BPN 1649: Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

Pirating of e-books in the Netherlands

Many publishers were afraid about the pirating of their e-book titles in the past. With reference to the music industry, they blatantly claimed financial damage from the pirating and download torrents. It is clear that there is piracy (copying e-books) and downloading from torrents for free. But by now there is some experience with piracy and this phenomenon is being quantified.

Pirating is not a phenomenon only related to the book publishing industry. Pirating has become a phenomenon in the music industry, movie and television industry as well as games industry. In all these sectors files have been shared, but with different experiences.

The music industry was the first industry to be confronted with piracy. When the Napster peer-to-peer file sharing was introduced in 1999, the music publishing and recording companies as well as the music collecting societies started to cry foul. But when iTunes and later Spotify came with their services it was clear that the business proposal (low prices and single or flat fee subscription) made a difference. In the Netherlands it can be said that for example Spotify with its flat fee subscription has decreased music piracy since 2008, according to the survey File sharing 2©12, Downloading from illegal sources in the Netherlands.

Interesting is also the conclusion that downloading or streaming from an illegal source usually comes  in third place. Purchasing physical formats in an offline or online store is still most common. In the Netherlands 69,0 per cent of the Dutch population had still bought at least one printed book offline or online. In the second place is free downloading or streaming of content from legal sources. In 2012 only 0,4 per cent of e-books were downloaded from an illegal source. Personally uploading purchased material is done by no more than 5 per cent of the Dutch population.

Not really surprising is the conclusion that for a substantial group of customers printed books and e-books are complimentary. Surprising is the conclusion that people who download e-books from illegal sources are also legal consumers of e-books. So legal and illegal e-book consumption is not mutually exclusive. People who are heavily in books are more inclined to download from an illegal source, but they also consume more legal content and pay for derived products.

Illegal e-book downloaders are also usually characterised as young men and less educated. The survey shows that in the case of books, the popularity of illegal content hardly declines with age up to 54. And yes men are more likely to use free legal sources and illegal sources than women. As for education no real statement can be made about that characteristic. Downloading from an illegal source , shows no significant correlation with the level of education.

By court order the file sharing site The Pirate Bay had to be blocked by the Dutch ISPs XS4ALL and Ziggo. The impression was given that by blocking the file sharing site the illegal downloading would diminish. However more than three quarters of the subscribers to XS4ALL and Ziggo had never downloaded from The Pirate Bay before the site was blocked. Of the remaining 23,8 per cent of XS4ALL and Ziggo customers about three quarters said the blockade had not affected their downloading habits and only 5,5 per cent said they now downloaded less or had stopped altogether.

 

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 1245 Dutch cyber crime Code of Conduct in effect

The Minister for Foreign Trade Heemskerk kicked off the 'Notice-and-Take-Down' Code of Conduct in The Hague today. The Code sets out how internet companies are to handle reports about illegal websites. Under the terms of the Code of Conduct, illegal websites hosted from the Netherlands will eventually be removed. Substantial progress fighting spam, spyware and malware has been made over the past years. The new code will help to tackle other illegal activities on the internet, including handling stolen goods, discrimination or phishing.

The code of Conduct is based on good practices from businesses, governments and other parties involved in fighting cybercrime. The Code has been drawn up under the patronage of the National Infrastructure Cybercrime (Ministry of Economic Affairs) by market parties including KPN, XS4ALL, ISPConnect, Dutch Hosting Provider Association, NLKabel, Ziggo, UPC, CAIW, Zeelandnet and domain register SIDN. Ministries, the police and investigation services and organisations including Marktplaats/eBay and the copyright police BREIN collaborated in setting up the code. Affiliated businesses - 85% of all access providers and several hosting providers - hereby send a clear signal that the internet is not to be used for illegal practices.

Those responsible for placing illegal content on the internet are often difficult to trace. As reports about illegal Dutch sites are rarely acted upon, these sites often remain online. The Code sets out the agreements between participants and their specific roles in dealing with reports they receive. In principle, internet users can report any illegal content they come across to those responsible for placing the content on the net. If this is not possible or if they don't know who to approach, users can report their find to the next party down the chain. This may be the manager of a discussion forum, the company that hosts the relevant website, the service provider or, as a last resort, the police. These other parties in the chain will make every effort to get the information off line. The new Code will become effective today.

The Code will be followed up later this year with more measures to fight cybercrime. For instance, a ban on sending spam to companies will be introduced from early next year.

