Networking

BSkyB to Buy Easynet: Official
UPDATEDSky has today confirmed that it is offering £211m to buy publicly listed UK ISP, Easynet. This follows a period of general speculation, after Easynet issued an official statement on Monday past that they were subject to a possible offer.
Sky are offering 175p per share, around 81% above Easynet’s market price of a week ago.
Not surprisingly, the current Easynet price is now up 44% at 171p.
With this purchase, Sky buys straight into broadband in the UK, gaining a foothold in the Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) market, with 232 unbundled exchanges already under Easynet’s belt.
Importantly Sky have bought into Easynet’s expertise at unbundling exchanges, which, when combined with Sky’s financial clout, will lead to serious competition to the, (in our eyes), feeble rollout of DSL by BT. We also imagine that there will be sweaty brows at Telewest/NTL, the UK cable company over morning coffee.
Sky will gain income from broadband subscription and possibly entice further subscribers to their TV service taking them to their stated aim of 10m. Far more important is a new channel to deliver content through – one they have total control over. They like that.
This move puts BT’s broadband IPTV service on a less secure footing, which, as we broke at the end of September, plans to launch in Summer 2006. At the very least, BT won’t have it all their own way.
Sky has been talking for a while about broadband-delivery ambitions as well as other paths, indeed Sky COO, Richard Freudenstein confirmed as much just over a month ago.
Brace yourself. The news is going to be awash with opinion pieces second guessing what this all means to the future of broadcast and broadband in the UK …
Easynet
Sky
21 October, 2005
Wi-Fly; ISS Falling; i-Tunes 6 – Teenage Tech News Review
Wi-Fly
BBC news is reporting that BT is testing wireless broadband. What was that I heard? Been done already? Ah well, this is a new twist on a relatively old concept: These guys are using a balloon flying at 24km of altitude to send and receive wireless internet signals. This could mean a new way of accessing data: Although there are currently a number of ways of accessing the Internet on a laptop while on the move, these involve either overpriced GPRS connections over mobile networks, or few and far between Wi-Fi access points, which are not necessarily free either.
What this technology might enable, if it takes off (sorry, bad pun), is to enable laptop users to be finally able to use an affordable data service on the move that doesn’t suck speed-wise and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to use.
Guess what else? The team doing the initial research on the project are from my local university, literally five minutes down the road!
Is it a bird, is it a plane…
…No, it’s the ISS falling from the sky. ITAR-TASS reports that the latest ship to dock with the ISS has failed to boost it’s altitude, as it’s rockets failed after burning for only 3 minutes.
The ISS floats at around 350km above the earth, and at this point in space, there is still a significant amount of drag caused by the earth’s atmosphere. What this means when it’s at home, is that the atmosphere causes friction on the ISS, which means that the space station is constantly losing altitude. What prevents the ISS from falling from the sky are occasional boosts from visiting spacecraft. There is a graph of the ISS’ height and it is clearly visible that it is currently at the lowest that it has ever been at. If the space station’s height deteriorates lower than 300km, it is easily possible that it will fall out of the sky and land on earth, or burn up in the atmosphere.
Although the ISS is kinda cool, I do still have my doubts as to it’s usefulness: What the hell is it actually good for? This is the view of a lot of people in the scientific community, and a lot of people think that it might as well be de-orbitted and the money spent on it every year spent on a better cause. Imagine if the $6.7 Billion that NASA is spending annually on the ISS and the shuttle program went to better causes. Imagine what impact that money would make.
Besides, I want a space elevator, dammit!
Oooh Aaargh, ‘cos we’re pirates!
A few days ago, Digital-Lifestyles covered the new video enabled iPod and accompanying iTunes 6 software. iTunes 6 allows you to download selected TV shows and other content for a fee from the iTunes music store. What if you want to add other recording and stuff to your iPod? Hack-a-day has an article on how to automatically download TV shows via Bittorrent.
They also have an article up on how to use the Tivo To Go software which accompanies the Tivo to transfer Tivo recordings to your iPod.
