Funding-flurry | IPTV News

Tag: funding-flurry

Shareware Bandwidth

Monday, February 2nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Ofcom is yet again seeing the light and looking to align the UK with European countries in releasing more analogue bandwidth after the digital switchover.

But, especially with Lord Carter’s review in mind, they might be better looking to the US where the so called ‘white space’ spectrum is being made available for broadband services.

Of course, these plans aren’t exactly going smoothly in the US, where the digital switchover has been postponed.

However, it would seem to make sense to make some critical bandwidth available on a ’shareware’ basis to enable everyone from organizations like The Cloud, BT, the mobile networks to smaller players like TFL, and even service providers such as Google and MSN to provide low cost bandwidth.

The two requirements for this are:

suitable spectrum
an organisation to create a ‘level playing field’

This is a situation common to almost all countries and should, perhaps be tackled globally through an organisation like the ITU. Having a two stream economy in a developed country is bad enough. Having a two stream world does not help commerce, communication nor global understanding.

Continued here:
Shareware Bandwidth

Tags: a-jump-too-far, august, december, february, funding-flurry, home, iptv, january, july, june, links, may, november, october, september, shotgun-wedding, skip-to-sidebar, switch-off-day, the-holy-grail, tv-everywhere

Common Provision

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

The interim report by Stephen Carter has, as previously reported, promoted universal broadband at video speeds. This is a no brainer. But Carter is erudite in this field and although I disagree with some of his contentions:

By 2012 £1 in every £5 of all new commerce in this country will be online. I suspect if you include the City and utility dealing, this figure is closer to 50% already.

Over the last ten years the UK has been consistently closing its historic productivity gap with the other leading European economies, based largely on our take-up and adoption of digital technology. Utter bollocks – we have a decent technical infrastructure and have consistently been ahead of most European countries. The productivity gap is belied by the strength of the pound over the past decade.

But, beyond this not picking, the proposals in this report are truly heartening.

These are the stated aims, this is Carter’s manifesto:

Digital Britain: Five objectives

Upgrading and modernising our digital networks – wired, wireless and broadcast – so that Britain has an infrastructure that enables it to remain globally competitive in the digital world;

A dynamic investment climate for UK digital content, applications and services, that makes the UK an attractive place for both domestic and inward investment in our digital economy;

UK content for UK users: content of quality and scale that serves the interests, experiences and needs of all UK citizens; in particular impartial news, comment and analysis;

Fairness and access for all: universal availability coupled with the skills and digital literacy to enable near-universal participation in the digital economy and digital society; and

Developing the infrastructure, skills and take-up to enable the widespread online delivery of public services and business interface with Government.

This may sound like rhetoric and common sense, but it comes from the heart of Government. So, let’s hope it’s adopted and followed through.

The internet is a cross between a utility – e.g. water or electricity, and a service right – e.g. education. It should be a right and be properly regulated.

Originally posted here:
Common Provision

Tags: a-jump-too-far, august, december, february, final-solution, funding-flurry, home, iptv, january, july, june, links, may, november, october, september, shotgun-wedding, skip-to-sidebar, tv-everywhere, very-long-tail

Unscheduled Lives

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

As I try and manage my ever more complicated life, the parallels between the way we live our lives – especially in these uncertain times – and the way we now consume our television struck me.

Just as the regime of the traditional working day changes to a less, patterned, some would say chaotic, existence, so our viewing patterns are less consistent, less predictable; we time shift and pause, our attention span lowers, our life is lived in bite sizes.

Increasingly what we seek is order, interpritation and form.

What we need is for the television to understand us, what we're interested in and even what mood we're in.

In a cluttered, time shifted TV world

More here:
Unscheduled Lives

Tags: about-the-author, apples-pears, august, december, february, funding-flurry, home, iptv, january, july, june, links, may, november, october, september, shotgun-wedding, skip-to-sidebar, tv-everywhere, unscheduled-lives

The Stay Home Economy

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Just as everyone else announces redundancies, BskyB, the UK's main satellite broadcaster, has announced that they are creating a thousand new jobs.

There's nothing quite like a recession for sorting out the wheat from the chaff, and Virgin Media must be quaking… The only recourse I can see for ITV is to seek a full takeover of Freeview and to buy out TalkTalk, but that would leave them in the same place as Virgin – saddled with debt and with not cushion (and that is presuming they could raise the money in the first place).

But there is now clear evidence of the 'stay home economy' and there's little doubt that old TV and Internet TV alike will benefit greatly from this.

The only question is – will there be enough advertising money to pay for this ? The model that I, and many others, had predicted would be the main funder for TV2.0 is suddenly out of the window and Sky's paid model (along with the BBC's licence model) seem to be the best place to be.