BPN 1441 Dutch pension funds in FttH

Three Dutch pension funds (ABP, PGGM and PvVervoer) have set up the Communications Infrastructure Fund (CIF) in which they have invested some €1 billion. The purpose of the fund is to develop, over the next ten years or so, a national fibre network through a range of mergers and acquisitions of existing networks as well as new builds and network expansion commitments. This network will be made available to all players including the incumbent KPN and the principal cableco UPC and Ziggo.

CIF also aims to invest in antennae to be used by mobile network operators for their mobile broadband offers based on HSPA+ and LTE technologies. The move is astute, given recent developments in both the fixed-line and mobile markets.

A report from the Task Force Next Generation Networks to the government in mid-2010 recommended that 90% of Dutch homes and businesses have access to NGN broadband services by 2020. The report covered proposals for rolling out faster networks, and assessed ways by which average download speeds could be increased to between 75Mb/s and 400Mb/s by 2020, compared to 5Mb/s to 14 Mb/s currently.

Mobile broadband will have a more substantial role to play in pushing high-end data services to rural areas: the April 2010 auction for licences in the 2.6GHz band saw four licences awarded to the joint venture between Ziggo and UPC, Ziggo 4 (set up in December 2009 to deploy and run telecom and broadcast networks). This will allow the cablecos, which together have near national geographic coverage, to complement their existing bundled services (based on fixed-line access) with mobile voice and broadband offers.

KPN’s HSPA network is currently being upgraded to provide up to 21.6Mb/s, while Vodafone in July 2010 doubled download speeds on its HSPA network to 28.8Mb/s in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague. Tele2 NL in the same month announced plans to trial LTE in Diemen and Amsterdam (Tele2 also received four licences in the 2.6GHz frequency auction). All of these players would be able to make use of CIFs fibre-based mobile antennae as backhaul.

A main consideration for CIF is to provide a healthy return on investment for its clients. Real estate and most stocks have proved very volatile since late 2008, and there remain few safe havens for investors. The final cost of the project may reach up to €10 billion.

For more info see: Budde Blog

BTW In June the fibre connection was brought to the cupbord of our Almere apartment. But there is still no live connection. All this FttH effort has been going on in our neighbourhood since 2009.

BPN 1441

BPN 1120 Downloading music made legal

Downloading music from the net could become legal if users paid for it through their ISP. This proposal comes from STIM, Swedish Performing Rights Society, a not-for-profit incorporated collecting society with 60,000 members, which looks after music rights. STIM are now inviting ISPs to work with them to make this vision a reality.

Sanctions and legal proceedings against file sharers cannot be the long-term fix for music creators missing out on royalties through the illegal sharing of music over the Internet. Instead STIM is inviting ISPs to work with us to develop a new type of Internet plan under which music downloading will be legal. This could be done by ISPs signing license agreements with STIM and other rights holders.

Until now the debate about file sharing and copyright has been conducted like an intensifying trench warfare between two irreconcilable camps. On the one side there are calls for continued ownership of artistic property on the net, increased control over the online exchange of music and other products, and a single-minded focus on the prosecution of illegal file sharing. While the other side mutters about an approaching police state and seems happy to toss out the copyright baby with the bathwater.

Obviously collecting societies laws that allow the effective prosecution of systematic criminal activity. Sweden needs to update ita legislation to European standard as it is seen behind the pack when it comes to having effective means of going after openly illegal activity online. Laws that state clearly what is and what is not allowed will always have an important place in shaping popular attitudes to copyright on artistic materials. But they will never be the whole solution.

The file sharing phenomenon, in which large networks of Internet users upload music and other files to be copied by others, exploits the full potential of Internet technology, making large volumes of music available for download anywhere in the world by quite simple means.

STIM wants to sit down and talk with ISPs about what can be done to offer users a way of paying through their Internet charges for the music streaming through the providers’ networks — a way of making their music surfing legal.

