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With the month on month growth in mobile data consumption, travellers will be pleased to hear that First Great Western is expanding the coverage of the Wi-Fi service ran by The Cloud on its station concourses.
Currently the WiFi service is available at the following stations: Bath Spa, Bristol Parkway, Bristol Temple Meads, Didcot Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Newbury, Plymouth, Reading, Slough and Swindon. In March 2012 improvements to the service are expected in the original ten stations, and a further 13 stations are being added to the network.
Home Broadband does not feature heavily in the latest Everything Everywhere financial results for the year ending 31st December 2011, but now that the quarter on quarter decrease in the customer base appears to have halted, the company may start pushing its home broadband service more.
The last quarter saw Orange hold the number of ADSL/ADSL2+ customers at 713,000 which is identical to the number for Q3 2011. This is down from a figure of 1,142,000 customers in 2007. In comparison Everything Everywhere has some 27,214,000 mobile customers, which goes a long way to explaining why the emphasis in the results is their mobile services.
It appears that the old Orange LLU service has now finally ceased to operate with the results announcing that all broadband customers are now on the 21CN WBC network ran by BT Wholesale, or where ADSL2+ is not available the older ADSL (20CN) network. In the past the BT Wholesale WBC network was often seen as inferior to LLU. The adoption of a 3dB target margin on stable lines allowing faster connection speeds than many LLU providers, a vastly improved IP Profile system that changes dynamically and does not use a limited number of steps anymore, but rather a figure that is 88.2% of the connection speed means ADSL2+ from BT Wholesale is better than in the past.
With the 4G auctions edging closer, it seems Everything Everywhere plans to invest some £1.5bn over the next three years to improve network speed, reliability and coverage.
Orange is one of the few BT Wholesale based providers to offer geographical based pricing, on the larger Market 3 exchanges the service when taking voice line rental (£12.75) is £5 a month, on smaller exchanges this rises to £15 a month, and non-Orange mobile customers face an extra £5 on top of that. A broadband-only service, where voice line rental is with another provider, costs £12.75 or £22.75 depending on your area of the UK. While the price on smaller exchanges is higher, Orange is one of the few providers offering an unlimited service at a reasonable price in these areas, and unlike some LLU off-net services the level of congestion is reasonable in the evenings.
It seems that more of the money raised from the 4G auctions has been allocated even before the amounts the bidders are willing to pay is known. The terms for the auction are not due to be firmed up until later in 2012, with the actual auction happening event later.
Some £180 million from the auction is to be reserved for fixing interfence caused by 4G mobile networks to the Freeview terrestrial digital TV service. Back in 2011, Ofcom estimated that some 760,000 homes may receive some level of interference from living close to a 4G mast, due mainly to the design of Freeview receivers which does not filter out the 4G frequencies.
The press release from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport indicates that they expect the majority of problems will be fixed by fitting of a cheap filter (£11 plus fitting), some homes may require a new Freeview box, which while standard devices are cheap, PVR and HD enabled boxes cost considerably more. In the most extreme cases households may have to forego Freeview and use a cable or satellite service like Sky or Freesat.
It appears that the DCMS is willing to spend up to £10,000 to resolve the issue for a single household in extreme cases, which is enough to provision a full fibre connection.
Another £150m of other government money is being spent to ensure 4G gets rolled out to some 98% of the UK population, and the 800Mhz bands that cause the problems with Freeview are attractive for rural coverage due to its better coverage and ability to penetrate further into buildings.
Nokia Siemens Networks has demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain HSPA+ which stretches what is achieveable from mobile broadband further by allowing a device to utilise a new feature HSPA+ Multiflow.
HSPA+ Multiflow allows a device to use multiple paths to the network, i.e. connecting to two different base stations. This benefits those who are in that overlapping area where signal strength from one station is not able to provide decent broadband speeds and the other base station can cause interference.
The feature is expected to be standardized by mid 2012, and while only prototype USB dongles were used in the demo we can expect to see new dongles on the market supporting the standard. Three entered the UK HSPA+ arena in 2011 with the launch of its MiFi mobile dongle.
Threats are appearing from NextGenUs that if BT wins the BDUK project money in Cumbria that it will challenge the awarding of the tender to BT.
NextGenUs suggests that the market is delivering a superfast service in Cumbria or has firm plans to do so. Certainly NextGenUs would appear to be planning a roll-out into Lune Valley of its 10 Mbps to 60 Mbps service. Whether the Community Interest Company would be able to scale its service to cover the whole of Cumbria within the timeframe of finishing by May 2015 is a good question. There has been a few years advance warning that these tenders were going to take place, so that competitors could get alternative services up and running.
Perhaps a better approach, would be for the various fixed wireless providers to try and co-operate with BT, Fujitsu and other larger bidders to provide their service in the areas where it makes the most sense.
What is interesting in the ISPreview article, is that it would appear that if for example, C&W or Fujtisu won the contract there would be no challenge. If Fujitsu were to win, and fullfill there promise of Fibre to the Home, the business model for NextGenUs will be even weaker than if BT were to win.
It will be interesting to see if a legal challenge does ensue, if it does it has the potential to cost the council a lot of money, and undermine other BDUK projects, and while there is a lot of sentiment that BT is an evil massive conglomerate almost any company of that size and providing a national service would draw similar complaints.
Any chance for a single national interest local loop company apart from the current Openreach was lost with the creation of the BT Group in 1984, the cable companies operated as regional franchises which slowly fused into Virgin Media, and ran up large debts resulting in an alternate loop loop for half the UK (Virgin Media talks of an investment of £15 billion in its network). The question really is how long should UK PLC have waited for government intervention, many commentators say the current intervention is already too little too late.