These hints should help all you cheap skates out there to enjoy a nice, free, iPod video viewing experience. Of course, it also means that it will be possible to watch shows on the iPod not yet available for purchase from the iTunes music store.
Enjoy!
21 October, 2005
Possible Impact Of Sky Buying EasyNet
Sky have been mulling about an IPTV service for a while. They were in discussions with THUS who provide the telecoms back-end for their SkyTalk service and helped Sky with their WapTV services, they were talking about doing an IPTV trial with THUS, but THUS pulled out of the LLU arena due to lack of cash. They were looking at spending £20m+ on just a trial.
Though Sky have 7.3m+ subscribers, they estimate around 20% of households (in the coverage) areas cant get Sky due to dish or coverage problems (including multi-tennant buildings). City centres tend to be problematic due to high buildings obscuring the satellites. There’s also a major problem if the building is in anyway listed.
Sky have got the resources to bolster a depressed telecoms market and put the necessary cash into a company to achieve a reasonable roll-out. Of course they also have the content that consumers want. If another “triple-play” broadband provider wants to get into the game (including BT Retail), Sky can make it very difficult for them by not licensing Sky content (of course Ofcom may force them to, as they have done in the cable industry).
Sky have also been talking to other high-speed broadband providers such as Be who also want to offer a triple-play.
If Sky do purchase Easynet, it’s likely they’ll move all their telecoms and Internet activities to them too, which will put THUS in a difficult position as a large ammount of corporate revenue comes from the Sky account.
Sky are also in an odd position as they’ll probably utilise MPEG-4 as the coding system, which means they’ll have to modify (or supplement) their existing transmission systems which are all based on MPEG-2. They’ll also have to introduce a new IP based set-top-box. However they’ll have to be carefull as to not make it too feature rich compared to existing STB’s used to decode the satellite transmissions or existing users will want to migrate to the broadband version – which will cost Sky a huge ammount as the exisitng boxes are considerably subsidised.
Whatever route they go, Sky moving into triple-play will have a major impact on broadband and LLU in the UK.
21 October, 2005
137m Broadband Subscribers In OECD
Figures just out from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), report 137m broadband subscribers throughout the OECD countries and that’s up 18m since the last figures, six months ago.
It’s interesting to note that voice and video services are increasingly being provided over these connections.
Korea continues to be top of the list with 25.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, with The Netherlands following up close behind with 22.5, mainy due to comprehensive cable penetration.
The strongest growth over the last two reports, ie 12 months has been Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway and the United Kingdom.
The US is at 12th position (14.5 subs per 100), with the UK sitting one slot lower at 13th (13.5 subs per 100).
Over all of the countries, DSL is still the preferred method (61.2%), cable modems at around half those levels (32%) and what they describe as ‘other technologies’, ie fibre optics, LAN, satellite and fixed wireless sitting at 6.8%.
The ‘other technologies’ have enjoyed the the highest percentage growth in the past six months, growing 13%.
Looking at absolute subscribers numbers, the US is way out in front at 42.6m, followed by Japan (21m); Korea (12m); Germany (8m); UK (8m); France (8m).
Enjoy all of the delicious details at the OECD site
20 October, 2005
PIPEX Purchases Freedom 2 Surf
There still seems to be plenty of cash slopping around the broadband sector, as PIPEX has just waved its weighty wad in the direction of Freedom to Surf (F2S) and bought the company for £10m.
F2S is a major UK ADSL provider, boasting 40,000 broadband customers at the end of September 2005.
When added with PIPEX’s existing customers, the combined user base will make the company the 5th largest broadband DSL provider in the country
It’s uncertain whether existing Freedom2Surf customers already using LLU via the EasyNet LLUStream range will stay where they are or be shunted on to a PIPEX LLU product.
PIPEX had previously announced that it was currently unbundling 60 exchanges, and the acquisition of F2S will greatly increase customer density around exchanges already allocated for unbundling, thus improving return on their investment.
The 40,000 extra customers also makes the possibility of unbundling a further 40 exchanges more feasible.
