Russia export controls and sanctions

GENEVA -- Several major countries raised concerns during a council meeting last week with ITU’s efforts to spur telecom equipment interoperability with a conformance database, interoperability testing and other measures. Developing countries were largely supportive of the intergovernmental organization’s efforts, but commercial worries weren’t directly addressed. The ITU initiatives were prompted by a 2008 resolution agreed to by almost 100 countries (CD Oct 31/08 p10).

China stayed ahead of the pack in broadband line numbers at the end of 2009, analyst Point Topic said. The other top 10 broadband countries were the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, U.K., South Korea, Italy, Brazil and Russia, it said. There were nearly 467 million broadband subscribers by the end of the last quarter 2009, it said. Only China and South Korea grew more quickly last year than they did in 2008, but other markets appear to be reviving after their relative slowdown in 2008, it said. DSL and cable lost market share to other access technologies, with wireless taking the lead, it said. As demand for broadband outstrips the fixed infrastructure, the gaps are being filled by mobile access technologies, it said.

The U.S. fell two places to fifth on the World Economic Forum’s annual index of networked readiness. The index tallies the general business environment, regulation and investment and how ready individuals, business and governments are to use technology. Sweden topped the list for the first time, followed by Singapore, Denmark and Switzerland. The ability of Sweden, Singapore and Denmark to leverage information and communications technology to spur economic growth is built on similar premises, said Irene Mia, senior economist of WEF’s Global Competitiveness Network and co-editor of the report. China rose to 37th position, up nine places since last year. India rose to 43rd, up 11. Russia dropped six to 80th.

GENEVA -- Space, weather and other interests raised various concerns with studies of bands for possible allocation to the mobile satellite service at the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference. The WRC-12 agenda item will be discussed next week in the ITU-R working party on efficient orbit/spectrum utilization for the mobile satellite and radio navigation satellite services.

Uncompetitive telecom markets are holding broadband speeds back, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association said Wednesday. Its study on Europe’s digital deficit said consumers and businesses are losing 25 billion ($34 billion) per year because powerful monopoly providers are keeping prices higher and broadband speeds lower. It said incumbent retail market shares are high, stable and, in some cases, increasing, and that some dominant companies are engaging in potentially anti-competitive and discriminatory practices. Meanwhile, ECTA said, new entrants struggle to make a return on their investment. ECTA said it will press the European Commission and national regulators to investigate competition failures in the sector and to consider using the new power of functional separation of a business’s network and services arms when needed. A study for the EC concluded that effective broadband take-up across the EU would create more than a million new jobs and boost gross domestic product by 850 billion by 2015, ECTA said. Separately, network operators said the EU digital agenda should be given higher priority and a stronger role in cross- sector issues such as CO2 reduction, education and social cohesion. Besides boosting jobs and economic activity, broadband-enabled applications in the energy, transport and building sectors could cut carbon emissions by 15 percent by 2020, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association said. It again backed a “more targeted and proportionate regulatory environment” to encourage investment in risky next-generation access networks. Meanwhile, Point Topic analysts said emerging countries are now experiencing the largest growth in the number of broadband lines and will likely be the main drivers of broadband take-up in the next four years. By 2014, emerging economies could account for more than 320 million lines, 43 percent of the world total of 740 million by then, it said. The forecast looked at the 40 biggest countries in terms of broadband lines, dividing them into emerging, youthful and mature. The first category, which includes Brazil, China, Russia, India and others in Southeast Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, could see growth of more than 14 percent per year. Youthful economies such as the U.S., Japan, Greece and others, can expect broadband growth of 5.5 percent annually, mature countries such as Canada, South Korea, and advanced Western European nations 4.6 percent, the analysts said. The youthful markets are “probably the most unpredictable,” they said. With about 155 million lines as of mid-2009, they're just behind the emerging countries in terms of broadband size and they include the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and Japan, they said. Individual countries in this group could see a change in prospects if governments set higher goals for broadband take-up, they said. It remains to be seen, however, whether the broadband investment plan in the U.S. stimulus package will boost take-up above the predicted 6 percent per year, the analysts said. The ten countries predicted to have the biggest broadband networks by 2014 are China, Russia, India and Brazil (emerging), the U.S., Japan and Italy (youthful) and Germany, the U.K. and France (mature), they said.

