EU lawmakers have been seeking an update of the TV Without Frontiers directive for 4 years and generally back the European Commission’s approach to that, European Parliament Member (MEP) Ruth Hieronymi told us. The revisions are needed to adapt the law to new technologies and to ensure that AV content is regulated the same regardless of its method of transmission, said Hieronymi, who will write the official report on the legislation for the Culture Committee. The draft calls for a regulatory division between “linear” or broadcasting services, including streaming, webcasting and IPTV, and “nonlinear” or on-demand services, which would be subject to minimal rules in areas such as protection of minors and subliminal advertising. MEPs don’t want on-demand services regulated unless their main purpose is media-related as opposed to providing user-controlled movies or games, Hieronymi said. A true AV media service has relevance for information, education or entertaining the public, she said, and the “demarcation is extremely important.” Lawmakers don’t want to regulate the Internet - as the Commission’s proposal has been widely claimed to provide -- because “we are convinced it’s not possible to regulate the Internet by this directive,” she said. The parliament has already laid out its position in several resolutions, Hieronymi said. She expects a broad discussion of the issues and the introduction of lots of amendments. The majority of MEPs will likely accept the “crucial” line of the Commission’s proposal but “not 100%” of it, she said. The draft is undergoing review in 5 parliamentary committees besides Culture, and a joint hearing is set June 1-2. The culture committee will vote on Hieronymi’s report in Oct. Hieronymi said she hopes the plenary vote will come in Dec., a timetable she acknowledged is “ambitious.” Other committee reporters didn’t comment.
The U.K. could learn much from Japan and Korea about convergence despite its major economic, social and cultural differences, a public-private sector report published Wed. said. On a recent mission to those nations, the Dept. for Trade & Industry (DTI) and trade group Intellect studied the impact of wide deployment and uptake of advanced broadband on the content market, applications and services. Their report had 4 key conclusions. Korea and Japan long have stressed top-down information & communications technology (ICT) planning, the latest incarnation being a drive to move beyond “e” to “u” (ubiquitous) networking. A focus on ICT policies means govts. and regulators are “happier to intervene” in the marketplace to get desired outcomes than in the U.K. The policies are stimulating the markets but uncertainty on how to handle convergence is a bar to faster progress, the report said. Govts., suppliers and regulators push operators to invest in ambitious network solutions to deliver policy aims, even if the business reasons are weak. Both Korea and Japan have increasingly advanced networks and high ambitions: Korea hopes to deliver 20 Mbps to all homes by 2006 and 50- 100 Mbps by 2010, while Japan looks to have 30 million fiber- to-the-home connections by 2010. Broadband is driving growth in the market for innovative content. As in the U.K., established growth areas include music, video-based services and games. But “personalized and interactive community sites are also becoming increasingly embedded in Korean and Japanese lives,” proving a fertile ground for business. Firms are exploiting such sites’ strong appeal to generate income via micro-payments and other new methods and extract value from user-generated content alongside more traditional advertising, subscription and pay-as-you-go models. Finally, the report noted, next-generation networks are “leading to disruptive convergence” in Korea and Japan. The broadband value chain is shifting away from households and to individuals; from in-home to out-of-home use; and from mass to personal consumption. The imminent arrival of PTV, VoD and mobile TV has non-traditional broadcasters scurrying to snap up content via partnerships or buyouts, and traditional broadcasting companies trying to innovate with existing content. But, the report said, uncertainty about regulation of TV-like services is slowing deployment, making them less advanced than other content genres and making consumer demand harder to gauge. Overall, the trade mission said, Japan and Korea well could be approaching the “convergence tipping point” that will speed them toward a “Ubiquitous Networked Society” before Europe. But, it said, 2 major questions remain: “Can the same advances be made with less investment or are the negative consequences of not having a highly advanced ICT-enabled society in an ever more competitive global market place too great to risk not taking a leap of faith?” The report’s recommendations included: (1) Study Korean and Japanese regulatory approaches as part of s review of the EU e-communications framework. (2) Focus on payment- identity-trust in the broadband arena. (3) Weigh a review of China’s impact on world ICT. The DTI/Intellect report coincided with a Point Topic analysis finding that S. Korea could lose its tag as the world leader in broadband uptake. Despite negligible broadband growth in 2005, Korea still has over 25% penetration by population, analysts said. But Denmark and the Netherlands are catching up. Since it’s growing at a much faster rate -- 47% in 2005 compared to the U.S.’s 27% -- Western Europe could soon be way ahead of the U.S. in broadband penetration, analysts said.
Red tape and folderol entangling new-media offerings will result if the European Commission proceeds with plans to oversee on-demand audiovisual (AV) services, the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU (AmCham) said. The EC wants the TV without Frontiers (TVWF) directive, now covering only linear (traditional) programming, to expand to “non-linear” on-demand offerings. In a March 23 position paper, AmCham said it backs EC moves regarding traditional broadcasting, but is “concerned the proposal extends the scope of the directive to the online area, without demonstrating market failures to justify regulation and without assessing the impact on employment in the EU.” Most on-demand services already come under the e-commerce directive, AmCham said. It criticized parts of the proposal, including: (1) A definition of AV services covered that is unclear and too broad. It should focus on services mainly about AV content and otherwise fully comparable to TV services (i.e., filling the whole screen and changing several times per sec.) rather than on websites that happen to include some AV element or content delivered to new devices. (2) The draft directive requires EU nations to ensure AV media services promote the protection of children and prevention of incitement to hate or bias, provisions likely to stick the online world with regulatory mandates and higher costs. (3) Unlike the TVWF, adopted to address lack of market forces in traditional broadcasting, there’s no lack of AV media service providers on the Internet. The Commission should have clear evidence of market failure before imposing more regulation, AmCham said. The proposal, adopted in Dec. by the EC, is getting European Parliament review. The culture & education (CULT) committee is vetting it, as are panels on women’s rights and gender equality; economic and monetary affairs; industry, research and energy; internal market and consumer protection; and civil liberties, justice and home affairs, a parliamentary spokesman said. All 6 panels are to meet June 1-2, with a vote on the CULT official report Oct. 9 or 10, a CULT committee spokeswoman said. Dec. plenary debate and a vote are likely, she said.
