I maintain a keen interest in developments in the Norwegian market, not only because it is a lovely country full of nice people, but also because it looks to me like a laboratory for future developments elsewhere. It is the only market in Europe (so far) where the regulator has explicitly mandated naked DSL, it [...]
In a recommendation sent yesterday to national telecommunications regulators the European Commission suggested the introduction of price ceilings on broadband internet access for business users (wholesale leased lines).
The Commission does not like the fact that �for a 2 Mbit/s line, 5 km long, the price in the most expensive Member State is seven times higher [...]
Ofcom today published its Tariff Tables setting out by sector the regulatory fees due across telecommunications, broadcasting and radiospectrum for the financial year to 31 March 2006. No doubt the industry will be taking a close look at the figures. And consumers should also take a close look since the fees have to come out [...]
LONDON (Reuters) – Nearly six out of 10 households were receiving digital television at the end of 2004, as satellite TV provider BSkyB lost share of multichannel homes to Freeview but gained against its pay-TV cable rivals.
The latest quarterly data from media regulator Ofcom, released on Wednesday, revealed that 14.8 million homes, or 59.4 percent, [...]
On March, 17, the Belgian Parliament finally approved a bill on the protection of journalistic sources. The bill was introduced in June 2003 by Geert Bourgeois, currently Minister of Media in the Flemish Community. It took the Belgian journalists more than 20 years to obtain legal protection of their sources (first law proposals were already [...]
Reports this morning in regard to Ofcom’s approach to issuing new digital radio licences. Responses to the ‘Radio – Preparing for the Future’ consultation have just been made public.
Apparently GWR (soon to be GCap) have got their suit all wrinkled over Ofcom’s plans to allow rival radio operators to get their hands on national [...]
I know we sometimes arbitrarily compare Ofcom with the FSA, but the two regulators are fairly similar. Ofcom and the FSA are new, ultra-hip converged regulators that cover the two most basic elements in society: You know, television and money. Also, both regulators were featured in the Hampton Review Final Report as [...]
John Wilson of the Wales Broadband Stakeholders Group called our attention to the BSG’s submission in Ofcom’s Universal Service Obligation review. The BSG says in its one-page submission, among other things:
The USO is not user-centric, it is based upon regulatory Government and major service provider needs set in a legacy Fixed Line, analogue, copper [...]
Maybe some of you already know about OhmyNews: a Korean liberal online newspaper launched in February 2000 by journalist Oh Yeon Ho with the slogan �every citizen is a reporter�. In 2003 it had a network of 23.000 citizen-writers who send in news reports on just about anything and determine OhmyNews� editorial policy. That number [...]
Ofcom is advertising for one or more contractors to assist with the “[d]evelopment, integration, delivery and management of an integrated package-based new core environment….”
An “integrated package-based new core environment”? It sounds like the Pentagon’s plan for postwar Iraq. What does that mean?
I think it basically means that Ofcom are getting more serious about internal and [...]
I thought it might be a good idea to revisit the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) during the holiday weekend. When we previously checked-in on the ASA, the new advertising regulator was just getting geared-up for its expanded remit.
So, what’s the ASA been up to? We would like your views (blog@ofcomwatch.co.uk). Otherwise, just rambling around the [...]
Yesterday Ofcom published a report covering its work in competition and economic regulation in the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors between July and December 2004. The report notes the increasing convergence across Ofcom policy groups (the clearest example is the competition in broadcasting markets programme). It also highlights the number of full investigations has been reduced [...]
Interesting paper here in response to OFCOM’s spectrum consultation in the UK, by Open Spectrum. I like the emphasis on encouraging OFCOM to regard license-exempt uses as normal rather than exceptional, and also the gentle chiding of OFCOM for ghetto-izing cognitive and software-defined radio as “threats.”
~ James Enck
We just received the full-text of Lord Puttnam’s recent keynote speech at the Ofcom / IPPR Media Literacy Seminar (email us at blog@ofcomwatch.co.uk if you want a copy – it does not appear on the Ofcom website). Here are some nuggets:
[M]edia literacy is about creating something positive – it is about empowering people by [...]
OfCom just released its new bulletin – no new Director of Investigations yet, which is a real worry as this is Oftel’s bread-and-butter, not the big strategic reviews. Remember Oftel’s drift over 2001-2 with no-one in situ…
However, despite the long tail of investigations which are ongoing (unlucky 13), there is not yet a serious tail [...]
Serious work done by Analysys indicates the medium-term assumption that a copper loop will need to support 8Mb/s – both they and OfCom should be congratulated for a really substantial piece of work. However, Dave Burstein’s DSLPrime newsletter suggests ADSL2 could work up to 50-100Mb/s. Either way, it’s video speed.
If you’re interested in the [...]
OfcomWatch friend, David Brunnen of groupe intellex, alerted us to his recent article entitled ‘Is Ofcom on the right wavelength?’ It’s a useful assessment, from a strategic perspective, of where Ofcom stands with respect to its plans for the U.K.’s usage of the radio spectrum resource.
Some nuggets:
For many players pan-European scope is an [...]
The new Broadcasting code appears to be proving problematic for Ofcom. By the time the consultation over the code had drawn to a close in October last year more than 900 responses had been received. Although a large number of these responses were duplicates recieved from media pressure groups, a significant number raised a variety [...]
Sony beat Ofcom to the punch … by a considerable distance.
The Sony PSP is being launched on Thursday in the USA (Japan was in December, Europe to follow). It features:
* Portable gaming, of course.
* A new ‘UMD disk’ to play movies, show photos, play music
* Wi-Fi, initially for multiplayer gaming
This will [...]
Anna Wagstaff of the Oxford NUJ alerted us to an event that was held last Saturday here in Oxford (details here) to promote more robust local news coverage.
Anna wrote to us: “Our longer-term aim is to involve the public in the debates that are taking place over the future of their broadcasting media �.�
Stay [...]
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