Ofcom gives approval for broadband TV service
December 24, 2010 at 3:03 pm
The face of TV in the UK is about to change after YouView, a video-on-demand service for Freeview and Freesat customers, finally got approval from Ofcom.
The project, which is backed by the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 amongst others, is set to provide viewers with the option of watching on-demand content via their digital boxes. It will allow them to watch television programmes from the previous week, as well as giving them the ability to pause live television and record a whole series with ease.
Objections to the YouView project were raised by BSkyB and Virgin Media amongst others. The main complaints Ofcom received were that the project is anti-competitive and that it threatens the video-on-demand market. In all, Ofcom said that 12 different parties sent submissions outlining their concerns.
Some partners involved in the YouView venture were worried that Ofcom would launch an investigation after receiving so many complaints. However, Ofcom rejected the concerns and confirmed that YouView has now been given the go ahead.
It said that it could not know the impact that YouView would have for some time yet, and that it was “likely that YouView will bring benefits to viewers and consumers”, and that “any potential harm to competition would need to be offset against these benefits.”
However, Ofcom warned that that if in the future YouView ended up causing harm to the interests of consumers then it will have to investigate.
YouView, which was originally called Project Canvas, is now set to launch in the first half of 2011, and the first customers to benefit will be Freeview households with broadband access.
YouView has also now invited content providers who want their programmes to feature to come forward.
Internet valued at £100bn in UK
December 15, 2010 at 10:36 am
The BCG (Boston Consulting Group) has just published a report commissioned by Google which claims that the internet is now worth £100 billion to the UK economy, or 7.2% of GDP, which is roughly the same contribution as that made by the financial sector.
The news goes to show just how important the internet is becoming for the UK, and it also suggests that its importance will continue to grow over the coming years. The report states that the internet’s worth to the economy will grow by 10% every year, and will reach 10% of GDP by 2015.
The UK is a net exporter of goods and services sold online, with £2.80 exported for every £1 of goods and services imported. It was also revealed that internet firms employ 250,000 people working in the UK.
The majority of the value of the internet to the UK (60%) comes through online shopping and the cost of the devices used to access the internet. The rest comes from investment in infrastructure and IT spending by the government. Indeed, 62% of adults, or 31 million people, used the internet to purchase goods or services last year.
The importance of having the internet in the home was also revealed, with 73% of households in the UK now having an internet connection.
This news has come at a time during which the government has pledged to spend more on the development of broadband so that people in rural areas can get access to super-fast connections. This is going to be seen as even more important now that the full scale of the internet’s worth to the economy has been revealed.
Pay by the day with new broadband from Three
December 15, 2010 at 10:31 am
One of the frustrations with mobile broadband is that users often have to sign up for lengthy contracts with mobile network operators if they want to take their broadband on the go. But now Three has put an end to that by releasing its new one-day mobile broadband package.
Three is hoping that its new pay-by-the-day mobile broadband deal is going to prove attractive to people who don’t want to take out a continuous contract, and it has stated that it might prove popular with iPad owners who just want to get a day’s access when they are out and about.
The new package will be available at the price of £2 for a single day’s access (24 hours). Customers will be able to purchase this access either online, or through a top-up voucher in store. Customers can buy a £10 voucher for five days’ worth of broadband.
For one day of mobile broadband, customers will be able to use a maximum data allowance of 500Mb. Is this enough? Basically, 500Mb will provide users with about five hours of browsing time or the ability to send 500 emails, which should be plenty. For bandwidth-heavy practices such as viewing online videos, however, it won’t realistically be enough.
Joe Parker, the director of mobile broadband at Three, said that it is “the ideal proposition for business travellers, iPad owners and students” who want “the flexibility of being able to snack on mobile broadband whilst away from their home”.
It is also surely going to provide a useful backup for people when their home internet connection goes down.
Calls to ISPs increase drastically
December 11, 2010 at 2:53 pm
uSwitch.com have found that calls to internet provider technical support lines in the UK increased by a significant figure of 25% in 2010, with the results revealed following the price comparison site’s November study of over 7,500 broadband ISP customers.
