To many people’s surprise, the UK has decided to tax every fixed line 6 pounds a year to build “next generation broadband” throughout the country.

But Virgin’s network is limited and fibre-optic cables are expensive. The two firms can profitably reach only around two-thirds of the population, reckons Matt Yardley of Analysys Mason, a consultancy that helped to prepare the report. Connecting the rest at high speed will cost around £3 billion. So Lord Carter surprised the broadband industry by proposing a £6 annual tax on telephone lines, raising around £150m. That will be used to bring “next generation broadband” (a term left undefined, but probably an expansion of the BT scheme) by 2017 to the third of the country the private sector will struggle…

The OECD countries are racing toward a broadband solution based fixed access, ADSL, Cable or FTTH.

THE number of people subscribing to broadband in OECD countries increased by 13% last year to 267m. More than a fifth of the combined population of the 30 mostly rich nations in the OECD now have high-speed access to the internet. The broadband penetration rate is above a third in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. Adoption is lowest in poorer countries such as Mexico, where just over 7% are broadband subscribers. Slovakia enjoyed the fastest growth in broadband subscriptions per person. Those subscribers, however, paid most for their connection, once exchange rates were adjusted for local spending power. On that basis, Slovaks shelled out over twice as much for…

In the course of her research on India’s telecom policy and regulatory environment, LIRNEasia Senior Research Fellow Payal Malik calculated the HHIs for different circles in India and found them to be very low.  Drawing on other TRE research and the literature, she has made a comparative assessment of the level of competition in India and a prognostication on the direction of mobile tariffs in an interview with the Economic Times.

Lirneasia’s senior research fellow Payal Malik had published the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) – the index for market concentration – in the telecom markets of South Asian countries, last year. Lower the HHI, higher the competitiveness in a market.

India’s turned out to be the lowest at 2000, as compared to Indonesia’s 3400 and Thailand’s 3900. Among the…

All UK homes should have access to broadband and faster download speeds by 2012, the government has said.

An interim report on the UK’s digital future also looked at plans for public service broadcasting.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said digital technology was as important today as “roads, bridges and trains were in the 20th Century”.

But the Conservatives said the report promised “no new action”. The Lib Dems said it was a “complete damp squib”.

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham told MPs it would help Britain secure a competitive low carbon economy in the next five to 10 years, adding the country “led the world in content creation”.

The report called for everyone in the UK to have access to a broadband speed of up to two megabits per second (Mbps).

Read…

Dhiraagu, the incumbent telecom operator of the Maldives had its license renewed for a term of 15 years. Since its establishment in 1988, Dhiraagu enjoyed an exclusivity on the provision of fixed line services. It was also the only company allowed to carry international traffic into the island nation and terminate on any network. We are happy to note that the Telecom Authority of Maldives (TAM) has not extended these exclusivities in the new license that will be effective from January 2009. The move should, at a minimum, have an impact on international incoming call prices to the Maldives, since Dhiraagu’s competitor Wataniya will now be able to carry inward bound traffic and terminate on any network.

Dhiraagu is owned by the Government of Maldives (GoM) and Cable &…

The Ofcom-backed code of practice has won pledges from net firms to give more information about line speeds.

Net firms covering 95% of the UK’s broadband users have signed up to the voluntary scheme which comes into force on 5 December.

Over the next six months Ofcom will monitor net firms to ensure they live up to their promises.

The code of conduct was drawn up in response to research that suggested consumers were confused by adverts that promised broadband speeds that few consumers could achieve.

Almost a quarter of people do not get the speed they expect, according to early results from Ofcom research, which is due to be published in full in 2009.

The code requires net firms to:

• Give new customers an accurate estimate of the maximum speed…

A British doctor volunteering in DR Congo used text message instructions from a colleague to perform a life-saving amputation on a boy.

Vascular surgeon David Nott helped the 16-year-old while working 24-hour shifts with medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Rutshuru.

The boy’s left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous.

Mr Nott, 52, had never performed the operation but followed instructions from a colleague who had.

The surgeon, who is based at Charing Cross Hospital in west London, said: “He was dying. He had about two or three days to live when I saw him.”

Mr Nott knew he needed to perform a forequarter amputation, which requires the surgeon to remove the collar bone and shoulder blade.