Peter Dubens, Chairman of PIPEX, said: “In the light of our recent decision to unbundle an initial 60 exchanges, we are very pleased to add F2S to the PIPEX group, which will further increase the density of customers around each exchange, thus improving the return on capital and enabling us to offer higher speeds to a greater number of our customers. F2S’s customers will be able to benefit from our extensive network and the broad range of services we provide.”
Elsewhere, Wanadoo UK revealed yesterday that it has already unbundled 150 BT exchanges in five UK cities (Leeds, London, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham) and has plans for another 500 exchanges over the next 12 months.
PIPEX
18 October, 2005
Speedy Macs; iMac G5; End Of Internet – Teenage Tech News Review
Did someone say fast?
This week’s update is an Apple-feast… Apple sent out a media invitation a few days ago, titled “One More Thing…”. This phrase has often been used in the past by Steve Jobs to introduce new hardware. So I sat and waited with bated breath, or, well, I was excited anyway.
Sadly, the 4-processor Powermac that I had spotted on French site, www.hardmac.com, didn’t materialise, but I didn’t really expect it to until late next year. The specs on the Powermac I spotted there did never the less impress me a lot: Overall, more than 11Ghz of processing power in one box. Would probably also heat most of the house, but that’s beside the point.
I’d love one of these, as it would surely mean the little waits I have now opening Photoshop and other professional applications would finally vanish and it would simply cool. I do however doubt I will EVER be able to afford one.
Couch Potatoes Rejoice
Some of the hardware that was actually released includes the new iMac G5. The difference this has from earlier models? It is equipped with a built-in iSight, basically a webcam. I have played around with an iSight before, and the performance and image-quality is far above what I have experienced with other web cams.
The other difference between this model and the last is that this includes a handy technology called Frontrow which is basically a remote control. This places the new iMac as a serious competitor to Windows Media Centre, something that our friends at Microsoft will be worried.
In my opinion, any industry that has more than one competitor in it will always have more innovation than a monopoly, because companies are actually forced to compete. I hope that this will bring some exciting new ideas into the fairly stagnant home entertainment computer market.
Internet? Break? Yeah right…
Yes, it’s that time of the week again: The usual doomsday announcements this week included an announcement from the EU that the Internet could fall apart next month. If this is serious, I am going to have to find some other way of life…
The trouble nowadays is, that there’s so many people saying the world’s going to end and that civilisation will collapse, when it never does, that no-one takes anything that will change their entire lives seriously, and until something life-changing actually happens, nobody will.
14 October, 2005
NTL Announces $6 Billion Telewest Buy Out
Britain’s biggest cable operator, NTL, has agreed to shell out an eye-watering $6 billion (~£3.42bn, ~€5bn) for Telewest Global.
This new uber cable company should provide more effective competition with BT and create a powerful rival for pay-TV leader Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, which currently has more television customers in the U.K. than the two cable providers combined.
At the end of March this year, BSkyB had 7.70 million television subscribers compared with NTL’s 3.19 million and Telewest’s 1.82 million.
According to a statement – which ends three years of speculation about the merger – Simon Duffy, NTL’s chief executive, will lead the combined company.
“While the combined entity could potentially pose a longer-term competitive threat to BSkyB, the merger of the two companies could give BSkyB a short-term competitive boost in that it may distract the cable companies from external growth as they merge their networks,” said UBS AG analyst Aryeh Bourkoff.
Both sides are currently keeping Mum about the mixture of cash or shares involved, although a large cash component is believed to be involved.
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that executives at Telewest are set to rake in obscene amounts of filthy lucre for their stock options and other options if the NTL deal goes ahead.
Chairman Cob Stenham can expect his bank balance to increase to the tune of $20m (~£11.4m, ~€16.77m) while chief executive Barry Ellison will no doubt cackle wildly with joy as $17m (~£9.7m, ~€14.25m) rolls into his coffers.
And there’s more, with finance director Neil Smith scooping $3.5m, CEO Eric Tveter getting $9m (~£5.13m, ~€7.54m) and seven non-executive Telewest directors holding 230,000 shares receiving a total of $36.4m (~£20.75m, ~€30.5m) in total from selling their stakes as part of the takeover.
Good work if you can get it, eh?
Telewest
NTL
3 October, 2005
BT’s IPTV To Launch Summer 2006
BT will roll out IPTV in ‘late summer 2006’, according to Andrew Burke, CEO, BT Entertainment, (pictured right) speaking at the Enhanced TV Show in London today.
Developed in partnership with Microsoft, BT’s new set-top box technology will combine a digital terrestrial television receiver with a broadband receiver, allowing the viewer to move seamlessly between the two signals.
BT’s revenue will come from enhanced services, such as a VOIP facility to dial up friends while watching a football match, or the ability to build your own personal schedules.
Burke didn’t reveal whether the set top box would be entirely new, or an add-on to existing Freeview boxes, nor would he say whether BT aims to first convert existing DTT customers or target its marketing efforts elsewhere.
Elena Branet, Senior Marketing Manager at Microsoft TV, (pictured left) said IPTV would allow viewers to use picture in picture channel surfing, see caller ID on their TV sets, or watch TV while messaging a virtual community of friends and family. She said that basic IPTV would be possible with a minimum connection speed of just 1.5 MB.
Branet fought off a suggestion from fellow speaker, BSkyB’s Jim Harrison, that the new IPTV platform would not be interoperable across devices; assuring that it would be open to another operator’s instant messaging system, for example.
Also at the show, David Bainbridge, MD of Yes, Yoo Media, (pictured right) said trials of a new product, ‘Broadband TV’ would start on ntl in October. Not to be confused with IPTV, this is a solution to help content creators repurpose content across platforms – working with cable TV, IPTV and 3.
Enhanced TV Show & Mobile TV Forum
BT
Microsoft TV
Yoomedia
28 September, 2005
FiOS TV: Verizon US Launched IPTV Over Fibre
Verizon has launched an IPTV service in Keller, Texas delivered over their fiber-to-the-premises network.
The service will carry High Def (HDTV) as well as the expected Standard Def. The initial offering will include 330 TV channels, over 20 HD channels, close to 600 video-on-demand with 1,800 planned by the end of the year.
The quote from Bob Ingalls, president of Verizon’s Retail Markets Group won’t exactly be getting the customers running for the phone to place orders. Strapping on his biggest, boldest PR engine, he revved “This is not cable TV. This is not satellite. This is FiOS TV. Customers who liked what FiOS did for their Internet connection will love what it does for their TV. We’ve harnessed the speed and capacity of broadband with the power of broadcast to create a revolutionary, new entertainment experience.” We really hope the offering and services FiOS TV customers contain more content than this empty drivel. (Ed: If you’re not adding anything, why bother saying it?)
FiOS Internet connections, or FiOS for Home as Verizon call it, have been available in a number of areas of the US since June last year, including Keller. It provided 15Mb connections from $45/month and 5Mb from $35. At the very expensive end, they’ve also got a 30Mb offering, but at around $200/month.
With the currently level of video compression combined with connections of that size, there will be no problem delivering multiple TV services (different programmes) to different rooms – even at HD.
Verizon are offers three set-top boxes: standard definition for $3.95/month; HD for $9.95/month; and a digital video recorder set-top box with HD channels for $12.95 permonth. Content packages between $13/month – $40/month are layer on top of this.
Later this year Verizon expects to roll-out the service to Wylie, Sachseand Westlake, Texas. Following this they plan to head to Florida, Virginia and California.
FiOS for Home
Verizon FiOS TV (confusingly saying available soon)
23 September, 2005
BT OpenReach – LLU Smoke and Mirrors?
BT has today set-up a new division, known as OpenReach. They’ve been under pressure from some time from competitors and regulators to curb their monopolistic tendencies (they still own over 85% if the infrastructure in the UK). There has even been talk of splitting BT up – although OfCom has currently reject this.