Blog Posting Number: 1245

Tags: cybercrime, phishing, spam, spyware, malware

BPN 1211 Dutch VoIP market grows 5.1% to 2.87 million users

The total Dutch consumer telephony market grew by almost 44,000 connections during the second quarter of 2008 to 5.797 million, despite a 4.2 percent drop in PSTN/ISDN connections to 2.57 million on 30 June 2008, according to Telecompaper’s quarterly update on the Dutch fixed telephony market. The number of mobile-only households increased to 1.283 million. The number of Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) users grew by 17,000 during the fourth quarter to 360,000 on 30 June 2008. As expected by KPN and the main WLR provider Tele2, quarterly growth has levelled out after a quick start in the second quarter of 2007. The number of Dutch consumer VoIP subscriptions grew 5.1 percent during the quarter, to 2.866 million at the end of June 2008, driven by DSL VoIP with 5.8 percent, while cable VoIP only reported a quarterly growth of 3.8 percent. DSL VoIP expanded its lead as most used VoIP technology with 1.459 million connections at the end of June compared with 1.361 million cable VoIP customers on the same date.

KPN saw its share of the Dutch digital telephony market grow to 34.3 percent on 30 June 2008 due to its entry-level brand Telfort. During the second quarter, KPN won 60,000 new customers, growing 6.5 percent compared with the first quarter of 2008 and ending June 2008 with 983,000 VoIP users. Ziggo won 25,000 new telephony customers during the second quarter to end the period with 770,000 VoIP users, keeping its place as the second-largest VoIP provider in the Netherlands, although its market share dropped to 26.9 percent. The third-largest VoIP provider, UPC won 20,400 new customers, ending the quarter with 526,100, losing only 0.1 percent market share to end June with 18.4 percent of the VoIP market.

“It is expected that the digital telephony market will continue to grow at an average rate of around 7 percent per quarter to reach the 3 million subscribers mark during the third quarter, while the Dutch VoIP market will reach around 3.25 million users by the end of 2008.

Blog Posting Number: 1211

tags: VoIP, cable, fixed telephone VoIP, cable, fixed telephone, fixed telephone

BPN 1189 Dutch still satisfied with analogue TV

Presently I am exploring digital television. Having bought a wide screen television and having a wide screen PC, I accepted a package from UPC consisting of a faster internet connection up to 10Mb, unlimited use of the phone and digital television. In the digital television offer are a lot of channels, which I have never seen and for which I hardly have time to view them. Sometimes the picture is better than analogue television; but on the other hand there is always a channel, which does not have the proper pixel order and broken sound fragments. I am I impressed? No, not really. Looking at the cheaper Digitenne (DVB-T) of the incumbent telecom operator KPN, it looks like there is not much difference except the monthly fee. Besides, by October 2009 the apartment will be connected with Fiber to the Home (FTTH) and a new choice of a provider will have to be made. So far the incumbent telecom operator KPN is one of the parties offering three packages of triple play.

Just when I am exploring digital television, I got to read the results of a survey by KPMG and TNS NIPO on analogue and digital television among 1.100 Dutch respondents. The good news is that 60 per cent of the respondents are familiar with digital television. The bad news is that one in four Dutch households has moved to digital television. So our household is one of them, but it also means that there are three households which are still watching analogue television as they are not convinced of the advantages of digital television. Another practical objection for switching to digital television is that you get one media player and will have to buy another media set for any other television in the house.

The Dutch television consumer is happy with the quality of the pictures delivered and sees no reason to call the service desk of cable companies like UPC or Ziggo or run to the service shops to book the digital television immediately. Besides the satisfaction with the analogue view of the television, the price is too high and the extra advantages are not clear.

Of course the price factor is holding people back. UPC has attempted to get every subscriber on digital television by offering them a media player, regardless whether they asked for it or not. That campaign went down the drain. Now they have composed three marketing packages with offers you can not refuse. Still people are holding back and do not see the necessity not the extra pay. Of course they can also switch to KPN and pay roughly 7 euro for digital television instead of the 15 euro for UPC’s analogue television.

As digital television should be the portal to movies and Music services on demand, it also means that the operators are still not reaping the maximum benefits of digital television. Yet the Dutch will pay just 3 euro for films and movies. Just 11 per cent is willing to pay more to get an ad-free channel.

It is clear that the television operators are going to have a hard time to sell their digital service. People do not want to have the technical hassle, despite all the promise of the operators that it will be easy to connect. Most people know that FTTH is near and they will wait for that. Then they will have to make a principal choice of technology (FTTH or cable) and of operator.

