Over in the land of the rising sun, Nintendo are all set to team up with Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) to deliver broadband Internet access and support for their Wii console in Japan. Wii units come loaded with a configured version of the Opera browser, which allows users to surf the net on the telly, and Wii owners are able to download old NES ‘classics’ such as the original Zelda and Castlevania (we’ve got our fingers crossed for GoldenEye).

New NTT broadband subscribers will be able to take advantage of discounts on subscription packages if they’re going to go online through the Wii, much like the free Myspace/Facebook deal that Apple and O2 secured for the iPhone.

The deal was announced in preparation for the upcoming WiiWare (to be known as Wii Software over here) platform, which will allow gamers to download new titles written specifically for the Wii and save them to the machine’s hard drive.

NTT is the Japanese equivalent of BT – it is the market leader in the Japanese telecoms market, and it began life as a government-owned institution before 1985 when it was partially privatised.

“I hope our fibre-optic service becomes as popular as the Wii,” said Tetsuo Koga NTT East Senior Executive Vice President told a news conference yesterday. “I think we have won a powerful ally to hit our target to boost fibre-optic subscribers to 20 million by the year ending March 2011.”

Downloading old 8 and 16-Bit hits like Bomberman isn’t exactly a problem over a phoneline – however, downloading seventh generation Wii titles over a crumbling copperwire connection might be. NTT have, presumably with some government incentive, unrolled fibre-optic networks all across Japan.

Nintendo might be hard pressed to launch a similar service in the UK due to the technical limitations of copper, so wii may well see a partnership between the Big N and Virgin Media in March, when Wii Software is due to go live in Europe.

The Wii is the biggest selling console of the current crop, outstripping sales of the considerably more highly-specced Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms.

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Handbags at noon. The day after the rather inconclusive meeting on the future of broadband in the UK, Viviane Reding, communications commissioner for the EU, called upon telecoms regulators across the continent to act to encourage investment in fibre at a conference held in Budapest:

“The treatment of Next Generation Networks is one of the most important regulatory issues facing us over the coming years. I want regulation to encourage investment in future networks. Regulatory holidays are not the solution, what we need is appropriate regulation that safeguards competition while creating new incentives for investment.”

By way of contrast, Ed Richards, Ofcom big cheese had this to say after Monday’s meeting: “Ofcom’s role is to deliver a robust regulatory framework allowing industry to deploy when there is a clear business case for doing so and in a manner which brings benefits to consumers.”

Read ‘clear business case’ should be read as ‘let the industry, and not the government decide’. Recently, Reding accused Ofcom for being too “cosy” with the industry, and has been striving to introduce reforms which would change the way ISPs advertise their services.

The bill for a full UK-wide FTTH to the Home network is mooted to be at least £15bn - BT have repeatedly expressed an interesting in bringing some money to the table, but given their history with Ofcom, chances of them coughing up the majority of this sum are slim.

Stephen Timms, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) praised Virgin Media at the meeting for promising to unroll 50Mbps speeds next year, whilst simultaneously having a dig at BT: “I’m pleased that Virgin Media have decided to take an important first step to upgrade its network to 50Mbps by the end of next year. This is an important stride towards full next generation access in the UK which I’m sure others will want to match.”

This isn’t exactly great news for UK consumers, who are having to make do with antiquated technology whilst European and Asian consumers can enjoy the luxury of up to 100Mbps speeds on tap.

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Yesterday, key industry figures met with the government and Ofcom, to begin discussion on the future of the UK’s broadband infrastructure. The meeting, organised by Stephen Timms, the competitiveness minister and former e-commerce minister, was also attended by Neil Berkett of Virgin Media and, reportedly Ben Verwaayen of BT, as well as representatives from the BBC, Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse and Sky.

Mr Timms said: “When next-generation broadband starts to emerge, I don’t want it to be claimed that Britain is being left behind. We need to work together to avoid the non-availability in Britain of commercially significant services emerging in the US and elsewhere.”

