Telecoms Tech

The notion that broadband providers are scared of on-demand TV is not new, and it’s an understatement. All of the recent assaults that we have seen on Net Neutrality from ISPs around the world can be summarized in two issues: SMS and TV. The latter is of course of more relevance to wireline NGA networks, and this is what I wanted to focus on today.

As some of you may know, US incumbents and cable operators have been lobbying fiercely in the last few years to forbid local governments by law of investing in broadband infrastructure. Last week, one such bill which was to be voted by the Georgia legislature was repealed.

Since the recent (and thankfully short lived) decision by Free to block Google's advertising content for users of their set-top box, the French net (from government to activists) has been abuzz. So it was with some trepidation that I attended a round table at the ministry on Tuesday entitled ‘Neutralité de l’Internet’.

A couple of months back, the New Zealand Commerce Commission announced that copper prices would be drastically reduced as the result of a switch in pricing methodologies from retail minus historically to cost-based.

Benoît FELTEN asks whether Google's reluctance to invest in French technology, giving them an increased presence in the market there, might have something to do with the effect this could have on its tax arrangements?

Many commentators have been predicting the end of linear TV services for years, though content owners have been slower to accept the inevitability of its passing. Do the signs indicate that the decline of linear is approaching an an increasing rate?

Should the proceeds of ICANN’s upcoming generic top-level domain (gTLD) auction to be used to deploy mesh wireless networks in Africa and fast-track internet connectivity there?

Over the years, I've been fairly critical of Orange in the way they contributed to the slowing down of next generation access in France.