Typically it will mean increasing the ordinary Internet user’s monthly charge by an amount related to the overall use of music on the net. In return, they will be free to legally download music from the net for their own use.

STIM understands the providers’ objections to having what they perceive as a law enforcement role thrust upon them. But STIM believes that they will realise it is in their commercial interest to be able to offer services with added value over those they can offer today—services that will let customers use the Internet in a way that conforms to their own moral code and sense of fairness, without special action on their part.

STIM hopes to find one or two providers will take the lead with an “ethical” broadband offering. An obvious target group is parents worried about their Internet connection being used by teenage offspring for illegal file sharing. But in time STIM hope that ‘legal free Internet’ will become the new norm, offered as standard by ISPs to private customers.

In the fall, trials will be held in order to find out which MP# files are exchanged; these trials are based on checking ID3 codes in music files. Swedish ISPs have shown interest in the model. Tele2 is considering hiking the charges with a surcharge of 5 euro extra per month. This charge is based on research by Terry Fisher (see photograph) of the Berkman Center, part of Harvard Law School. He has calculated that a surcharge of six dollars a month would compensate 20 per cent of the music and movie revenues.

It looks like Sweden will supercede France which in 2006 was also thinking about this kind of measure, but never converted this intention in law and practice. Also in The Netherlands thre is still a discussion going on. Recently the NVPI, the music producers association, pleaded for regulation through ISPs, who should take action in the case of illegal downloading. NVPI would like to see the introduction of graduate response. Subscribers infringing on copyright should get a warning. If they despite warnings continue, the access should be limited to internet banking and e-mail for some weeks. If the subscriber continues illegal downloading after the full restoration of facilities,an ISP should be able to execute permanent measures.

Blog Posting Number: 1120

Tags: file sharing, downloading

BPN 1039 Zesko largest Dutch digital TV operator

The total number of Dutch TV connections grew by 10,100 to 7.73 million on 31 December 2007, with the digital TV growth only just off-setting the drop in analogue TV connections. The number of digital TV connections grew by 5.4 percent or 169,200 net additions during the quarter to 3.32 million on 31 December 2007, according to the quarterly update about the Dutch television subscribers market, by Telecompaper, an independent Dutch telecom market research bureau..

Both terrestrial and IPTV saw their market share grow on the Dutch digital TV market to 14.5 percent and 5.1 percent respectively, while cable and satellite continued to lose market share. The penetration of digital TV on the Dutch cable networks continued to grow, ending 2007 at 26.3 percent compared with 14.6 percent at the end of 2006.

The Dutch digital TV market's quarterly growth is expected to reach 7 percent during the first two quarters of 2008. The growth will be driven by KPN's continued effort to win as many as Digitenne customers as possible, and a steady increase of analogue cable TV customers changing over to digital TV via their cable network operator. Telecompaper estimates that the Dutch digital TV market will reach the 4 million user-milestone in the beginning of the third quarter of 2008.

On the digital TV market, Zesko became the largest provider by winning 87,000 customers during the fourth quarter, to end 2007 with 834,000 digital TV customers. Satellite TV operator Canal Digitaal lost its position as largest digital TV operator but continued its quarterly growth of around 3 percent to end the year with almost 800,000 customers. UPC saw its the number of digital TV customers grow by 18,900 to 550,300 on 31 December 2007, while KPN reported the highest growth of 20 percent to reach 497,000 subscribers on 31 December 2007.

The battle for the Dutch digital TV market has now four main players: the cable operators Zesko and UPC and IPTV operators KPN and Tele2. Zesko is the holding in which the cable operators Casema and Multikabel have been united.

Blog Posting Number: 1039

Tags: digital television, IPTV

BPN 1004 Mid March: Hyves.tv

The Dutch social network Hyves.nl with 5,6 million registrations is very prominent in the press at present. During a meeting of the Dutch cross-media network iMMovator later on radio, Yme Bosma, business developer at Hyves.nl, explained that Hyves.nl starts to deliver movies to digital television channels from mid March onwards through Hyves.tv. Presently Hyves.nl friends look at movies for 15.000 times a month. And this is only the beginning. Hyves.nl will have to do this as it will be up against competition in the near future of the Dutch version of MySpace and indirectly of the international version of Facebook.