He contacted a colleague who had performed the…

It is the same story everywhere. Broadband prices are falling, so the early adopters pay more than newbies – unless they switch fast. To make the matters worse, operators have started selling the same packages with new prices – in the same manner an Airline bringing ticket prices down at the eleventh hour to fill the seats.

This is the tirade of one user.

UK customers are paying 70% more than they need to for their broadband connections despite the credit crunch. Masses of broadband customers (70,000 in fact) on 8Mbps broadband packages have been surveyed by Broadband Expert to find out how much they pay for their connections. Compared to the deals currently available on the market, it’s no surprise that there’s a huge disparity between the two…

Some regular readers of LIRNEasia blog would just love this news.

Internet service providers (ISPs) in UK have just a few weeks to sign up to a voluntary code on the promotion of broadband speeds or the industry will face mandatory regulation, the communications watchdog has warned.

Attempts to set up a voluntary system providing consumers with accurate information were failing, Ofcom’s chief executive Ed Richards told a parliamentary select committee. “This is a near-term issue that needs to be dealt with now and we would like to be able to get the industry to sign up within the next few weeks,” he said.

BT, the UK’s largest broadband provider, said it backed the plan. “We believe the most important thing is transparency when a customer orders a…

Broadband customers are still experiencing connection speeds less than half those advertised, with the worst offenders being ‘high speed’ products, a study suggests.

On average, broadband speeds were just 48 per cent of those advertised, with the figure falling to as low as 26 per cent for high speed packages offering connections of 8Mb/s or more, according to the study.

By contrast, customers on 2Mb/s packages experienced average speeds of 1.8Mb – or 88 per cent of the advertised amount, according to broadband-expert.co.uk, a price comparison website.

The study of 41,000 UK broadband connections found that on average, 8Mb/s packages delivered speeds of 3.4Mb/s – or 43 per cent of the advertised amount, with the worst offenders being Toucan and Virgin Media – whose customers experienced speeds 26…

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, resident of Sri Lanka, citizen of the United Kingdom, and man of the universe, passed away on the morning of the 19th of March. His was a life well lived. He will be remembered.

Sir Arthur imagined what the world could be. In some cases, such as the geostationary orbit that was named after him, he even did the mathematics to substantiate his imagination. But the mathematics was not the true achievement: it was that he imagined this wondrous idea of a specific orbit where satellites would be stationary in relation to the earth and could therefore serve as very tall towers for wireless transmissions with line of sight covering one third of the surface of the globe; it was that he imagined it a decade before…

Half of the UK’s broadband users are unhappy with the service from their internet providers even though high-speed connections are at their cheapest and fastest, according to a survey by price comparison service uSwitch.

With 15 million customers – half the country – spending £3bn on broadband every year, the gap is widening between the companies perceived as best and worst providers, according to uSwitch, which makes money by encouraging consumers to hunt out new deals.

Its survey of nearly 11,000 broadband customers suggests four million customers are not satisified with their provider and four out of nine companies have less satisfied customers this year than last.

Read the full story in ‘The Guardian’ here.

The UK’s first “fibre town” could go online in the autumn, delivering speeds of about 100Mbps (megabits per second) to consumers’ homes.

Fibre firm H2O provides super-fast broadband via the sewers and either Bournemouth, Northampton or Dundee will be offered the service first.

For consumers, super-fast net connections could create a range of new applications including on-demand high definition (HD) TV, DVD quality film downloads in minutes, online video messaging, CCTV home surveillance and HD gaming services.

Read the full story in BBC here.

Broadband industry leaders are to meet ministers to discuss how to stop the UK dropping into the internet “slow lane”.

More than half of all UK homes now have a broadband connection, at an average speed of four megabits a second (Mbps).

But the broadband summit will hear other countries are moving more quickly to build ultra-fast networks that can deliver speeds of as much as 100 Mbps.

Ministers say ultra-fast broadband will be a key to helping UK businesses “innovate, grow and create wealth”.

Read the full story in BBC

Misleading advertised broadband speeds remain a large concern for consumers in the
UK, according to Ofcom. The British media regulator released its annual research and policy report yesterday that examines all aspects of the consumer experience within telecoms, the Internet and digital broadcasting in the country.  

The research has found that competition is continuing to drive price reductions, with a typical “basket” of residential telecoms services costs £69.85 a month, £35 less than in 2002. However, price transparency remains a key worry of British consumers who report additional charges for ambiguous services.  Read more.