Commercially significant services could be read to mean platforms such as IPTV, which has really taken off in France, but despite BT adding many customers to BT Vision, and Tiscali assembling a great roster of on-demand features, IPTV hasn’t kicked off over here yet. Orange have also promised an IPTV platform, but have become rather quiet about the whole venture of late.

“Delaying rollout could be a barrier to the future success of our economy.”

Critics have repeatedly pointed out that more and more popular programmes such as Heroes, which is filmed and broadcast in HD, will not be able to be viewed on demand via the current IPTV model, due to bandwidth restrictions. The BBC and Channel 4 have both expressed concern about network congestion compromising their iPlayer and 4oD services.

Ed Richards, Ofcom’s chief executive, chimed in with:

“Today’s access network, at some point in the future, will run out of steam […] Consumers will demand faster and faster access. Very few people agree on exactly when this is going to happen but many people do agree it is only a matter of time.”

The competitiveness minister reiterated his point: “Ultra-fast broadband is going to be a key future technology that will allow our businesses to innovate, grow and create wealth. We need to be discussing today how we can put this new network into place, because delay could be a barrier to the future success of our economy.”

The summit was intended to stimulate discussion and co-operation between the government, the industry and the regulator in order to bash out a blueprint for the future Broadband Blueprint of Britain. At the moment, the existing fibre networks architecture is referred to as FTTK – Fibre to the Kerb – which runs fibre optic cables to green cabinets in residential areas, connecting peoples homes to the network via a ‘last mile’ co-axial cable.

Proposed rollout of a full FTTH or Fibre to the Home network has been mooted – this would see the last mile co-ax replaced with a fibre optic cable, meaning that UK homes would have direct access to a nationwide fibre optic network, through which broadband, TV and phone services could be delivered.

It is estimated that full-on FTTH would cost £15bn to do in the UK for the whole country, and FTTK would be the cheaper alternative at £7bn, less than half. There would also have to be a separate budget set aside for general infrastructure overhaul in the UK, so these projected costs would probably end up being significantly heavier. What remains unclear is where any of the money is going to come from. BT have made vague hints that they are willing to cough up a portion of the total sum, and given their status as the main cable provider, it seems that Virgin would also be willing to make a contribution.

Neil Berkett announced that Virgin will be going ahead with their proposed 50Mbps rollout next year:

“We’ll never know exactly what demand there’ll be for super-fast broadband until it’s in people’s homes and workplaces up and down the UK. What we do know is that our cable network has a unique potential to revolutionise consumers’ experience and we’re convinced that 2008 is the moment to take the lead with the commercial launch of a 50-megabit product.”

Ofcom will be talking with the industry until December the 5th, when it is expected to make an announcement on what it considers to be the best way forwards – we imagine that along with a cash incentive from the government, a coalition of ISPs will cover the initial costs, and then after everything is set up, the network will be opened up to other providers a la Openreach.

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With entire catalogues of personal data from HMRC going missing, it’s encouraging to know that not everybody is so laissez-faire about keeping sensitive information secure.

Eclipse Internet has reported that it’s anti-spam measures has seen over 513 million potentially threatening emails blocked from customers’ inboxes during October thanks to upgrades in security software.

Clodagh Murphy, Director of Broadband Operations at Eclipse says, ‘Spam email is a security threat to our customers, as well as being a real cost in terms of time dedicated to dealing with it. Unsolicited email clogs up inboxes and reduces bandwidth for the things our customers actually want.’

The new system, courtesy of IronPort Systems, who are part of Cisco, gives Eclipse customers extra protection against spam and the potential damage it represents, meaning that the days of you getting emails from your long distant relative in Nigeria offering you access to a warehouse full of Viagra are over.

Before you could neatly avoid the threat of spam by simply checking the box and clicking ‘Delete’, but Eclipse customers won’t even have to do that much anymore; ‘As well as identifying and blocking a large proportion of spam before it reaches customers’ mailboxes, our new anti-virus and anti-spam solution also provides the tools to allow customers to check and delete suspect mail before it can do any damage,’ concludes Murphy.

