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[ofcom] Competition in the UK’s broadband market has reached a significant milestone.

The number of unbundled lines – where rival communications providers such as Sky or Carphone Warehouse offers services over BT’s copper telephone network – has reached the 6 million mark.

The spur for the surge in unbundling was a set of legally-binding Undertakings that Ofcom agreed with BT Group plc in September 2005. These required BT to set up a new division, called Openreach, to provide services to rivals.

At the time there were just 123,000 unbundled lines in the UK and the majority of people could only get their broadband and landline telephone service from one provider – BT.

Today there are over 30 different companies offering unbundled services to homes and small businesses. This has helped to drive up broadband take-up and drive down fixed-line prices.

In September 2005, 37 per cent of households and small businesses had broadband; today the figure is 65 per cent.

Competition also means lower bills for consumers. According to Ofcom research consumers were paying on average £23.30 a month (excluding VAT) for a broadband service delivered over a copper phone line* in the last quarter of 2005. Today they are paying around £13.61 for the same service.

Ed Richards, Ofcom Chief Executive, said: “In just four years unbundling has gone from a flicker on the dial to a major competitive force in telecoms. This has delivered the dual benefits of driving up broadband take-up and driving down prices.”

Broadband competition reaches 6 million milestone

[wsj] The European Commissioner telecommunications and technology chief Viviane Reding set out her vision for the next five years Thursday, highlighting four main priorities for telecom reform.

The commissioner was nominated for a third five-year term by her native Luxembourg earlier this week, although it isn’t yet clear whether she will be able to keep the telecom portfolio under a new commission formed in the autumn.

Speaking at a gathering organised by Brussels-based thinktank The Lisbon Council, Reding said her first priority for the next commission would be to create a legal framework to make it easier for consumers to access digital content wherever it is produced in Europe. This would include an E.U.-wide licensing system for copyright and other intellectual property rights in online services and E.U. rules to encourage the digitalization of books, she said.

Another priority would be the creation of a safe system for mobile payments.

“We have more than 500 million mobile users in Europe. This means Europe has the economies of scale that will allow transforming the mobile phone into an electronic wallet,” she said.

Consumers would be able to buy tickets at a train station, sodas from a vending machine or flowers in a shop, she added.

In addition, Europe should encourage small businesses to go digital by creating an E.U. “cloud computing” system, similar to systems that exist in the U.S.

“In Europe we have 23 million small and medium-sized businesses accounting for 100 million jobs,” Reding said. “But only 9% use electronic invoices and only 11% have technology-based human resources management.”

Cloud computing would mean small businesses could download business software from the Internet for a small monthly fee rather than buying it outright and having to upgrade and maintain it.

Another priority, Reding said, was for companies to make better use of digital technology so as to cut their carbon dioxide emissions, for example by using video conferencing instead of air travel.

During her speech, the commissioner also urged E.U. countries to speed up their switchover from analog television broadcasting to digital as a stimulus for economic recovery.

“I call on all EU governments: Don’t wait until 2012, the EU-wide deadline for the final digital switch-off to bring these benefits to businesses and citizens act swiftly now,” she said.

The commissioner has long been an outspoken supporter of the switchover, as it frees up airwaves to be used for other business ventures such as mobile broadband.

The switchover would increase the value of the spectrum by between EUR150 billion and EUR200 billion, she said.

EU Sets Outs Priorities For Future Telecom Reform

[The Scotsman] Two high-profile business figures today backed a campaign to change an “unfair” mobile phone charge, which costs users millions of pounds every year.
Brendan Dick, director at BT Scotland, and Andy Willox, the policy convener of the Federation of Small Businesses, have joined forces to highlight the problem. They are backing the Terminate the Rate campaign, which aims to change the law surrounding
Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs), a charge that last year cost Scottish businesses and consumers using landlines about £63 million.

MTRs currently cost the user about 4.7p for every minute of a call they make to a mobile which is on another network or to a mobile from a landline.

This is more than ten times the rate charged to call fixed lines and accounts for up to 80 per cent of the cost of a call from a landline to a mobile.

The Terminate the Rate campaign wants to bring this charge down to about a penny or less.

Last year, UK mobile operators took more than £750m for allowing fixed-line customers to call mobiles. Based on population, this is about £63m in Scotland, or £12 for every person.

The campaign is lobbying industry regulator Ofcom to make a change at www.terminatetherate.org.

Mr Dick said: “Fixed-line phone users know that calling a mobile is too expensive. We’ve done what we can to bring down that cost, but with MTRs accounting for up to 80 per cent of the price per minute of a call from a home phone line to a mobile, the only way to get better prices is to terminate the rate.”

