
This coming Friday there will be free access to the the live game, so what are you waiting for? Give it a go.
UKTVSlam.tv
UKTV Sports
25 April, 2006
African Movie Channel To HomeChoice – Niche Lives!
Proving Niche is alive and living on UK IPTV pioneer HomeChoice, they’ve today announced an African Movie Channel, self described as “the UK’s first channel dedicated to showing new and recent releases from the major African film production houses.”
The newly formed African Movie Channel tell us that that they are focused on Africans currently residing in the UK, as well as Britons and non-Britons of African and Afro-Caribbean descent, and anyone with historical connections to Africa.
Lola Onigbogi, African Movie Channel, said: “To launch the African Movie Channel on HomeChoice is a very important and exciting step for us. Demand for both classic and new release African movies is very high in the UK, where there is a large African population.”
We’ve got to admit that our knowledge of African cinema is pretty weak, but then again, we’re not the target niche. We hear from HomeChoice that they’ve got an initial stable of 100’s of film available though the on-demand section of the service. These include classic films such as Violated, Osofia in London and Madam Dearest and new and recent releases staring favorite African actors like Richard Mofe-Damijo, Genevieve Nnaji and Olu Jacobs.
On another side, we see that HomeChoicePR department have their own MySpace account, which we think is pretty enterprising, but it does make some of us at Digital-Lifestyles wonder, are we the only people without at least one MySpace? We also note the perversity of Nick S having a “huge DVD collection”, given he works for a VOD company!
HomeChoice
24 April, 2006
WifiTastic Turns Wireless Networks Into Public WiFi Hotspots
A clever new scheme from WifiTastic makes it pie-easy for home broadband users to turn their connections into revenue-generating wireless hotspots.
To get hooked up, users must purchase a pre-configured Linksys router from WifiTastic – or downloaded and install a free firmware update, if they’re already using a Linksys box.
Here’s how it works: WifiTastic send you their router, you slap it into your internet connection, and as soon as it’s up and running you’re the proud owner of a commercial Wi-Fi hotspot.
Any neighbours, customers or passing Pringle tin-toting Wi-Fi-nauts finding the network will be sent to an access page where they can sign up for wireless access by the hour, day or month.
The company provides a suggested pricing model, but users can set their own prices, with WifiTastic handling all the fiddly credit card/billing/payment stuff and returning 60% of the proceeds to the hotspot owner.
Although free shared connections tend to appeal to our right on ideals more, there’s no denying that this smart, simple system looks to benefit both owners and those who need Wi-Fi access and are prepared to pay for it. Other companies like the heavily-invested FON are providing similar services.
For owners of cafés, small hotels etc the ease-of-use and zero administration involved might make it a tempting proposition, and people living in high density residential areas may appreciate the ease of the service – so long as the access rates are kept reasonably low, of course.
Prospective users would also have to check that their provider allows them to share their connection too.
WifiTastic
12 April, 2006
Mobile Content Up For Emmy Awards
Spurred on by the huge rise of original content being created for computers and mobile devices, The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has decided to officially recognise the growing medium.
A new Emmy award category has been announced, catering for (deep breath), “original entertainment programming created specifically for non-traditional viewing platforms.”
Despite the mile-long name, the rules are simple – shows entered for the awards must not appear on television/cinema first.
After sifting through 74 entries – more than any other Emmy category – six broadband-specific shows have now been shortlisted for the Emmy Awards.
Donning our best party frock, we’re delighted to stand up to the podium and announce the nominees:
“24: Conspiracy,” by Fox Mobile Entertainment. A spin-off of the hugely popular “24” drama, the mobile version featured a different cast to the television series – no doubt because it works out cheaper that way.
“It’s Jerry Time!”, a quirky series of lo-tech animations documenting the life of a 40-something single guy.
Live 8 on AOL – live feeds and on-demand footage of last year’s enormo charity gig.
“mtvU Stand In.” Celebrity stand ins surprise college classes by replacing their usual teacher. Hilarious! We think our sides might split.
…and finally….
“Sophie Chase.” Produced by CB Films and featuring (sigh) ‘online TV’s Sexiest Detective’, this noisy series serves up interactive puzzles that combine video and e-mail. And lots of guns going ‘kappow!’, natch.
The National Academy has stated that it expects the new category to be ongoing, and that it may eventually divide into subgenres – like comedy and drama – as the medium matures.
The winner is to be announced 22 April in New York.
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
11 April, 2006
Carphone Warehouse To Offer Free Broadband?
Carphone Warehouse are going to stir up a hornet’s nest in the telecoms industry if they go ahead with rumoured plans to introduce a free broadband package in the UK.
According to the Sunday Times, the company is expected to offer the public “free” broadband as part of their Talk Talk landline package.