Yme Bosma told the audience that Hyves.nl friends are not always online. Especially in the weekend the pageviews jumped up and down and people used mobile to consult Hyves.nl. These are indications for Hyves.nl that the Hyves.nl users want to view Hyves.nl whenever and wherever.

Hyves.nl now wants to extend its movie content to digital television as well the Who What and Where info of users. TV viewers will be able to see movies and can call up user profiles. In the first instance Tele2 will transmit the pages trough its digital channel to a television set. Other digital channel operators will also be able to transmit this feature in due time.

The announcement brought back memories of webTV, for which Philips bought a European license and never used it. Yet this rendering of internet on television works differently. WebTV had a local converter box. Hyves.tv will use technology of Avinity, Technically this will mean that the ‘signal’ goes to the company Avinity, which will convert the signal to television format in size and pixels.

Yme Bosma also believes that the Hyves television community will start another trend. The group will be able to compose its own electronic program guide by voting for the best videos. The users can also show their relatives movies they put up on internet.

Hyves.nl willl have to be very active in the coming time. Although Yme Bosma did not say a word about the competition, MySpace launched a Dutch edition of MySpace including its own ad sales office. So far MySpace has experimented with a Dutch trial site and picked up some 400.000 users, but now it will aggressively go into the market. That is what Travis Katz, managing director of MySpace during his presentation. He does not see Hyves.nl as a problem, remarking that in every country so far they always found a competitor against them He referred to the situation in Germany where MySpace superseded the incumbent social network.

MySpace has developed a Dutch language site with its own content. It has its own music and video channels. It will also show content specially produced for MySpace in the Netherlands, just like the thriller series Beyond the Rave in the UK and the drama series Quarterback in the USA. MySpace Benelux will also organise offline events like small intimate surprise concerts with popular musicians, singers and entertainers.

It will be interesting to see, whether MySpace will make it in the Netherlands. MySpace does not possess the Dutch domain name; the site does mention that it is not related to Myspace.com. Recently a National Day Against MySpace was organised. MySpace users were called by the message: MySpace users fed up with glitchy pages, annoying banner ads and an abundance of spam may finally have the motivation to take the plunge and delete their accounts. Wednesday (February 7th,2008) is International Delete Your MySpace Account Day, an online protest geared at uniting users eager to ditch the popular social networking site. But also business wise, MySpace will have trouble to be profitable in the Netherlands. IT would not be the first international internet company that did not make it. Yahoo.com abandoned its sales offices in the Netherlands. It is a country with only 16,5 million inhabitants, with a language different from English and a television oriented advertisement market; on the other hand English is a second language to all Dutchmen and many people prefer to join the international edition of MySpace and Facebook due to their global orientation. And given the home grown social network of Hyves.nl, I still have to see that a Benelux office will survive.

Blog Posting Number: 1004

Tags: social network, webtelevision

Cross-channel rights to Dutch soccer premier division

The Dutch soccer world is in a stage of excitement, as the tender to the broadcast rights of the premier division has been closed. For the Dutch soccer team the rights mean revenues, while for the viewer/user it means access to the summaries and games.

The soccer games have become a cross-channel rights circus. Besides the rights to the premier league games of men, the rights are also sold to the games of women. The cross-channel rights concern television and radio over cable, IPTV and mobile. A complicating factor is the formats: previews, live games, summaries and archived games.

The participants in this tender have not been announced, but there were six major candidates for the all over rights. The Dutch public broadcast NOS lost two years ago the summaries to the new broadcast station Talpa/Ten. Versatel, now Tele2 had the rights to the full games and shared the rights amongst others with the telecom incumbent KPN. But after two years the scene has changed dramatically. Talpa/Ten has terminated broadcasting and the rights went to RTL.nl. Versatel hoped to pick up 100.000 IPTV/ADSL clients with the premier league soccer, but this did not work out at all.

