Convergence Conversation

Some interesting comments on the NGA question from David Cameron and the Conservative party today. In a speech on the economy and its various problems Cameron said this about the importance of broadband to the UK and what, if elected, he would do about it:

 'Fibre optic broadband is changing the way people work and do business, and it has the potential to completely transform our economy. It could open up new markets for our creative industries, promote innovation, create new, family-friendly jobs as people can work from home - and help reduce carbon emissions. But in Britain we have some of the slowest broadband speeds in the developed world and when it comes to investing in next generation broadband networks, like fibre optics to the home, we're doing very badly compared to countries like Germany, Japan and America.'

You could squabble over a couple of these pronouncemnet but there's nothing too contentious there. More...

The Register commenting on an article in The Times mentions Lord Carters call for a Universal Broadband service funded by industry to replace the outdated USO on PSTN,  62,000 public payphones and a text direct service.

One is tempted to state you read it on this forum first,  but the notion of running a consultation on how this might be achieved could be an interesting exercise,  especially in advance of the spectrum auction.  The basic proposition is to define a minimum bandwidth, perhaps 500kbps with a defined quality within whatever 'up to' claim of 8mbps, 24mbps, 50mbps or 100mbps.  Fixed  (Copper or Fibre) or Mobile does not matter,  it's the connectivity and what we can do with that conenctivity is what is important,  not the medium. More...

Both BBC and ITV news have just mentioned the possibility of investment in some form of next gen network (no details given, of course) in an attempt by Brown to create jobs during this recession.
Sky mentions it briefly on their website. Very Tennessee Valley. How it could be implemented in a co-ordinated manner remains to be seen....your thoughts at this juncture? I'm liking the recession if it accelerates the dev of FTTH across the nation, but am not convinced that it will start in those places that most need it first ie where there is likely to be substantial FTTH market failure with Virgin, BT et al. More...

Yet another reason why the FTTH infrastructure in the UK needs new entrants. BT have threatened to delay investment in FTTC/H unless Ofcom permits it to further raise access prices for the existing copper infrastructure. These prices have already been raised recently between 4 and 11% but BT wants more.

There seems to be an outright failure in this country to understand the importance of FTTH, despite the likes of FTTH Council's Joeri van Bogaert trying to show exactly why FTTH is required across the whole of Europe. No incumbent should be allowed to "hold a gun to the head" of the regulator over the required next gen networks development, particularly with the history of how that copper infrastructure was originally funded, and what its future purpose should actually be. More...

 I wouldn't say that I'm particularly interested in what noted brainbox and multi-millionaire media personality Stephen Fry says about things, but I have to applaud his attitude and turn of phrase in this comment

Don’t you sometimes long to be CEO of a company like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia or Microsoft? So that you can say to your coders, your designers, your development teams and your software architects: “Not ******* Good Enough... Start again. Not ******* Good Enough.”[From The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry]

Since I'm not a designer or a marketeer or a visionary, I have absolutely no idea what a new mobile product should look like, but I can recognise something great when I see it and mobile phones -- iPhone excepted, of course -- seem to have got stuck. More...

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The Weekly Roundup: Friday 19 December

Merry Christmas from Convergence Conversations.

Here's the last weekly roundup of 2008. It's been a fantastic year in the world of convergence, and Convergence Conversations has grown from strength to strength.

A huge thank you to all of you that have blogged, engaged, participated and attended the evening events. Next year's conversation evenings will kick off at the end of January, so keep an eye out for more information upon eveyones return from the Christmas break.

Read on for this week's hot topics on convergence conversations.... More...

At the November Telco 2.0 Event Simon Aspinall, Managing Director of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group, described how video creates a major threat to the cost assumptions and business models of fixed and mobile operators. Building on that and Telco 2.0’s ongoing analysis of Online Video Distribution, Sachin Sathaye, [Director of Video Solutions] at Cisco, describes below a new strategy called ‘MediaNet’ - building a network that is optimized for video and rich media based on a new generation of media-aware technologies…

Service providers know that the basic delivery of TV services is no longer enough. More...

I am pleased to join the conversation. 

Recently, I helped a state analyse social networking systems to assist in economic development.  This included discussions with annual conferees of The Network Roundtable at the University of Virginia, a fine organization (https://webapp.comm.virginia.edu/networkroundtable/).  

Elsewhere, recently, I employed online guerilla marketing for the successful launch of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) company in Colorado, with international notice by JANE'S, Flight International, Aviation Week and others. In related work, I conducted a current survey and evaluation of CMS systems, particularly open source. More...

This post is the fifth in our series on telcos and the credit crunch.

The audience at our November event seemed comforted by the appeal which the capital markets currently find in telecom as a defensive sector. However, we also stressed that this is likely to be a fleeting phase, as underlying concerns about the industry’s ability to generate sustainable value will return. The key challenge is to invest now in the sort of transformation which will allow the industry to emerge from the current crisis with a different story, the “Ghost of Telco Future” rather than the “Ghost of Telco Past”. More...

Estonia is to become the first country to allow citizens to vote via mobile phone.

In this unprecedented move, the Estonian Government aims to allow its citizens to vote via text message for the 2011 parliamentary election. It was only last year that Estonians were enabled to cast Internet ballots. In this new strive to 'digitise democracy’; citizens will be supplied with a free authorised chip, working to verify the users identity before any vote can be cast.

Of course the word that will currently be screaming from your lips is 'Securrrrity'? However Estonian officials seem convinced of the technologies safety. More...