Years of warnings from industry leaders and lawmakers on U.S. cyber vulnerabilities came to life Tuesday as former federal officials participated in a real-time simulated attack on wireless networks that spread to the Internet backbone, financial system and power grid. Playing the role of the National Security Council on the morning of an attack, they debated how to respond, often deciding that forcing network operators, device makers and infrastructure owners to halt traffic, install patches and peer into packets were the best immediate options. The Cyber ShockWave exercise, which included staged cable news reports from “GNN,” was put together by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Modern Times Group (MTG) bought half of Raduga Holdings, a Russian direct-to-home satellite TV provider, from Continental Media, MTG said. Continental Media continues to own the other half and the two owners will share control of the company, said MTG. Terms of the purchase weren’t disclosed. Raduga’s satellite TV platform has about 70,000 subscribers, said MTG

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will announce a policy to address global access issues in an uncensored Internet during her address on Internet freedom Thursday, said Alec Ross, Clinton’s senior innovation adviser, at a New America Foundation panel Wednesday. Clinton will address the Google censorship issue in China but won’t stop there, he said.

The U.K. remains a world leader in digital communications, the Office of Communications said Thursday. A survey it did on international communications market data covered uptake, availability, pricing and use of broadband, landlines and mobiles, TV and radio in several economies around the world. Among the findings: (1) The U.K. had the highest average increase in daily TV watching last year although the U.S. is still in the lead. (2) Britain had the highest proportion of households with digital TV, 88 percent, followed by the U.S., 76 percent. The U.K. was second to Spain in household uptake of digital terrestrial TV services. (3) Britons sent the second highest volume of text messages in 2008. (4) Although the number of fixed lines fell in all the countries surveyed except Canada, where it was unchanged, the U.K.’s dropped more slowly than the others’. (5) Broadband growth continued in all the countries surveyed, but at a slower rate than previously. U.K. growth in broadband lines per person was second only to the Netherlands over the five-year period. Britons have paid lower prices for mobile and broadband services since 2008, and the lowest price for three of five “baskets” of offerings such as TV, broadband, and fixed and mobile phones, Ofcom said. Last year, Britain had the highest absolute growth in Internet advertising spending among the countries surveyed, Ofcom said. Besides the U.K., the report covered France, Germany, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Republic of Ireland, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Separately, Ofcom said competition in U.K. mobile markets is serving citizens and consumers well. Most people use mobile service, innovation is flourishing, data and text services are more popular, and mobile Internet access is taking off, the regulator said. But service availability and quality isn’t satisfactory for everyone; some may not be able to access future mobile technology trends; and there are “trends and pressures” that may change the nature of competition -- and therefore regulation -- in the future, Ofcom said. These concerns can be dealt with by not regulating wholesale services, focussing more on enforcing competition rules, liberalizing spectrum and using competition law when needed to assess future market changes, it said. Ofcom said its priorities are easy and reliable switching, giving consumers enough information on mobile services for them to bag a good deal, and developing effective compliance and dispute-handling systems for new market entrants. Consumers must be protected from misleading or exploitative practices, and vulnerable buyers must not be disadvantaged, Ofcom said. Mobile coverage is another area of concern, it said, and it’s carrying out research to determine the cause of “not-spots,” working with industry to get a better view of the end-user experience of mobile broadband, and exploring its possible role in boosting coverage.

Sea Launch sent Intelsat 15 into orbit from Baikonur Space Center Monday, following a day-long delay due to technical problems, Intelsat said. Built by Orbital Sciences, the satellite will replace Intelsat’s 709 at 85 degrees east to provide communications services and direct- to-home programming to areas in the Middle East and Russia through 22 Ku-band transponders. Five of the satellite’s transponders are already contracted to Sky Perfect JSAT, Intelsat said. The launch is Intelsat’s second of the year and is part of an 11-satellite launch campaign. Sea Launch has several more launch agreements, though they haven’t been scheduled yet because it’s going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy.