All the latest broadband news from the Broadband Genie news team.
As the digital switchover looms the BBC is backing communications watchdog, Ofcom in a campaign for faster broadband networks to be built across Britain.
In a video interview on the Financial Times website www.ft.com discussing the BBC iPlayer, a new BBC service that will offer internet viewing of any BBC programme broadcast in the previous week, Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director for future media and technology, raised concerns over the prospect of a “digital divide”.
“I don’t want a two-tier Britain where urban wealthy people can access high-quality internet content at 50 megabits per second and there is a rural, disenfranchised poor,” said Highfield, “Anything that can be done to advanced the next-generation broadband build-out will be good for Britain.”
Highfield warned that without faster networks, the BBC would struggle to develop more interactive services, like the iPlayer in the future.
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Virgin Media broadband customers have been plagued with fraudulent phishing scams supposedly from their ISP. The scam, which targeted Virgin Media subscribers using an old NTL email address, threatened users with deletion of their account.
The mail stated: “We recently discovered that your email address or someone’s email in your Group is been used in sending bulk mail suspected to be spam or fraud related letters. You are hereby advised to forward Your Email ID & Password to us for Verification of Your email Account.
If this is not completed by 20th December, 2007, we will be forced to delete your email account, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes.”
Customers have been advised to delete the message from their Inbox.
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After much discussion over the future of UK spectrum Ofcom has suggested that the spectrum that will be leftover after the digital TV switchover will be fit for “ultra-fast” broadband.
The Office of Communications announced how the radio spectrum that will be freed-up through digital television switchover will be awarded for new uses for the benefit of citizens and consumers in the UK. Ofcom has cited it as the “the digital dividend” and predicts that the economic boost will be worth between £5 billion and £10 billion to the UK economy.
Ofcom will publish further consultations in Spring 2008 on the detailed design of the digital dividend awards. These consultation documents will include detailed proposals to ensure that the awards encourage competition in downstream markets and guard against any anti-competitive behaviour such as hoarding.
Ed Richards, Chief Executive of Ofcom, said: “The digital dividend will be one of the most significant and valuable spectrum releases in the UK for 20 years. Our approach is designed to maximise these considerable benefits for UK citizens and consumers as a whole…We can expect the benefits of the digital dividend to include more choice, fresh competition and technological innovation.”
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Orange has signed an agreement with Metro Goldwyn Meyer (MGM) studios allowing its on-demand video service to be available through Orange broadband’s 24/4 video application.
Access to MGM’s film database is planned for release in Spain, France and Poland before being made available in the UK.
Subscribers to Orange’s broadband digital television package or broadband package can currently rent a movie for 24 hours using the 24/4 service, choosing from a selection of 3,000-plus films and 6,000 TV programmes. The new agreement will give customers the chance to download titles from the world’s largest library of modern film.
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After disappointing subscriber results, Tiscali has announced new targets for its TV over broadband service. UK chief executive Mary Turner has reportedly reassured investors that Tiscalis plans are on track and that the provider is aiming for 200,000 TV subscribers by the end of 2008, equating to 250 new registrations for the TV offering per day.
Tiscali’s network now covers 55% of the country had a total of three million customers in Britain at the end of September, including 2 million subscribers to its broadband service.
The company said that it expects its revenue to increase at an annual rate of 17%, reaching a total of 1.3 billion in 2008 and more than 2 billion by the end of 2012.
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Telecoms regulator Ofcom has released results from its latest International Communications Market report. The study has confirmed recent discussions that broadband uptake is on the rise in the UK. It found that more than half of all British households possessed a broadband connection at the end of last year.
Bundled services were found to be more cost-effective than buying each service separately in all of the countries surveyed. In the UK, around 40% of households have already taken advantage of a bundled service. The report found that a typical family household in the UK with two parents and two children, who use a basket of communications services that includes a landline, basic pay-TV and the internet, will pay £25 a month on a triple-pay deal; “This compares with £27.22 in France and £39.77 in Germany. The same family in the US will pay £69.54,” stated Ofcom.
Ed Richards, Ofcom Chief Executive said: “The report shows that convergence, bundling and the move to digital communications is a powerful global phenomenon. It’s important to understand international comparisons so Ofcom can develop better policies to serve the interests of consumers and citizens in the UK.”
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Tiscali has announced it will be teaming up with the used car classifieds website Auto Trader to allow users to browse through new and used cars via Tiscali’s Motoring channel.
Alex Hole, online media director at Tiscali UK said: “Car purchasing is increasingly moving from the showroom to the website and the popularity of our motoring channel reflects this growing trend. Auto Trader’s extensive experience and in paralleled search capabilities match perfectly with the levels of service demanded by our users.
Other partnerships for Tiscali are also on the cards including Thomas Cook and World Entertainment News Network. The new features will be launched over the summer.
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Virgin Media has announced that it plans to relax the restrictions on usage for all broadband customers who signed up in May 2007. The period of time that the ISP will monitor the use of its broadband network will be reduced to three hours from 16.00 to 21.00 hours.
By continuing to monitor the amount of traffic on the Virgin Media throughout these times the company says that it will be able to provide faster downloads for all of its customers.
The restrictions will be relaxed in the New Year one region at a time.
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Yet another ISP, TalkTalk has been cautioned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for false advertising claims. A brochure advertisement for TalkTalk featured an offer that claimed: “This year, why not join our Talk3 call plan and get up to 8 Meg (speed depends on proximity to exchange) broadband free!” However, in order to take advantage of the deal customers had to sign an 18-month contract.
The ASA were made aware of the campaign after a complaint from BT who claimed that the precious minimum contract length on Talk3 deals was only 12 months. The ASA upheld the complaint saying that “the contractual agreement of ‘Talk 3 with free broadband’ was more onerous than that of its call plan only predecessor Talk 3, we considered that package should be classed as ‘new’”.
Charles Dunstone, CEO of The Carphone Warehouse PLC, said: “Whilst we take any ruling from the ASA seriously, the fact that the only complaint received was from BT leads us to think that this doesn’t seem to be an issue that confused any real customers. We politely recommend to BT that they spend a little more time looking at their own expensive call charges and a little less time reading our ads.”
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BT has made progress in creating a fair playing field for rival operators in the broadband market, but it must do more, says regulator Ofcom.
Two years ago, BT signed a deal with Ofcom to avoid any fines or company structure interference from the regulators following complaints from users and rivals that it was preventing a fair broadband market.
Although Ofcom has acknowledged that BT has made progress since then by providing cheaper broadband prices and higher broadband speed for users it is now encouraging BT to open up its Openreach service to all providers.
Ofcom are encouraging BT to:
Pay out compensation proactively without any need for Openreach customers to make a claim
Pay out every time service or quality falls below the contractual threshold, instead of paying out against performance stated as an average over time
Continue to pay compensation each time problems persist with no upper limit to the amount which must be paid
Pay addition levels of compensation for failure to activate “live” lines, which are double the amount that BT presently pays.
The deadline for responses to Ofcom’s consultation on its Openreach service performance is 25th January 2008.
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