Backed by a huge advertising budget, the promotion is seen as part of Carphone Warehouse’s strategy to elevate their Talk Talk brand into the leading consumer alternative to BT Group.
Carphone Warehouse’s current tally of 75,000 broadband customers puts them miles behind big boys BT Retail and NTL, who boast a mighty 2.3m and 2.8m customers respectively.
Not us, Guv.
At the moment, the company are denying everything about the new free service, although an announcement is expected on Tuesday.
Some industry experts believe that Carphone Warehouse are looking to repeat the soaraway success of fabled freebie ISP Freeserve, who came out of nowhere to overtake BT in the late 90s.
Up until now, Carphone Warehouse have been hampered by having to resell BT’s wholesale broadband product, but a hefty £60m investment will see the company having its own broadband gear in up to 1,000 BT exchanges – potentially reaching 70% of the population.
PR spin-mesisters at Carphone are thought to have christened their broadband campaign “Independence Day”, based on a feeble pun that it will give customers independence from BT.
Some are suggesting that the tag has greater significance, insisting that it reflects the proposed launch date for the new broadband deals – July 4, America’s Independence Day.
Talk Talk
Carphone Warehouse
10 April, 2006
Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie Downloads
Hollywood has finally embraced the online movie distribution business with the launch of two new digital services that will make films available to download on the same day of their DVD release.
In a move designed to stave off movie piracy – estimated to cost Tinseltown up to 3.5 billion dollars a year – the two competing download services, Movielink and CinemaNow, have announced that they will be making hit films available to download online.
Movielink
The Internet video-on-demand company Movielink was launched back in 2002, and is jointly owned by big name studios Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox.
The company will start offering more than 200 movies for sale online, with Universal’s Oscar-winning “Brokeback Mountain” set to be the first major Hollywood blockbuster to be simultaneously released as a DVD and digital download.
Other films due to made available from Movielink are Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” George Clooney’s Oscar-nominated “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the Johnny Cash story “Walk the Line” and the kids’ favourite “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”
Rival company CinemaNow has also announced that it will start making movie downloads available from Lions Gate Entertainment and Sony.
How it works
The system will let consumers shell out for a permanent digital film library of films, or rent downloaded movies for 24 hours.
Purchased movies can be permanently stored on a computer’s hard drive or saved to a DVD in Windows Media format for backup or playback on up to two additional tethered computers.
For road warriors, movies can also be downloaded to a laptop, with users also able to stream movies to a TV hooked up to a media centre extender or Xbox.
We take a look. And get annoyed
We thought we’d take a quick shufti at the two sites for more information but found Movielink’s site a real wind-up.
After wasting a few moments being forced to circumnavigate their irritating geographical filter (it won’t let you see the site unless your IP address is in the US) the company annoyed us further by insisting that we use ‘IE 5.0 or higher’ to access the site.
No thanks. We choose to use Firefox and resent being told what tools we should use. Oh, and their service is, apparently, Windows only. Grrrr..
Movielink
CinemaNow
4 April, 2006
BT Vision – IPTV Service Named. Registration Opens
You’ll probably remember that we broke the story back in September about the release date of BT’s then unnamed IPTV plus Freeview service. Today we learn that it’s to be called BT Vision – and that it’s release may have slipped slightly, from the ‘late summer 2006’ quoted by Andrew Burke to Autumn.
As we know … all new services like to claim a level of uniqueness, BT have latched on to it being the “world-first, combining access to digital-terrestrial channels through the aerial with broadband-powered video on demand” – translated? It’s got a Freeview tuner built in.
BT’s also confirming that the box that will do all of these things is to be call the BT Hub. Its will use a software platform powered by Microsoft and that the set-top box is to be made by Philips.
Those interested in the service also have a chance to register at the BT Vision site.
BTW – Straw poll around the office. They’d better turn out some better content on BT Vision than that horrible Flash vision that accompanies the site. Argh – not exactly inspiring.
20 March, 2006
Wales Aims For 100% Broadband Coverage
The Welsh Assembly has announced today that they’ve selected the BT Group to provide the broadband infrastructure for the remaining exchange areas in Wales.
Nothing particularly exciting about that of course, except that the agreement is a major step on the way to Wales becoming one of the few countries in the world to offer 100% broadband coverage.
With much of lovely, lovely Wales being rural, the Assembly’s Regional Innovative Broadband Support Scheme (RIBS) was set up to connect up parts of Wales described as ‘broadband blackspots’.
The new scheme with see around 10,000 households and businesses receiving access to at least first-generation (512kbps to 2mbps) broadband services at prices comparable with urban areas of Wales.
Once completed, virtually every single household in Wales will be able to join in with the broadband revolution and get stuck into video conferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and other business and entertainment uses.