Though not one of the big hitters of the Broadband Premiership in terms of customer numbers, Eclipse are consistently recognised and rated in independent reviews as being one of the better brands out there in terms of speed fidelity, reliability of service and quality of customer service. Customers who have been with Eclipse for over 8 years since the dial-up days repeatedly attest to this.

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British broadband users are becoming increasingly unhappy with their service, according to figures from the second annual consumer experience report published by Ofcom on Tuesday.

The number of respondents who said that they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the overall service they received from their ISP has slid 4% from last years 92% to 88%m with around 40% saying they are ‘quite likely’ or ‘very likely’ to switch provider over the next year. This 40% exodus could drastically alter the current status quo (see the post below) in 2008.

To combat this disaffection, Ofcom says in its report that it will be working with the ASA in order to force ISPs to make the details of their broadband packages as transparent as possible – this could signal the end of “up to” speeds and “unlimited” usage.

2007 is also set to be known as ‘The Rise of the Silver Surfers’, as the report also that take-up of digital TV, mobile and broadband services by 65+ year olds has increased significantly.

The survey also shows that whilst the UK lags behind our European cousins in terms of speed, broadband prices here are around 30% to 40% lower than in France, Germany, and Italy. The average household’s communications bill, encompassing land line calls, mobile phone bills and internet services has also decreased – largely due to the large scale consolidation that has taken place over the last five years.

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2007 has also seen much consolidation in the Broadband marketplace, with mergers and acquisitions seeing old players shake hands and donning new team colours.

At this stage in the financial year, there’s still everything to play for up until April 2008, with takeovers from Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse hopefully giving former stragglers Pipex and AOL a shot in the arm, and with Sky connecting customers at a phenomenal rate since the launch of their successful See Speak Surf squad formation. Up and coming ISP Be Broadband, has also been a keen player, thanks to partners O2, who have just launched their own broadband service using the Be network.

We’ve taken a quick look at the total take-up of the big six so far, and had a look a some of the more prominent ‘tier 2′ ISPs available.

UK Broadband Premiership – Q3 Figures 07/08 Season

BT Group (BT Broadband/PlusNet/Brightview) - 4.1 million

Virgin Media (including Virgin Media Cable and ADSL) - 3.3 million

Carphone Warehouse (TalkTalk/AOL UK) - 2.5 million

Tiscali (Tiscali Broadband/Pipex) - 2 million

Orange (Orange Broadband) - 1.6 million

Sky (Sky Broadband/UK Online) - 1 million

UK Broadband Division 1

O2 Telefónica - have launched O2 Broadband, using the Be Broadband ADSL2+ network. O2 Broadband comes at a discounted price to O2 Pay Monthly mobile customers who pay more than £30 a month.

NamesCo – one of the veterans of the ISP league, NamesCo may not hold as big a market share as the big hitters, but specialise more in hosting, and provision of webspace. NamesCo have generous packages for businesses and residential customers alike.

Eclipse Internet – with word of mouth spreading, Eclipse are slowly winning over customers with a solid broadband service that doesn’t rely on flashy bundle deals or expensive ad campaigns. Eclipse is owned and ran by KCOM, who handle all telecommunications within Hull and around the Kingston area.

Demon Internet – Like NamesCo, Demon have been doing the rounds since the early days of dial-up and are an established and trusted brand. Demon also specialise in hosting, providing webspace, unlimited emails, and static IP addresses with their home and business packages.

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Orange have announced the signing of a deal with The Cloud, Europe’s biggest provider of Wi-Fi hotspots. Having already struck a similar deal with BT Openzone, Orange now has an extended Wi-Fi network of over 10,000 hotspots in the UK.

“The reach of our Wi-Fi coverage is critical but the user experience is what really counts,” says Anthony Keyworth, Director of Products of Orange Business Services. “We have numerous Wi-Fi partners complementing a range of other wireless technologies, but no matter which network an Orange customer is using, the user interface and billing remains consistent.”

The Cloud have also announced that Apple iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to take advantage of their hotspots.

