* Jeff Pulver likes Ofcom’s VoIP code of conduct. He writes:
Recognizing that VoIP services have the potential to offer significant new benefits to consumers, including more competition and choice, lower prices and new services such as second lines and nomadic services, my first read suggests to me that Ofcom tried to strike a [...]
The European Commission released its 12th report on the EU’s telecom markets today. The Commission report provides an overview of Europe’s telecom markets, worth almost €290 billion in revenues, just prior to the reform of the EU telecom rules. It includes individual chapters covering the situation in each EU Member State.
It’s interesting reading between the [...]
Over the last year a range of new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services have been launched and industry forecasts predict that there could be as many as three million users in the UK by the end of this year.
Following public consultation in 2006, Ofcom decided to put in place measures to ensure that consumers [...]
The Times business section has an interesting comment today about Gordon Brown’s budget and the prospects for raising money from further radio spectrum auctions. James Harding writes in part:
To be fair, the Treasury is being deliberately vague about the value of spectrum. This is partly because they do not yet know what [...]
Of course another reason that mobile operators are relatively pleased with Ofcom over the mobile termination charges is that it is quite likely that they will face steeper cuts to revenues from the European Commission’s plans to force reductions in roaming charges (those fees you pay when you use your mobile abroad).
Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for telecoms, has, according to the FT, “enraged the mobile industry with plans for cuts.â€
And this is a follow-up to Russ’s post below.
Everyone seems to have their opinions on what good regulation should look like as Russ demonstrates (and I agree with all his points). However, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the EU’s role in all of this because they have their own opinions on how these issues should be regulated (and, unlike Russ and I, they actually have the power to back-up their opinions.)
This is a follow-up to Lisa’s post below.
Whilst almost everyone in the communications regulation sphere is talking about the phone-quiz scandal, Ofcom yesterday quietly released a massive regulatory statement on mobile call termination (MCT). It’s 411 pages long, but the best thing about it is that Ofcom really gets to the heart of the [...]
Ofcom announced new controls this morning which will limit the amount that mobile network operators can charge other telephone companies for connecting calls on their mobile networks. The current charge controls expire this week. In June 2005 Ofcom began a review of the market to decide whether regulation remains necessary.
The “complaints-regulation-more complaints†spiral – where complaints of improprieties rise after new regulation meant to moderate behaviour is introduced – may be set to continue with Ofcom launching its investigation into the quiz TV sector. We saw this trend with the MAC migration rules issue.
Associated Press are running this story -
“The Tories will seek to agree a code of conduct for television premium phone-ins today, at a summit with broadcasters, regulators and consumer groups.
Official inquiries are already under way following the emergence of a series of scams affecting high-profile quizzes and other shows.
But the shadow culture secretary, Hugo Swire, [...]
The BBC responded to Ofcom on the DDR earlier this week. Click here (go to the bottom of the page) for a copy from the BBC’s website — as of today, Ofcom had not posted a copy on its website. Not including the associated Indepen report, the beeb’s response is 75 pages, so [...]
Last month Ofcom implemented new broadband migration rules which require companies to provide customers with Macs within five days and free of charge. This system replaced one of self-regulation and was meant to provide customers with choice and protect them from firms going bust.
Ofcom has published its Public Service Broadcasting Report [pdf] which aims to provide an evidence base for monitoring the delivery of PSB. The designated PSB broadcasters are the BBC, ITV1, GMTV, Channel 4, Five, S4C and Teletext.
The report’s purpose is to enable both Ofcom and its stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of the current position of PSB delivery, and how this has changed over the last five years. Ofcom has said that these reports are “particularly valuable in the run up to digital switchover.â€
The Telegraph this morning wrote that “Ofcom was under mounting pressure yesterday to take a tougher stance against broadcasters involved in the premium rate phoneline scandal.â€
Sure enough, Ofcom later today announced an inquiry into the use of premium rate telecoms services (PRS) in television programmes.
I don’t know if anyone else’s ears pricked up when Gordo mentioned Spectrum in his budget statement. The context was related to the government raising money from asset sales.
£36bn of asset sales less £18bn already announced gives £18bn of new asset sales in the next three years from 2008/9 onwards. £6bn of this involves taking [...]
The UK PayTV market has never been so competitive: we have the relaunched Virgin Media, the newly refinanced TopUpTV and Tiscali (aka Homechoice), the financial might of BT, Vodafone, Orange (France Telecom) and O2 (Telefonica) which have just launched or are about to launch IPTV services and of course 800lb reinvigourated gorilla, BSkyB.
Therefore in terms [...]
Ofcom’s consultation on the DDR closed yesterday and a final decision is expected by June of this year. We found another petition on the issue on the No. 10 website which has now closed and received a response from the government.
The petition’s title: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to force Ofcom to allocate the unused radio spectrum after the analogue switchover to HDTV services.
We’ve been hearing about it in the U.S. press on a regular basis for about a year now and it definitely picked up pace before the elections there last November. Now the trend of debating the issue of Net Neutrality has hit the UK. But like most American imports, the British seem rather underwhelmed by it.
The Register reports on the first significant Net Neutrality debate in the UK which was held at Westminster yesterday. It was chaired by former trade minister Alun Michael and the Conservative shadow trade minister Charles Hendry, attendees included Ofcom and a clutch of industry representatives (though interestingly Google, one of the majour lobbyists for neutrality in the U.S. was largely absent), and some members of both houses.
Tired of reading about the BSkyB and Virgin Media skirmishes? Another battle is being played out in Europe over mobile wireless intellectual property.
Nokia went to German and Dutch courts yesterday seeking to invalidate some Qualcomm patents. Qualcomm in response launched a counterattack against Nokia today and tomorrow the firm will be at a public hearing on separate litigation the company has with Broadcom.
Whoa. And we thought the Media companies were bad.
I’ve just been reading with bemusement about the Sky, Virgin, Ofcom malarkey that was playing out earlier today – the likes of which I have never seen before and was reflecting on how Ofcom is basically playing the role of referee on the playground. I can’t think of another industry that has its own personalised mother figure as eager to step in to the frey on these issues. Except maybe in Brussels.
The Media Guardian just published one of those “explain the issues by asking faux questions†pieces for those just catching up.
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