Blog Posting Number: 1189

Tags: digital television, FTTH

BPN 1159 Dutch telecom watchdog set on opening-up the cable

This morning the Commission of OPTA, the Independent Post and Telecommunications Authority of the Netherlands, released a press statement, which frees the telecom incumbent of the obligation to have the tariffs for the consumer market approved; puts obligations for KPN with regard to the business market; forces the cable operators to allow third parties on their networks.

It is a very radical move in telecom country. However OPTA thinks that the balance between the telecom operators and the cable operators is getting uneven. The cable operators are gaining more subscribers, while in specific sectors in telecom, for example business, no competition is at all.

The press release is a first signal of the OPTA that it is serious with the measures. It announces that the full report will be published by August 5, 2008. However the measures will only become effective after hearing the parties and getting the approval of the European Commission.

It is no the first time that OPTA has announced measures for the telecom and cable sectors. But they have also found that the European Commission does not always agree with the authority. So the measures mentioned in today’s press release can not be taken for granted. But the set of measures to balance the telecom sector and the cable operators’ sector are important, certainly as market shares have grown.

KPN has expressed it satisfaction, as it will b free now to set tariffs without approval. The cable operators have given a mixed reaction. UPC is not happy and puts trust in the European Commission. Other cable operators say that they first want to read the 5 August report.

The press release reads like this:
OPTA: Less regulation for telephony market, broadcast market open
Today the Commission of OPTA, the Independent Post and Telecommunications Authority of the Netherlands, is presenting its new preliminary draft decisions for the markets for fixed telephony, broadband internet access and leased lines. In them OPTA sets out the measures, which it feels are required to promote innovation, investments and competition in consumers’ interests during the regulatory period ahead. Partly thanks to the remedies which OPTA has imposed on KPN in the telephony market to date and the fact that cable telephone services are gaining ground, it is possible to dispense with KPN’s obligations in the consumer market. From now on KPN is exempt from retail obligations, such as those governing minimum and maximum tariffs, and it is allowed to compete freely. However, OPTA has had to impose stricter obligations on KPN in the wholesale telephone market in order to achieve this relaxation. In addition, OPTA has imposed a duty on cable service providers to resell cable connections, otherwise the regulatory authority foresees insufficient competition in the broadcasting markets. In this way consumers will be able to choose from whom they wish to obtain their analogue television bundle in the same way that they are already able to choose between various telephone service providers using KPN’s network. (more)

Blog Posting Number: 1159

Tags: telephony, cable, monopoly

BPN 1130 Dutch cable operator eyes IPO

The Dutch cable operator Ziggo is contemplating a stock quotation, so its financial director said. The recently formed cable company leaked the news just as it was buried under a flood of complaints. To make matters worse, the company experienced technical hiccups of its network over the weekend.

Ziggo is the largest cable operator in The Netherlands with 3,2 million connections, serving 7,8 million people. The company is a three-way merger of the cable operators Casema, @Home en Multikabel. The companies were bought by two British equity companies Warburg Pincus and Cinven. Usually these companies hold the shares of companies for three to seven years. An IPO in the short run is not expected due to the bad stock exchange climate.

An IPO opens the door for foreign companies to come. Before the merger into Ziggo the private equity houses hoped to sell the cable companies to UPC, which was the largest cable company at that time with 2,1 million connections. Together UPC and the merger would have delivered a countrywide network and would have established competition for the incumbent telecom company KPN. However UPC’s holding company Liberty Global declined the invitation.

The remarks about an IPO were made in a week that the Dutch consumer association started a complaints’ desk as Ziggo was unable to handle all the traffic. In less than a week the consumer association registered 10.000 complaints, ranging from administrative actions to helpdesk problems with telephone, internet and television. The management of Ziggo was completely taken by surprise. Customers grew angry because of the long waiting times and the tariff for the helpdesk. Ziggo will meet the consumer association this week to solve to exchange the results of the complaints’ desk.

By the end of the week the disasters were still not over. Affecting more than 300.000 subscribers in the Utrecht province, the telephone network showed a defect, affecting the telephone and internet services. By Sunday night the breakdowns had been solved.

Despite the swell of complaints and the technical breakdown the company went on to advertise its services on radio, enticing new subscribers. A company spokes person indicated that they had followed the PR rule book for mergers. However they should have known that two is a party and three is a crowd.

Blog Posting Number: 1130

Tags: cable, IPO