Andrew Davies, Minister for Economic Development and Transport and eMinister for the Welsh Assembly Government swivelled into spin mode: “Currently, around 99% of the Welsh population can access broadband technology – a remarkable achievement in its own right. However, the Assembly Government is committed to ensuring that virtually every single individual and business in Wales has the opportunity to benefit from the advantages offered by this technology.”
Broadband uptake in Wales has almost doubled over the past 12 months, underlining the country’s economic transformation from industrial to a dynamic, knowledge-driven economy.
Compared to some other European countries, Wales’ achievement is significant; in Ireland, for example, only about 18.0% of the population have broadband connections.
The Welsh Assembly has been proactive in ensuring that the country achieves its 100% coverage target, as Ann Beynon, Director BT Wales, explains, ” BT, like the Welsh Assembly Government, is contributing to the cost of enabling these final exchanges and without the Assembly’s assistance, the upgrading would not have been commercially viable.!
Work to equip the remaining BT exchange areas with broadband is scheduled to start immediately.
BT Wales
Broadband Wales Observatory
16 March, 2006
BT Beefs Up Broadband With Boosted Speeds
BT has announced that some of its users should be able to obtain broadband speeds of ‘up to’ 8 Mbps by the end of March.
Following successful trials, Britain’s largest telecom company confirmed that the BT ADSL Max and BT ADSL Max Premium broadband services will start rolling out across the country from March 31st.
It’s going to be a big job for the BT boys and girls, with the new services requiring the upgrading of more than 5300 exchanges, which together serve more than 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses.
All good news you’d think, but the new connectivity comes with a bag full of caveats related to physical factors, with only those lucky enough to live or work close to their local telephone exchange able to scoop up the maximum 8Mbit/s speed.
BT explained that an estimated 78 per cent of BT phone lines should support broadband at line rates of 4Mbit/s and above, with 42 per cent offering 6Mbit/s and above.
Paul Reynolds, BT’s Wholesale chief executive, was keen to big up his company’s commitment to broadband availability in the UK “Thanks to BT’s continued investment in the broadband network, the UK now boasts the highest level of broadband availability in the G8. We’re now building on those efforts in becoming the first operator in the UK to commit to a national service which is capable of broadband speeds of up to 8Mbit/s.
Although BT will be making the faster broadband speeds available to service providers for new orders from the end of the month, existing customers may have to wait “several months” until their lines are upgraded. In other words – loyal customers can go to the back of the queue.
BT’s line checker at bt.com/broadband is also being updated to show the expected speeds available for individual lines.
6 March, 2006
KiT, UK IPTV Pioneer To Close
It is with great sadness that we hear that UK IPTV innovator KiT (Kingston interactive TV) is to close its doors on 3rd April. We’ve always been huge fans of their work.
KiT was delivering IPTV, before most people who are now getting excited about the potential of delivering content over a network cable, even understood what IP stood for. How long back? 1999.
Kingston Telecom (KT), who own KiT has always been a unique proposition in the UK which has always been dominated (some would say crushed), by BT. KT was the only independent telecoms company in the UK, originally owned by the local council, Kingston Upon Hull, until it was floated in 1999.
It’s always struggled to get sufficient subscribers to support the service. Hull is an area with much financial deprivation with the average family income around £14,000/year. It’s understood that the high point of subscriptions, 10,000 at the start of the service, has lead to the current low point of 4,000. The level of financial loses and the need for KiT to refresh its now 7 year old IPTV kit is understood to have lead to the decision. The parent company, Kingston Communications (KC), feel that they can no longer justify supporting the service
Much important work has been done at KiT with many benefits from the results.
One exceptionally inspirational example was the work they did helping to turn around a failing school, Kingswood School, by getting parents and therefore their children more involved with the education provided, through technology. We covered the story back in June 2004.
Unknown to many, Blockbuster Video have been running a VoD trial on KiT for a couple of years. Their first in the world.
The BBC also benefited, after putting what we understand to be millions of pounds, into understanding how ultra local content works on IPTV over the KiT service.
About six months ago a very senior KiT person got in touch with us to say that they were up for sale.
One of the hopes had been that they would take their extensive IPTV experience, and roll it out over the UK.
There has been some wondering around the Digital-Lifestyles office if the delay in closing KiT has been a considered position by the KC. By waiting until now to close KiT, the rest of the world now realise that they all need to be in IPTV, and the number of potential purchasers will have increased.
Always one to identify a good buy, some are saying that Sky is interested in buying the remains of KiT. We understand from source inside KiT that this is unlikely, but in our view if they were to take on key members of staff, the purchaser would be getting their hands on very valuable experience. Skills like this would steer purchasers around many of the pot holes that IPTV can provide, potentially saving them millions of pounds.
We all hope that KiT, or at least its employees, have every success in the future.
24 February, 2006