Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Unbundling arrives in Edinburgh
LLU arrives in Edinburgh.
Subsidy for NI satellite broadband
Business in Northern Ireland are being offered up to £1,500 subsidy to install a satellite-delivered broadband. On the surface it looks like a great offer.
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Comparison of NTL to Enron
A less than flattering article that likens NTL to Enron.
Delta V send data via UHF / VHF
Delta V are using a digital TV via a standard UHF / VHF antenna to receive up to 256k of Internet data with the user makes their request via a dial-up connection. The site is a bit light on technical detail, so it's not clear how this service would scale to lots of user and still give them 256k download.
Sunday, January 20, 2002
AOL-TW increase non-AOL access to content
AOL-TW are to increase their monthly access fee to their content through non-AOL provided broadband connectivity by 50%. I imagine there are two reasons for this, 1) it's a good lever to get people to change to AOL as their BB providers and 2) shifting BB content over a network that you don't own end-to-end is expensive.
Oftel push BT to unbundle
It appears that the UK telco regulator, Oftel is actually starting to take some actions to 'encourage' the roll-out of BB in the UK by forcing BT to lower some of it's LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) related charges. I'm not clear if the two reductions mentioned will have any meaningful impact of end-user pricing but I am sure the reduction in connection and rental charges would, sadly Oftel will not take any action on this until a 'separate analysis of competition in the relevant market' has been conducted.
Rich-media online education starts in Plano, Texas
A trial is just starting in Plano, Texas, USA to provide students access to rich-media educational material after normal school hours via DSL called MyPISD.net (PISD - Plano Independent Schools Districts). The initial trial includes one of each school level, Elementary, Middle and High School. The hitch which is touched upon is the fact the parents of the students need to provide the extra $50 extra dollars a month for access to the system.
TechNet put broadband in the US
A lobby of technology companies in the US, TechNet are ramping up their campaign to make BB ubiquitous.
Friday, January 18, 2002
Pace announce sub-£100 digital TV adaptor
UK company Pace today announced a sub-£100 digital TV adaptor, that enables and analogue TV to receive digital broadcasts.
Thursday, January 17, 2002
No money from UK Gov for broadband
Douglas Alexander the UK 'ecommerce' minister has stated that Broadband is 'private sector' affair. From this it's quite clear that the government delegation that went to Korea recently didn't learn a great deal, especially not when it comes to putting their hand in their pocket. Let's hope this isn't the start of a withdrawal for support for broadband, after they recent actions had looks so promising ...
Microsoft denied the Xbox is entertainment gateway
Initially Microsoft denied that the Xbox would be an entertainment gateway, fearing that would raise paranoia in potential purchasers. It was clear to everyone that this was of course nonsense. Xbox 2 or HomeStation as it cheekily rumoured to be called will apparently not be disguised as ‘just’ a games machine.
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
BT launches self installation ADSL
BT has started its publicly available ADSL self installation.
Monday, January 14, 2002
Potential for Australian pay-TV DSL service
Australian cable company Optus are floating the idea of running pay-TV via DSL after their successful trial.
Friday, January 11, 2002
BT scrap SDSL before it starts
Amazing, BT announce that they are to scrap SDSL (sends and receives data at the same speed) due to a 'lack of demand'. Perhaps the lack of demand is due to them not telling anyone about it (amply illustrated by the fact that a search for SDSL on BT.com returns no results). I spend a significant part of every day researching the BB market and I haven't even hear of the trial. This is typical BT - they don't want to do it (it would impact their very profitable leased-line business), so they say there's no demand.
iMac webcast a big success
The launch of the iMac reportedly brought very large numbers of viewer to its Webcast. Of course it's a totally ideal audience, keen computer users who are passionate about their product being shown the newest toy by their demigod. Obviously there's no discussion of cost of the event, 11 Terabytes is a lot of data/cash - and the fact that Apple are investors in Akamai must have helped.
With actual figures of the bits shipped given this time rather than the vague ten million viewers given for the fabled Madonna concert, it's far more believable. It's a commonly held belief in the streaming industry that the Madonna 10m figure given was totally fictitious.
Fibre optics to be placed in gas pipes
This is the kind of forward thinking that should be applauded. You might think that it's an obvious idea but that doesn't mean the people normally involved in this process would think of it.
By using an internal conduit in the gas pipes, fibre can be passed though the pipes giving a 75 percent cost saving. Currently 60 percent of households in rural North Carolina don't have a computer but the state can obviously see an advantage in this changing.
Thursday, January 10, 2002
Film companies start to worry about the Napster-affect
Group of film companies looks to head off Napster-like video services. A top technologist at Fox Studios proposed the technique as a video flag that both movie makers and consumer electronics companies could adopt.
Freeserve pushing broadband
Good to see that Freeserve is actively trying to encourage broadband access in the UK - even if they still have to continue to pay a high wholesale price to BT.
UK minister catches on to South Korea
It appears encouraging that UK government minister Patricia Hewitt wants to use South Korea as a guide for how BB access might work in the UK - given they now have around eight million users.
BT still unclear on them broadcasting
Will they, won't they. BT's appearing to daily charge of mind on if it will become a broadcaster. Yesterday Bland (BT Chairman) said no, not at the moment.
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Siemens announce GPRS enabled notepad
A German company, Gericom has co-announced with Siemens a GPRS enabled notepad. First of many to come I'm sure - this one only giving around ISDN access speeds.
The second release of TiVo
The second release of TiVo brings it functionality up to the level of it's new entrant competitors - BB and dialup access, Real player built in, etc
Centrica buys iomart broadband operations
UK - Centrica buys iomart broadband operations. Unclear from the report the number of users, but I image they must be pretty low.
ZeoSync are claiming a new compressions
A startup, ZeoSync are claiming a new compressions technique called Relational Differentiation Encoding that will eventually give 100 to 1 loss-less compression. Clearly groundbreaking/world-changing if true. Time will tell if it proves to be true.
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
First review of Sonicblue ReplayTV 4040
This is the first review I've seen of a Sonicblue ReplayTV 4040. The piece is a bit light-weight but covers the ability to send recording to other Replay TV units.
RealOne goes to other platforms
RealNetworks announce lots of PVR, PDA and other consumer hardware companies to build RealOne Player into their products.
European ADSL take up
Some figures on European ADSL take up. Telifonica in Spain had 360,000 users by the end of the year, with the aim to have 1m in 2003.Deutsche Telekom (Germany) signed up 2.2m in the last three months of 2001, with 16,000 signing up on 3 Jan alone!
Monday, January 07, 2002
Moxi excites interest
Back from my Winter break, hence the lack of comments recently.What SonicBlue stared with their ReplayTV 4000 product, Moxi now take to another level with the key, multi-room (four) facility - a very exciting media convergence product.
Tablet PC's become wireless
I've felt for a long time that wireless tablets would be where it's at for home users, as they're so adaptable - use when sitting at a table or lounging on the sofa. Sometime back there was some promising announcement of products but no delivery, well finally it appears to be happening. A couple of wireless tablets, one from Sony (Air Board) and the other from Viewsonic (AirPanel 150).
More possible consolidation in Korea telco's
Possible further consolidation of the telco market in Korea.
BT talk further about broadcasting
Further discussion about BT's long discussed plans to possibly move into broadcast.
Sony make a power play to control the OS for BB connected Home Appliances
Sony have made many different alliances with many different parties to ensure they don't miss the boat and now appear to have learnt all they need to create their own OS.
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