Around 20 million calls were made to ISPs, with the average call lasting around 15 minutes. Customer service representatives may not be too happy with the findings from uSwitch.com, since apparently around five minutes of the overall average figure of 15 were spent by consumers waiting on hold.
In fact, the findings from uSwitch.com do not seem to hold many positives for broadband providers. At a time during which the government is making cuts far and wide and the effects of the recession are still being felt by almost everyone in the country, the fact that a massive discrepancy with regards to the cost of each call still exists won’t provide consumers with an easy pill to swallow. With some broadband providers still charging up to 86p per call and others charging nothing at all, it would seem that consumers have every right to feel bitter towards the guilty parties still charging outrageous amounts.
With AOL and Sky both charging 86p per call on average, but BT and TalkTalk keeping their service free of charge to consumers, it may well turn out to be the case that, in light of the fact it usually requires at least two calls to these numbers in order to find a solution to many broadband problems, the companies charging the lowest amount of money receive a boost in new customers over the coming months.
However, having said this, the study included one other major revelation related to customer satisfaction, with price of call not always linked to how satisfied consumers feel with the advice given by the broadband providers. For instance, TalkTalk, although not charging consumers for calls made to their support line, came out among the losers for customer satisfaction levels.
Northwest top for broadband speed
December 6, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Householders in Liverpool and the northwest get the best of the Great British broadband network, according to consumer website, Broadband Expert, with an average download speed of 7.72 megabytes per second (mbps).
The report took six months to compile, using the results of 48,408 speed tests from London and Manchester in England, Llandudno in Wales, Dumfries in Scotland, and a variety of other places across the UK.
After Liverpool, Manchester enjoyed the second highest download speeds, achieving an average of 6.64mbps. The northern city was closely followed by West London with 6.23mbps and Stoke-on-Trent with 6.14mbps.
Bringing up the rear, Llandudno and Dumfries, two relatively isolated places, when compared to Manchester and London at least, achieved speeds of 3.83mbps and 2.89mbps, respectively. Dumfries, a favourite haunt of Scotland’s favourite son, Robert Burns, and the place where he drew his final breath in 1796, had the lowest broadband speed in the UK, an ignominious accolade in the 21st century.
Whilst disappointing for Scottish and Welsh surfers, the news highlights concerns that broadband speeds are not up to spec in ‘out of the way’ places, such as rural towns, islands and highlands.
Llandudno’s lacklustre result was particularly interesting, due to its proximity to top dog, Liverpool.
Rob Webber, boss at Broadband Expert, said, “Broadband speeds are a contributing factor to a region’s economic prosperity. It is disappointing to see that some areas – especially in geographically remote regions – receive such poor results.” The CEO also noted that slow speeds were “frustrating,” and the government’s plan to build the best broadband network in Europe, and furnish most UK homes with high-speed broadband within the next half-decade, “could not come soon enough.”
Broadband Expert is an independent web-based company that provides advice and guidance on internet packages, tabulating providers according to speed, price, and type of broadband offered.
Ofcom forces BT to share network
December 6, 2010 at 2:22 pm
BT has been ordered by Ofcom to share its fibre network with its competition. It is not the first time that BT has been told it has to open up its network, as the same thing happened when it was ordered to allow competitors to use its copper infrastructure to provide local loop unbundling services.
Ofcom has stated that the move is one that it hopes will promote competition. The move will mean BT will have to open up its fibre ducts and poles to its competitors, especially in areas where BT itself is not planning to introduce fibre broadband.
BT will also have to provide details of the quality of its ducts and poles as well as the available capacity. It will also have to continue to provide local loop unbundling to its competitors.
BT will be able to set its own wholesale prices for the service, but only at a level that will help to promote investment.
One company that has already announced its plans to take advantage of the decision is BT’s rival Virgin Media. Virgin will be keen to increase the reach of its own network to areas that it cannot yet serve. These are likely to include small villages that, although wealthy, are not close enough to a city or town to take advantage of Virgin’s existing fibre service.
Virgin Media has described the news as important for the company as it will help it to open up areas of the UK that cannot currently benefit from superfast broadband.
BT is expected to announce its pricing plans in January 2011.