Earlier this year, the European Commission recognised that high MTRs penalise consumers, recommending that regulators bring the costs down.

Trade chiefs back drive against ‘excessive’ phone rates

[Marketwire] – MarketingProfs, a trusted online resource for more than 320,000 professional marketers, today announced the results of a small, informal survey that shows Twitter is rapidly gaining acceptance among users as an important social media business tool.

According to the survey of mostly small businesses, 84 percent of respondents said they expect their company’s use of Twitter to increase over the next six months — 46 percent by a “significant” margin. The survey results are part of a new MarketingProfs case study collection, an exclusive resource prepared for MarketingProfs Premium Members.

Currently, 66 percent consider Twitter either “somewhat important” or “extremely important” to their company’s business/marketing operations, compared to 29 percent who consider it “not very important.”

Meanwhile, perhaps not surprisingly, Twitter users say the red-hot social media tool now ranks second only to blogs as the No. 1 social media business tool.

On a five-point scale, 41 percent of respondents said Twitter delivers “great value” to their company, ranking well ahead of LinkedIn, which garnered 25 percent of that category, and Facebook, which had 17 percent. Corporate blogs ranked at the top of the list with 52 percent saying it delivered great value, according to the small survey, which included more than 200 Twitter users.

“This data shows that Twitter users, typically early adopters, no longer think of Twitter as just a personal networking tool, but as something that can provide real value for their company or business,” Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer for MarketingProfs. “Much like Facebook, Twitter is now moving into the business mainstream.”

MarketingProfs’ survey results are part of a new case study collection Twitter Success Stories: How 11 companies are achieving their marketing objectives — 140 characters at a time. The 32-page report describes how 11 diverse businesses are using Twitter to achieve different business objectives.

Readers will learn how:

Disney leveraged one of the industry’s first Twitter sponsorships to promote its 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition “Pinocchio” Blu-Ray and DVD launch
Souplantation, a salad buffet restaurant, is using the micro-blogging service to drive in-store traffic through promotions, contests and “quick engagements”
The Coffee Groundz, a Houston-area coffee shop, built a vibrant customer community and increased sales by almost a third

The report includes new information on Twitter usage by Zappos, Comcast and Dell, while profiling entirely new success stories from Techrigy, Kogi Korean BBQ, 12for12K.org, Decho (Mozy), and NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal.

“These 11 case studies provide a quick, yet detailed, look at how businesses are using Twitter today to drive tangible results,” said Erik Bratt, a former business journalist, now President of Engage Social Media, who authored the report. “Once they are finished, readers will have a very clear picture of how Twitter can be used to achieve multiple marketing objectives.”

In addition to the case studies and the exclusive survey data, the report also recommends the best Twitter business tools — from measurement services to account management — as well as presents tips for getting started on Twitter.

[ofcom] key trends emerging this quarter from data collected on the UK telecommunications sector.

Fixed
Total UK fixed voice call and access revenues continued to fall, by 0.9% during Q4 2008 to £2.20bn, with BT’s share falling by 0.3 percentage points to 59.7%.
The total number of exchange lines decreased by 119k during Q4 2008, with BT reporting a 469k fall in its lines.
Total fixed call volumes fell by 738 million minutes (2.1%) to 34.6 billion during the quarter, with a year-on-year fall of 3.4 billion minutes.

Internet
At the end of 2008 there were 17.3 million residential and small business UK broadband connections, an increase of 2.1% on Q3 2008.
There was a year-on-year increase of 1.7 million connections (11%). BT’s retail market share of broadband connections fell by 0.1 percentage points during Q4 2008 to 26.3%, with Virgin Media’s share at 21.3%

Mobile
Total revenue across the UK’s four largest mobile operators declined by 2% in Q4 2008 compared to the previous quarter, reflecting a 3% fall in revenue from calls and other charges and a 2% fall in messaging revenues. There was an overall year-on-year fall in revenue of 1%.
Total call volumes across the four operators grew by 2% quarter-on-quarter, driven by a 3% growth in call volumes to UK numbers.
Outgoing international call volumes increased by 6% compared to Q4 2007 (0.2%) while the number of calls made while roaming abroad increased by 10%.
SMS and MMS volumes grew by 11% in Q4 2008, higher than any other quarter in 2008.
The number of post-pay subscribers increased by 2% in Q4 2008, with the number of pre-pay subscribers remaining virtually unchanged (up 0.04%). Post-pay subscribers accounted for 48% of total subscribers in Q4 2008, compared to 45% in Q4 2007.

Telecommunications Market Data Update Q4 2008