European Broadband Trends 2007

The European broadband market is growing rapidly. At the end of Q2 2007, there were close to 100 million broadband subscribers in Europe. The five largest markets -- the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy -- also experienced robust growth over the past five years. All five countries now have a per-capita penetration rate of higher than 15 percent.

Recent trends in dynamic markets such as the UK and France indicate future directions of the overall European market. Faced with a competitive broadband market and increasing demand, service providers are aggressively shifting their strategies from basic-broadband access to value-added services.

> LLU (local loop unbundling) was a major driver for competition in the UK.

Thanks to this, several new market entrants, including Carphone Warehouse, Sky and Orange UK, are now giving away broadband access for free to differentiate their core service offerings. In a little over a year, Sky signed up more than one million subscribers.

Value-Added Services

In its most recent quarterly financial report, BT disclosed that it had over 300,000 customers for its Broadband Digital Vault service, which provides secure online digital storage.

To further enhance its VAS portfolio, BT recently announced a potential partnership with Google and FON, a large hotspot community operator; plans to add Sony's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable to its network, enabling video and voice-call capabilities; and engagements with more than 600 startups globally for new innovations.

British Telecom has had some early success with several such offerings. BT noted that its Home IT Advisor service (a digital home management and support service) had 40,000 customers as of May 2007.

Via E-Commerce Times

BT to offer bonded broadband

BT Wholesale is to offer ISPs a service that combines multiple broadband links into a single reliable high-speed pipe, for users that want a better service than ADSL, but don't want to pay for a leased line.

"There's a gap in the market, between a single broadband connection, which is good enough for lots of people, and a leased line which costs £1000 a month," said Keith Collins, sales and marketing director at Sharedband, the startup that is providing BT Wholesale with the bandwidth-bonding software.

Why do we need faster broadband?

Most pundits agree that a new age is dawning where using your broadband connection for a bit of web surfing and sending the odd e-mail has ended in favour of video-dominated applications.

"Britons are displaying an increasingly significant appetite for supplementing their viewing habits online," said Nielsen analyst Alex Burmeister.

Broadband-UK Facts >

• 43% of South-Koreans play online games


• 19% of Brits play online games


• Swedish gamers enjoy speeds of up to 100Mbps

> Why do we need faster broadband?

Unlimited UK Broadband

Ofcom announced its decision to amend the radio spectrum licence held by UK Broadband Limited.

The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PCCW, the largest telecoms provider in Hong Kong where their broadband service is provided to over 950,000 customers.

Thames Valley was the first place in the UK to experience UK Broadband’s service, which offers wireless broadband for the home and office. This wireless broadband access does not need a telephone line or cable connection to operate and the service can be set up in a few minutes, with a plug and play device.

The change allows the company to offer internet-connections to portable or mobile devices.

> Ofcom changes UK Broadband's licence

Orange and The Cloud

Orange customers in the UK are now able to take advantage of a further 7,500 UK Wi-Fi hotspots following a deal with The Cloud.

The mobile operator already offers Wi-Fi hotspots to its customers through partnerships with BT-Openzone, France Telecom & WeRoam.

> BBC has its head in The Cloud

France Telecom sees "special case"

Nov 16 (Reuters) - France Telecom believes its British operation is a "special case" that does not currently meet its criteria for investments elsewhere in Europe, Chief Executive Didier Lombard said on Friday.

"I should have said that the UK is a special case," he said. "In fact, the first step is to improve the UK operation."

Orange UK, a mobile and broadband operator, saw operating profit fall in the first six months of the year. Former chief-executive Bernard Ghillebaert had blamed copy-cat tactics from rivals for damaging a once cutting-edge brand.

UK Broadband Market - Introduction

Background: Broadband is the technology that allows ‘always on’ access to electronic communications at much faster speeds than have been available with traditional ‘dial-up’ internet connections.

Broadband has been seen as a vital component of the ‘knowledge economy’ that the Government has emphasised so strongly, and is also seen as a driver of economic growth and competitiveness.

In its written submission, the DTI cites evidence that suggests that the use of broadband could result in productivity savings of £3.5 billion and £1.2 billion cost savings for SMEs in Britain.

For businesses, broadband can transform the relationship between a company’s employees, and between a company and its suppliers or customers. For domestic users, broadband opens up a range of leisure possibilities such as on-line gaming, and film and music downloads. It also allows easier on-line shopping/banking and has the potential to enable access to information.

The Government has set targets for both the competitiveness and the extensiveness of the UK broadband market. However, in the short term there may be a trade-off, focussing on rolling out broadband may be at the expense of competition.

For take-up of broadband to rise in the UK, potential users need to be convinced of the benefits that they can gain from it. This will require a continued increase in the quality of the goods, services and products.

Content cannot be entirely separated from infrastructure matters and, to ensure that this content continues to develop, the speeds that constitute broadband will have to steadily improve as well.

The Government’s role is to facilitate the roll-out of broadband so that it is available to those who can benefit and to make certain that the regulatory framework ensures that commercial decisions by private companies are aligned with the wider economic and social needs of the country.

> Source: Trade & Industry Committee, UK BB Market, 2nd Report of Session 2003-2004.