In a court case that had eight music companies versus six broadband providers (representing 94% of the market), the record companies went to court to seek an injunction against the providers requiring them to block or impede access to The Pirate Bay. The High Court of England and Wales has not at this time granted a blocking order, such as exists with Newzbin, but has concluded The Pirate Bay and its users are infringing copyright.
The case goes into some detail, and explains why both users and the website itself are considered to be infringing copyright. The recent judgement by the European Court of Justice at first glance appears to be at odds with the decision in England and Wales, but in the case of The Pirate Bay it seems their stance is clear with regards to copyright.
The Pirate Bay appears to almost revel in the way it responds to requests to remove material that is indexed and available via the website, basically refusing any request for content removal, other than for the following reasons "the name isn't in accordance with the content" or if they are "child porn, fakes, malware, spam and miscategorised torrents".
In the present case, the matters I have considered in relation to authorisation lead to the conclusion that the operators of TPB induce, incite or persuade its users to commit infringements of copyright, and that they and the users act pursuant to a common design to infringe. It is also relevant in this regard that the operators profit from their activities. Thus they are jointly liable for the infringements committed by users.
THE HON MR JUSTICE ARNOLD
The next step will be a court order in the same vein as the Newzbin blocking to be issued defining the mechanism for informing providers what domains and IP addresses should be blocked. How successful the blocking will be is hard to judge, as there are so many ways to avoid it for those who are determined to circumvent the blocking. The speed bumps do help to ensure that people are aware that what they are doing is dodgy.
The UK may have missed the first half of the party, but hopefully if Openreach can scale its FTTH and FTTB roll-outs in the next 12 months, we may figure on the FTTH Councils' Annual Global Ranking of FTTH countries in 2013. To get onto the chart needs at least 1% penetration, which for the UK will be something like 220,000 signed up to a fibre to the premises or basement/building service.
Canada has only just crept into the chart with 1.24% of the total households connected using fibre. Seeing South Korea at the top of the chart is no surprise, but the actual penetration of full fibre is setting at 17%, the more popular solution being fibre to the building and then a LAN distribution around the flats in the building. In the UK there are operators such as Hyperoptic and Ask4 operating in what has been a niche market so far in the UK, but there is potential for these to grow significantly in the next year.
Beyond the usual complaints of Openreach acting to make FTTB deployments difficult, the UK with its 'my home is my castle' attitude means that large blocks of flats are a lot less common than in many other countries and this has also hampered FTTB adoption. Though it seems the niche operators have made Openreach wake up to the possibilities and we may see wider adoption of the delivery method. FTTB usually takes a bundle of fibres into the basement of a building, which is then converted to Ethernet, and network cables carry the service around the building. In flats where retro-fitting Ethernet cabling is difficult, then the copper telephone wiring can be utilised, in a FTTC style deployment.
In theory once Openreach completes its commercial fibre roll-out in 2014, there should be around 15% of UK homes with the option of FTTH or FTTB. How far that will push us up the league table depends on take-up of course, and adoption of the service by companies like Sky and TalkTalk in addition to BT Retail.
The City of Nottingham it appears is aiming to try and be the first 4G city in the UK. This is seen of an advantage of bidding for funding from the £100m Super Connected City fund, whose deadline was 13th February 2012.
We should find out which bids have won funding when Chancellor George Osborne gives his Budget speech on 21st March 2012. Though as is often the case, the speech itself will cover the headline, with the full detail emerging later.
IXLeeds held their first event today since launching in September 2010. The not-for-profit Internet exchange is hoping to provide better interconnection opportunities for networks in the region. In the long term this should result in cheaper and faster broadband services to the North by becoming less dependent on London. The event, aptly named IXLeeds 1 is the first of two events which aims increase the number of members the Internet exchange currently has, and also educate others on the importance of efficient Internet for all end users.
"Projects like IXLeeds will provide cities and regions with better Internet services, which they can use to develop new products, reach new markets and create new jobs."
Ed Vaizey, Communicaitons Minister
The launch of this Internet exchange point comes in time for the Olympics this year, which is predicted by some to put a substantial strain on London's Internet resources during the games.
The debate over file sharing and the music industry is characterised by often diametrically opposed points of view, it is into this climate that the BPI has released trade income figures for 2011, which show good growth in purchasing of music through digital channels and subscriptions to streamed music services.
"It is highly encouraging for the long-term prospects of the industry that the pace of digital growth continues to accelerate. British labels are supporting a wide range of innovative music services and music fans are embracing digital like never before.
The record industry has continued to invest heavily in discovering and supporting outstanding British talent, which has helped sustain revenues in the face of difficult economic circumstances."Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive
The total revenue (which excludes income from broadcast and public performance licensing) for 2011 was £795.5m, a drop of 3.4% compared to 2010. Income from sales of physical media dropped 14.1%, but online media grew 24.6% to £241m, physical media accounted for £513.8m. Subscription sites such as We7, eMusic, Spotify Premium grew by 47.5% to £24m and ad-supported sites (e.g. YouTube, We7) showed a small drop of 1.4%, but still generated £10.7m.
The growth in digital trade income is increasing year on year, and demonstrates two things, that lots of people are willing to pay for content, and that the variety of fully legal online sources for content is improving. The cross-over point for when digital media will overtake physical media is a couple of years away, but as the economy picks up and more young people who have grown up with digital media acquire more disposable income it seems likely to not be many years away.
One of the reasons for lower revenue from digital content has been attributed to the ability for consumers to buy just two or three tracks from an album, rather than the whole album, but interestingly the biggest growth in digital content was for albums up 43.2% to £117.8m, which is close to the revenue from singles at £120.5m.