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Just before Ofcom are due to publish a report slamming ISPs who make switching to a rival as hard as possible for their customers, Vivane Reding, the EU’s communications commissioner has vowed to introduce reforms in the European telecoms market that she hopes will slice up red tape and prevent governments and regulatory bodies – such as Ofcom – from getting too “cosy” with industries.

Among the proposals was a rule that would see the introduction of transparency in broadband marketing, or in other words, and end to the accursed “unlimited” “up to”

Viviane Reding is something of a black name in the industry; she earned the equivalent of ‘Villain of the Year’ for 2006 in the ISPA awards ceremony that was held early this year and is frequently portrayed in business columns as being some sort of authoritarian nanny state gorgon creature.

The name of Ofcom’s Ed Richards is similarly mud-hued. After being forced by Ofcom to drop the popular dual-PTSN Business Highway cable, on the grounds that the competition couldn’t match it, the quango hasn’t been on BT’s Christmas card list for a number of years.

Ofcom’s second annual consumer experience report, due to be published tomorrow, is expected to highlight customer dissatisfaction with many of the big names in the marketplace.

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Broadband and TV rivals Virgin Media and Sky were both mauled by the ad watchdog the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) this week.

Firstly, Virgin got a telling off over an accidental omission in an advert for their “superfast” 10Mbps Size: XL broadband service which was missing the crucial ‘up to’ epithet, thereby rousing the ire of customers and competitors alike.

Sky also were given a roasting over their recent ads for their Sky Anytime on-demand platform which failed to mention their limited availability.
The ad proclaimed: “You can choose from hundreds of great films to watch on your PC… and all at no extra cost from Sky”, when in fact there was an extra cost, in the shape of a Sky TV subscription.

Customers who subscribed to channels like Sky Movies and Sky Sports through a third party such as Virgin or Tiscali would therefore not be able to access the service.

Virgin admitted that the mistake was an oversight and have agreed not to run the advert without the necessary information displayed. Sky claimed that their advert was not misleading, and thought that it made it clear that it was only available to Sky TV customers, but have but a lid on their ads anyhow.

Edit: Earlier this year, Orange got a rap on the knuckles from ASA, after the ISP failed to mention the existence of an FUP in an ad for their Unlimited package.

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BT has outstripped rivals Virgin Media, Carphone Warehouse and Sky in the race to grab British broadband customers over the last three months, attracting almost twice as many new customers as its third-placed rival TalkTalk, and once again reinforcing its position in the marketplace.

In the three months to the end of September, BT added 178,000 new broadband customers taking its base well over 4 million, while TalkTalk added just 89,000 – raising its total to 2.5 million – whilst Sky were busy trumpeting the connection of their millionth customer toward the end of October.

Word on the street is that Carphone Warehouse have reached breaking point in terms of the number of customers they can connect on their own unbundled lines, and with customers less likely to fork out for the additional charges that come with non-LLU connections, it looks as though further LLU purchases will be required if Charles Dunstone’s group want to maintain their position.

Carphone Warehouse have spent a significant amount of money on expanding into the US market via a deal secured with retail chain Best Buy – if the investment pays off, it could see CW becoming a major player in world markets.

Today also marks the launch of Apple’s iPhone in the UK – Carphone Warehouse have the rights to sell the highly desirable smartphone in the high street and online, so after Christmas, will have some extra pennies to spend. Mr. Dunstone subtly hinted at expected profits from iPhone sales in the following statement: “We expect a good second half in the retail business, with new product launches and the rising interest in mobile data services driving consumer demand.” Carphone Warehouse has reportedly upped its interim dividend payout by 25%.

Of course, if the iPhone performs well, then this also means that O2’s coffers will be fresh with customer pennies, meaning that there will be plenty of scope for extending the Be Broadband network, making the very attractive combination of discounted ADSL2+ O2 Broadband along with an iPhone contract available to more than the 50% of the population currently covered.

If the iPhone does for the smartphone world what the iPod did for portable music players, then the market could see a sharp rise in the take-up of O2 Broadband, which could potentially shake up the dominance of the Broadband G6.

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