Now the potential bidders limited themselves to six candidates: NOS, Tele2, KPN, RTL and SBS. RTL and SBS have not tendered, but a novice surprised everyone: Zesko, a combination of cable operators (Casema, @Home and Multikabel). This conglomerate does not cover the entire country with its cable infrastructure, but to fill some gaps they went into a deal with Canal Digitaal, a satellite distributor of movies, sports and digital channels. It is taken for granted that no foreign media party has turned in a bid for the rights.

The rights have been eagerly fought over the years. When the public broadcast company lost the rights to Talpa, Talpa paid 35 million euro for it. Yet the broadcast station lost at least a half million viewers due to the change in format and the commercials during the broadcasts. This round of bids might top the 100 million euro, which novice Zesko is said to be prepared to pay. Just twenty years ago the rights were worth 1,4 million euro.

The Premier League combination, which is selling the rights, will take its time for a decision. They have had two bad experiences in the past years. The telecom company Versatel/Tele2 wanted to use soccer to draw in new clients and when this did not work it started to sell out its rights to the digital channel of KPN. And the Talpa/Ten transfer of the rights to RTL has not brought the premier league more exposure; in fact due to the change of stations people have lost track of the premier league. So the question for the premier league combination is now, whether they will accept the high bid of the cable operators’ consortium or whether they will cut the package up and offer it to separate companies, who in turn can make their own distribution combines.

From the content point of view this bidding is interesting. We are talking about highly appreciated sports content. There was a day that on Sunday night at 7 o’clock no less than 4 million sat ready on the couch for the summaries; now only 3 million find the proper broadcast station. So why should the price go up, when the number of viewers is going down. On the other hand live games will be able to be viewed with a set-top box or by IPTV subscription. So there is certainty about part of the revenues.

So far soccer content has been a cross-channel commodity for the Premier League combination and the bidders. No cross-media potential has been seen yet in soccer content. The stress of soccer content has been on distribution; only the larger clubs have been able to form a community and have their virtual club house.

Blog Posting Number: 981

Tags: sports, sports content, IPTV

Dutch digital TV market growing slowly

The number of digital TV connections in the Netherlands grew 5.9 percent to pass the 2 million mark during the first quarter, ending the period with 2.12 million subscribers.

In 2006 the number of Dutch households grew to 7.2 million. The number of total Dutch TV connections grew by 0.3 percent during the quarter to 7.026 million. Analogue TV is still dominant in the Netherlands with 4.91 million connections. Digital's share of the total TV market passed the 30 percent mark, according to Telecompaper's report on TV connections in the Netherlands, "Dutch Television Market Q1 2007".

The cable network operators continue to dominate the Dutch TV landscape, with a share of 87.7 percent of the entire TV market and a growing share of the digital TV market. Year-on-year, cable saw its digital TV market share grow by more than 20 points, to 69 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2007. UPC saw its share of the total TV market and digital TV market fall to 24.1 percent and 31.1 percent respectively, but it is still the largest TV provider with 2.198 million customers on 31 March 2007. The penetration of digital TV on the Dutch cable networks passed the 20 percent mark during the first quarter of 2007, ending the period with 20.3 percent.

The quarterly growth for the second quarter is expected to be around 10 percent, driven by cable network operators Delta and Casema, because they lag behind in digital penetration.

Besides the cable there is IPTV being sold in the Netherlands by Tele2. However competition is heating up from the autumn onwards when the incumbent telco KPN will launch the IPTV service Mine. This launch of this service has been announced several times, but was regularly postponed due to technical problems. The launch will give a new impulse and will lead to an estimated 2.6 million digital TV customers (cable and IPTV) at the end of 2007.

Blog Posting Number: 807

Tags: digital telvision, cable