The Digital Media Project wants Internet content to be as interoperable as TV services, DMP founder Leonardo Chiariglione said in an interview. Unlike the largely universal TV services made possible by standards such as MPEG and MPEG-2, online offerings are mostly incompatible, even though the Internet runs on a single infrastructure standard, because online offerings are proprietary, he said. The Open Connected TV (OCTV) project aims to remedy that by creating a core system that lets users access online content as openly as they do via TV, while ensuring content owners get paid, he said.
DUBAI -- Given the high priority of spectrum issues, it’s extraordinary that spectrum management is still such a relatively obscure and isolated field, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure said at Tuesday’s PolicyTracker Middle East spectrum conference. Those who become managers are often engineers with little knowledge of the legal, economic and negotiation skills needed for managing spectrum, he said. As wireless services come to dominate the spectrum landscape, there’s growing public recognition of spectrum management, he said. The ITU is looking at ways to help governments, particularly in developing countries, deal with spectrum issues in the real world, he said. The ITU, and events like the one in Dubai, are “shaping the future itself,” but that won’t happen without the tireless efforts of spectrum managers, said Toure.
LONDON -- Net neutrality can be considered a “First Amendment of the Internet,” on which limitations of free expression should be allowed only under very restricted circumstances, media and communications Professor Bart Cammaerts of the London School of Economics Media & Communications said Wednesday at the IIR Telecoms Regulation Forum. Operators shouldn’t be allowed to favor some kinds of content over others for commercial reasons, he said. Speakers generally supported allowing some traffic prioritization, but charging for it remains controversial.
LONDON -- The U.K. Office of Communications said it will auction 250 MHz of spectrum next year for 4G mobile services. The “largest ever single award” will include spectrum in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, Ofcom said Tuesday. Part of the 800 MHz band freed up by the digital switchover will be used for next-generation mobile services in rural areas, it said.
LONDON -- The European Commission’s push for high-speed broadband for all worries some ISPs, because the business model isn’t there, several speakers said Tuesday at the IIR Telecoms Regulation Forum. The EC expects private-sector investment to be primarily responsible for delivering the ultra-fast speeds envisioned by the EU 2020 agenda, possibly with help from the public sector in areas where companies are unwilling to build out networks, said Antti Peltomaki, deputy director general of the Information Society Directorate General. It’s far from clear whether, if operators build fiber networks, users will come, representatives from France Telecom and Telefonica said. The conference ends Wednesday.
Serious issues continue to surround European satellite navigation system Galileo, EU lawmakers said Monday at a European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy Committee meeting. On the agenda was discussion of a draft report by Vladimir Remek, of the Czech Republic and the European United Left-Nordic Green Left, responding to the European Commission’s mid-term review of Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (CD Jan 19 p10). Among so-far-unanswered questions are how Galileo will be funded, exploited and governed, panel members said.
A European Parliament member’s plans for releasing TV spectrum for mobile broadband services exceed the European Commission’s, said Public Affairs Head Nicola Frank of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), in an interview Monday. With the 800 MHz band expected to be freed for wireless uses by digital switchover by 2013 across Europe, Gunnar Hokmark of Sweden and the European People’s Party and others are already looking for a “second digital dividend” from the 700 MHz band, Frank said. That could spell “the end of terrestrial television” in some countries, she said. She was responding to a draft report by Hokmark on the EC proposal for a five-year spectrum policy roadmap, discussed Monday in the Industry, Research and Energy Committee.
EU and Russian officials talked spectrum and international roaming issues in Brussels Thursday, a spokeswoman for Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes told us. Kroes and Russian Telecom Minister Igor Schegolev want to strengthen areas of cooperation in information society matters, she said. The two regions have set ambitious broadband targets which must be met, she said. The face-to-face meeting was part of an EC meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other members of the Russian government. Russia is Europe’s third largest trading partner and the EU is the largest market for and investor in Russia, EC President Jose Manuel Barroso said. One key topic was innovation, scientific and technical cooperation, where, he said, “we are speaking the same language.”
The European Commission’s apparent decision to accept non-binding industry ecodesign targets for set-top boxes is worrying, said the European Consumers’ Organization (BEUC) and European Consumer Voice in Standardization (ANEC). In a Feb. 11 letter to the chairman of the steering committee for a voluntary agreement on complex set-top boxes under the ecodesign directive, EC Energy Director-General Philip Lowe noted that the industry self-regulatory plan is the first under the law and will set a template and benchmark for future proposals. An EC impact assessment showed that a voluntary agreement “is a viable alternative to regulation” in the short- and mid-term, he wrote. But the study also found that, for industry to realize the full energy-saving potential, it must agree on “more ambitious future targets,” he said. The Energy Directorate General is now “in a position to propose to the Commission a decision on the formal endorsement” of the voluntary agreement, he said. An estimated 80 percent of the environmental impacts of products are determined during their design phase, BEUC and ANEC said. The ecodesign directive aims to improve the environmental performance of energy-related products by integrating environmental criteria at an early design stage, they said. TV set-top boxes are among the worst offenders for energy consumption and their performance should be regulated, they said. If the EC approves the industry agreement it will be the first time that ecodesign requirements aren’t legislated and it could set a precedent for self-regulation, they said. Even more alarming is the fact that the EC accepts the pact while acknowledging its lack of energy-saving ambition, the consumer groups said. BEUC Director General Monique Goyens said she’s skeptical that green targets provided unilaterally by manufacturers will achieve the same results as binding legislation. The auto industry didn’t deliver on promises to reduce CO2 emissions and preliminary talks among TV decoder makers already “show a lamentable lack of ambition as they are considering excluding even the possibility for consumers to switch off these devices,” she said. ANEC’s concerned that not all set-top boxes will be ecodesigned and that the environmental requirements won’t be enforced by public authorities, Secretary-General Stephen Russell added.
European Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes will meet with CEOs from the telecom network and equipment and Internet content industries to discuss a “holistic” approach to business models, technology and regulation, her spokesman told us Monday. A March 3 summit aims to find ways to meet the goal of offering ultrafast online access to all Europeans by 2020, he said. Kroes is seeking an industry task force led by CEOs to come up with proposed solutions that would be confirmed at a second meeting in July, he said. The summit was sparked by Kroes’s concern that the EU’s 2020 broadband goals won’t be met based on current investment trends, he said. Kroes has invited Google, Microsoft, Vodafone, BT and about 40 other companies, The Sunday Telegraph reported over the weekend. She reportedly asked the companies by letter to work together to “put the interests of Europe’s citizens and businesses at the forefront of the digital revolution” and to increase research and development spending to bring everyone online. There are many more music downloads in the U.S. than in the EU because of Europe’s fragmented markets and lack of lawful offerings, Kroes was quoted as saying. The EC “intends to open up access to legal online content by simplifying copyright clearance, management and cross-border licensing,” she said.