BT’s response is OpenReach. A division that runs the copper in the ground, which will give equal access to BT Wholesale (who can sell it on with services to BT Retail and others) and non-BT operators in the local loop unbundling (LLU) game (such as Bulldog, Easynet etc). OpenReach (Don’t you find that Open seems to be BT’s buzzword – OpenWorld was first, perhaps BT Open will be next, then all their divisions will convert with the word Open tacked to it) will still be a division of BT Group (maybe now OpenGroup?) but will be run by the EAB (Equal Access Board) which is made up of both BT, and more importantly, non-BT people.
Smoke and mirrors
Though this is a look like a commendable approach, it may also be a huge gambit that BT are playing in order to keep everyone’s eye off their real game.
Ofcom (the Super Regulator) are under tremendous pressure to maintain a level telecoms playing field, this is added to by the UK government putting further pressure on them, as broadband is seen to be a key economic marker. This has made Ofcom wield a double-edged sword – forcing BT to maintain wholesale pricing on their ADSL services (i.e. not lower them), until there at least 1.5m unbundled lines in the UK.
At first glance this sounds like a good idea, as it gives the LLU operators a chance to launch their services without BT suddenly reacting and putting everyone out of business by massive wholesale price cuts. However, the other side of this is that there are 5m+ BT Wholesale customers (via broadband ISPs) out there now who won’t see massive price cuts.
What’s good for LLU is probably not so good (at least in the short term) for the majority of broadband users in the UK – and by implication the population of the UK.
OpenReach doesn’t help those users either, in fact it just adds another level of confusion.
Distraction
BT’s competition now have to worry about what OpenReach are up to, and gives the opportunity for another several years of arguments and Ofcom intervention. While everyone’s arguing with each other (sadly not BT), they are taking their eye off BT’s long term plans. This is a big mistake, and if they don’t correct this, they won’t be in business in the future.
BT to a degree want this, they have teams of regulatory lawyers who, after long period of discussion, can agree to certain things and make life look lovely in one sentence, while tying things in red-tape in another. It’s well worth noting that BT have a bigger regulatory department than Ofcom have staff.
What’s to be done with LLU in the UK?
LLU operators are slowly gaining a foothold and launching innovative services, leaving BT to catch-up. Unfortunately there are less than 100,000 unbundled lines compared to BT’s 5m+ DSL customers and their 25m connected premises.
To make LLU economic, the operators are picking exchanges that have a high population density and the ‘right’ demographic – leading to all the operators tending to pick the same exchanges. There are 5,600 digital local exchanges (DLEs) in the UK, even an operator with a LOT of money is likely to target less than 1,000 of them, most seem to be averaging around 400.
The real boost to LLU that’s needed is co-operation. If all the non-BT operators pooled their resources and built a operator-neutral broadband network that any of them could run services over, they would end up with a network that would start to compete with BT’s. Telecoms operators and ISPs need to realise the real competition isn’t each other, but BT.
21CN, BT’s OpenReach killer?
In the medium term BT are rolling out their 21CN (21st Century Network) which links all of BT’s DLEs using IP. All phone calls become VoIP (voice over IP) and every home has a high speed broadband IP connection.
BT will also launch a range of services to go with their new IP only offering such as IPTV (Internet TV).
By 2009 BT expect to turn off the existing PSTN (public switched telephone network) and all of the UK will be running on the IP 21CN.
This will be great for consumers, potentially 24Mb/s broadband into every home, plug in a VoIP phone and it will just work, High Definition (HD) TV into every bedroom. The downside is it has the potential to put all of BT’s competition out of business in one fell swoop.
BT deregulated with VoIP
BT have been very clever. They’ve supported Ofcom in their views of not heavily regulating VoIP, allowing “new wave” VoIP providers to flourish without being burdened in regulatory red-tape.
Seems strange doesn’t it? Until you realise that when BT’s 21CN rolls-out, it will ALL be VoIP. Suddenly BT are free to do things with it that under the current telecoms environment they might face regulatory scrutiny.
Ofcom are then in a difficult position as they can’t make one rule for BT and another for everyone else. Their choice? They leave VoIP lightly regulated, or make it very regulated and make it difficult for all those new players.
BT OpenReach is a good start, is it too little too late?
22 September, 2005