Germany’s telecom and antitrust regulators are investigating a Deutsche Telekom (DT) “net rental agreement” competitors say discriminates against smaller providers, the German press reported Thurs. Among other things, BNetzA and the Federal Cartel Office are probing the effect of a clause that allows DSL resellers that interconnect with DT to obtain DSL lines to reach end-customers -- and which have more than 120 customers in a DT local calling area -- to receive a 50% rebate on DT’s end-user prices, way above the usual 11.5%. Observers believe the provision favors T-Online -- DT’s ISP subsidiary which, with 4.5 million customers, is the country’s largest ISP -- allowing it to undercut smaller resellers’ prices to consumers. Those resellers, together with alternative DSL providers, say DT is charging rates lower than its costs ahead of a T-Online and DT merger. Competitors are seeking an injunction from the Administrative Court in Cologne, claiming the net rental agreement hurts resellers of DT DSL connections because they're not eligible for the same favorable terms and that DT is trying to force them out of the market sector. “The rental rebates are not only discriminatory, they hurt the rollout of rural broadband,” attorney Axel Spies said on behalf of the German Competitive Carriers Assn. (VATM). The rebates favor large providers who focus on high-density population areas with many customers in the DT’s local calling area, causing DSL prices in rural and urban areas to “drift apart.” The fact that regulators will now check DT’s resale tariffs to determine if they're cost-based is “good news,” Spies said. DT now reportedly operates around 72% of all DSL connection in Germany (some 10.4 million lines), and DSL is by far the most popular broadband delivery service in a country where broadband cable connections don’t play a major role.
German regulator BNetzA Thurs. signaled displeasure with govt. plans to give Deutsche Telekom (DT) a regulatory holiday while it installs a new fiber network. Releasing the agency’s annual report, BNetzA Pres. Matthias Kurth said it’s “no miracle but the effect of competition” that DT competitors’ market shares have grown disproportionately. In 2004, DT rivals provided 17% of all DSL connections, a number rising to 38% at the end of 2005. Kurth said the achievement resulted from goal- and competition-oriented regulation. He said he worries about the “shallow” debate on rolling back allegedly heavy-handed regulation to further innovation and foster investment. Apart from the fact that those arguments always come from the same corner -- DT -- the annual report shows they're untrue, he said: Rather, opening the monopoly network has been good for growth. The Ministry of Economics (BMWi) is overhauling Germany’s telecom act and is expected to submit amendments in May, said telecom lawyer Axel Spies. One amendment in play is a new one, Section 9a, that would guard DT from oversight while it builds a fiber VDSL network. The proposal has drawn fire not only from competitive telcos but also from the European Commission. Now, it appears the ministry may be prepared to “revisit” the draft article to “accommodate” Commission concerns to an extent. And complaints pending against Germany at the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) hit at the notion of a regulatory moratorium (and other issues), and the ministry is talking to the USTR about them, Spies said. But because there’s no text of any revisions to 9a, “we don’t know yet whether these are only cosmetic changes.” DT rivals are “pleased that Mr. Kurth has made it clear that there is a clear connection between investments and regulatory environment that furthers and encourages competition,” Spies said on behalf of the German Competitive Carriers Assn. VATM. Competitors “agree there is no indication” Germany’s telecom sector is over- regulated, he added. Cabinet approval of the telecom act amendments is expected in May, after which the measure moves to the Bundesrat (Upper House of Parliament), which will vote June 16 on a formal position on the bill. It then shifts to the Bundestag (Lower House) for early fall consideration, Spies said.
Despite excitement over WiMAX, its role in the wireless market is “debatable,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) said Tues. The technology - - not widely used anywhere -- raises questions regarding spectrum, regulation and security, said Taylor Reynolds of the OECD’s Science, Technology & Industry directorate. It’s also sparking new arguments about net neutrality, said Reynolds, who wrote the report on WiMAX’s implications for competition and regulation.
Despite rosy industry predictions and a strong nudge from the European Commission, widespread mobile TV uptake in Europe is far from certain, an analyst said Fri. The technology is “heavily overhyped by the vendor community,” said Strategy Analytics’ Nitesh Patel. Carriers not convinced of the opportunity are forced by competitive threats inside and outside the industry to think seriously about choosing a strategy to pursue the technology, he told us.
LONDON -- U.S. VoD distributor TVN could have a digital watermarking system in place in a year, its CTO said Wed. at the IPTV World Forum. The system is ready technically for prime time, Dom Stasi told us. It’s in a trial with Thomson to work out kinks. Watermarking and digital copy protection are the emerging technologies that the IPTV sector hopes will let loose the flow of content to draw customers.
LONDON -- As telcos move from traditional telephony to IPTV, a debate has arisen over whether to handle content security with smartcard technology or software solutions, speakers said Tues. at the IPTV World Forum here. Providers of “conditional access (CA)” called smartcards the only way to guard premium content. Software sellers said smartcards are too vulnerable to copying and too pricey.
LONDON -- Despite rising interest in TV over broadband, its future is far from assured, speakers said Mon. at the Internet Protocol (IP) TV World Forum here. Technical, financial and content issues could hurt deployment. No one knows what consumers want and only now is the market is becoming measurable. But the main threat is a possibility Google or another global portal will enter the IPTV market directly, panelists said.