Information Policy

Romania's Regulator Releases End-2007 Market Data

Romania's mobile penetration rate at the end of 2007 reached 106.2% as a result of 22.9 million active SIM cards, the head of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and IT (ANRCTI), Dan Georgescu, said at the sidelines of "Communications Day" conference. He added: “The penetration rate is no longer relevant for a comparison with EU states in this sector, because Germany, for instance, is behind Romania, and another two operators will launch their services this year on the Romanian market.” The market also experienced a surge on the number of mobile phone calls and text messages, up by 48.25% year-on-year (y/y) and 40.91% y/y respectively. On the contrary, fixed-line penetration rate has only marginally increased by 1.4% y/y to total 4.26 million lines.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/30569?7649

HU: Broadband user base reached 1.39 million in 1Q

According to data published by the Hungarian telecoms regulator the National Communications Authority (NCAH), the number of broadband subscriptions in the country reached 1.39 million at the end of March, broken down as 763,000 ADSL subscriptions, 446,000 cable modem subscribers and others, 181,000.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=22971&email=text

Sixteen Telcos to Build Submarine Cable System to Link India and U.K.

Sixteen major telecoms carriers have signed a construction and maintenance agreement (C&MA) to build the first direct, high-bandwidth optical-fibre submarine cable system from India to the United Kingdom.

The new cable will connect three continents, with 13 landings in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

The project is one of the several major India-Europe cable projects recently announced, driven by carriers' desire to capture the rapid growth of voice and data traffic between India, Europe, and the Middle East.

The new cable will provide higher capacity and diversity for broadband traffic currently relying largely on traditional routes from Europe to India.

The 15,000km cable network system, named the Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable system, will connect three continents at a cost of more than US$700 million. Thirteen landings are planned in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and India. The system will utilise state-of the-art next-generation technology which is designed to provide up to 3.84 terabits per second using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) to provide upgradeable transmission facilities which support internet, e-commerce, video, data, and voice services. The system is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2010.

Sixteen telecommunications companies are investing in the project: AT&T, Bharti Airtel, BT, Cable & Wireless, Djibouti Telecom; du; Gibtelecom; IAM; Libyan Post, Telecom and Information Technology Company; MTN; Omantel; PT Comunicacoes, Saudi Telecom Company; Telecom Egypt; Telkom SA; and Verizon Business. In addition to the C&MA, the EIG consortium also signed a supply contract with Alcatel-Lucent and Tyco Telecommunications for the cable system's construction.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/30527?7649

NZ National plans $1.5bn broadband spend-up

The National Party says it would invest up to $1.5 billion to get fast broadband into nearly every home in the country if it wins the election.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10505539

Explaining International Broadband Leadership

In a new report examining in depth broadband policies in 9 nations the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation concludes that while we shouldn’t look to other nations for silver bullets or assume that practices in one nation will automatically work in another, U.S. policymakers can and should look to broadband best practices in other nations. Learning the right lessons and emulating the right policies here will enable the United States to improve our broadband performance faster than in the absence of proactive policies. The report analyzes the extent to which policy and non-policy factors drive broadband performance, and how broadband policies related to national leadership, incentives, competition, rural access, and consumer demand affect national broadband performance. Based on these findings the report makes a number of recommendations to boost U.S. broadband performance.

Also included in the report are the updated 2008 ITIF Broadband Rankings, a composite measure of broadband penetration, speed and price among OECD countries. When these factors are considered together, the United States ranks 15th out of 30 OECD nations in broadband performance.

http://www.itif.org/files/2008BBExecutiveSummary.pdf

4G Backhaul: A Problem for All?

We already know that the challenge of providing back-end capacity for faster base-stations helped delay the launch of Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Xohm WiMax, so could 4G backhaul be a problem for all carriers moving to faster broadband networks?

The issue with 4G backhaul is a simple one: T1-line backhaul, which many carriers -- particularly in the U.S. -- use extensively, cannot cope with base stations that pump out data at hundreds of megabits a second to provide a few megabits-a-second data downloads to each individual user. Yet faster data downloads are supposed to be what sells so-called 4G services -- be they WiMax or Long-Term Evolution -- to consumers. Carriers, meanwhile, want 4G to further bump up data revenues, which are supposed to supplant declining voice revenue over time.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/30430?7649

State aid: Commission approves £3.4 million public funding for broadband in Scotland

The European Commission has authorised under the EC Treaty state aid rules £3.4 million (€4.32 million) of public funding for a broadband measure in remote and rural areas of Scotland. The measure is the final step to bring affordable broadband services to all Scottish citizens. The Commission concluded that the aid is well-targeted to achieve this objective and contains adequate safeguards to ensure that Scottish citizens will enjoy the benefits of a competitive broadband market.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/668&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

France to require apartments to come wired

The French government said Thursday that it planned to require builders to install fiber-optic cables in new apartment buildings to increase the introduction of fast broadband Internet.

http://iht.com/articles/2008/04/24/technology/fiber.php

Mobile phone trio agree internet project

By Andrew Parker in London

Two of the world’s largest mobile phone operators on Thursday signalled their determination to profit more from the growing popularity of wireless internet.

Vodafone, the world’s largest operator by revenue, and China Mobile, the largest by number of customers, announced a research project aimed at speeding the roll-out of mobile internet services. Softbank, Japan’s third largest mobile operator, is also part of the project, to be known as the joint innovation lab.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9d4b706-1217-11dd-9b49-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

China's Internet population ties U.S. for world's biggest at 221 million people

China's fast-growing population of Internet users has soared to 221 million, tying the U.S. for the largest number of people online. The figure, reported by the Xinhua News Agency, reflects China's explosive growth in Web use despite government efforts to block access to material considered subversive or pornographic.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_9039954?nclick_check=1