Beneath the media hype about free broadband in the UK lies a sordid underbelly of broken promises and frustrated customers. In the latest example, one of my colleagues has suffered from a complete lack of connectivity on TalkTalk broadband for the past 36 hours (the line is working fine for voice), and can’t make contact [...]
OFCOM’s consumer panel has released an update on consumer attitudes to, and awareness of, a variety of communications services in the UK. This makes interesting reading, and includes for the first time some questions on VoIP. Only 10% of respondents claimed to understand the term “VoIP,” and only around 16% overall claimed to have heard [...]
As I wrote to clients at the end of last year (and countless times here), broadband is fast becoming a social and economic development issue, which makes it political, and therefore potentially explosive. Whoever might be “running their sliderules” (a favorite phrase of the UK financial press which must confuse anyone under the age of [...]
[post from yesterday]
I believe it was the great Sammy Davis, Jr., who once said, “Ouch, babe, I really mean it.”
Today the FTSE100 closed near a five-year high, and our beloved Pan-European telecom sector fell off a cliff – down 1.34%. That’s something like EUR7bn in capitalization sucked down the crapper of history. The chief culprit, [...]
The clock is ticking on data retention policy for the EU, and the good folks at EDRI (along with many others) are miffed at the process, which they question as being less than democratic and transparent. Not to mention that the entire exercise is almost certainly pointless and counterproductive. Point five of the letter to [...]
The financial press is filled with speculation on further M&A deals, with two names coming up repeatedly: Fastweb and HomeChoice. The stories coming out of Italy cite an interest in Fastweb from BT, which would certainly mark a dramatic change in strategy if it turned out to be true. Meanwhile, in the UK, Sky is [...]
I noticed a lot of cheering and envious statements from the US when openreach (notice how the lack of capital letters in the name is intended to suggest a level playing field) was launched. Well, the UK Telecoms Adjudicator’s unbundling update for September is hot off the presses, and it looks like the only was [...]
Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis has started his own blog on wireless issues. As an industry analyst/consultant, I strongly suspect he speaks to different people within companies than the conventional broker analyst, and even in his first few posts he’s got a couple of interesting tidbits I can’t imagine seeing in a can of broker [...]
Consumer campaigners Ireland Offline have published a damning assessment of the state of the comms market in Ireland, citing inexplicable price differentials with the rest of Europe. What I find most interesting about this is the explicit linkage to wider economic and social development issues, just the sort of orientation which seems to underpin a [...]
The smart folks over at Back Channel have wasted no time in sinking their teeth into today’s acquisition of Energis by Cable & Wireless, using their Zero Sum solution. If their analysis is indicative of the true state of play at Energis, then it is understandable why C&W pushed the button sooner rather than later, [...]
Just back from four days in a tent in a British seaside holiday camp, I know the true meaning of tedium (just kidding, it was lovely, apart from the weather and the food). For those interested in truly tedious pursuits, such as measuring glacial advances in real time, here is the July update from the [...]
Much of what BT management said last week at its results indicated a greater enthusiasm for the role of wholesale provider, which is what it should be saying in light of the OFCOM settlement. That’s fine, as long as BT can remain in control at the wholesale level, but this deal between OneTel (telecom/internet unit [...]
The earnings reporting season is upon us, accounting for a marked blogging slowdown as I torment myself. BT reported some pretty decent numbers today, and to be fair there was a lot to be positive about in them, but in the detail there is some stuff which shows where the retail market is heading – [...]
Fans of statistics and information overload will welcome the just-released OFCOM overview of the UK communications market for 2005. Last year’s version was fantastic, and I look forward to wading through this one. Notable headlines:
* Broadband outpaces narrowband, and the average price-per-megabit for broadband has fallen 63% since 2002;
* Price declines in fixed-line [...]
The EU DGInfosoc has just published a consumer guide to roaming, with some excellent tables of extortionate pricing examples from around Europe. Read ‘em and weep.
~ James Enck
For any Spanish speakers in the house, a pronouncement of note from the Spanish regulator.
~ James Enck
I look forward to reading the weekly updates from the ASA in the UK. This week’s named and shamed telco is BT, which is pinned down by a savvy consumer who clocked that a 1GB data cap and unlimited free VoIP calls don’t coexist easily. The adjudicators agreed.
~ James Enck
Disruption in the UK market got a leg up today, as OFCOM unveiled the preliminary conclusions to phase 2 of its strategic market review. Most of the key elements are along the lines of what BT itself proposed back in February, though a few elements of the fine print lead me to think that this [...]
In an era when no one wants to be visibly going ex-growth, it’s clear that telco cost savings claims will require evermore scrutiny. This week the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK slapped Tiscali for a real classic – basing cost savings claims on calls to Guam. I’m pretty certain that Guam is not even [...]
A Deflationary Diamonique Circle reader highlights a WSJ article (behind walls of steel, but discussed at Textually), citing slower-than-expected PSTN abandonment in the US. As the French and Dutch EU Constitutional referenda demonstrated this week, it’s difficult currently to know what’s happening in Europe, and why. However, the EU and IPSOS last year produced an [...]
