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Number of global broadband subscribers grows 72% in 2002. 
ITU has today launched a new ITU Internet Report on The Birth of Broadband prepared by the ITU Strategy and Policy Unit.
According to the report, the number of worldwide broadband subscribers
grew 72 percent in 2002 to approximately 63 million. The Republic of
Korea leads the way in broadband penetration, with approximately 21
broadband subscribers for every 100 inhabitants. Hong Kong (China)
ranks second in the world with nearly 15 broadband subscribers per 100
inhabitants and Canada ranks third with just over 11 broadband
subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Home users are driving the vast
majority of broadband demand in all markets.
One reason for the sharp increase in broadband subscribers is the
growing demand for faster Internet speeds. Broadband services provide
Internet connections that are at least five times faster than earlier
dial-up technologies, enabling users to play online games and download
music and videos, as well as share files and access information much
faster and more efficiently than before. In many markets, increased
competition among broadband service providers has also triggered lower
prices for consumers, boosting demand and making broadband access more
affordable.
However, where speeds and prices are concerned, Japan is the leader
of the pack. In addition to offering the fastest broadband speeds, the
connections also work out to be the least expensive per 100 kbit/s.
Japanese broadband subscribers pay less than 0.01 per cent of their
monthly income per 100 kbit/s of broadband speed. Korean subscribers
pay only slightly more at 0.02 per cent of their monthly income. This
is in sharp contrast to economies such as Germany and the United
Kingdom where the same speeds require 20 and 30 times more of a
subscriber's relative income, respectively, than in Japan.
"Birth of Broadband" is the fifth in the series of "ITU Internet Reports", originally launched in 1997. This edition has been specially prepared for the ITU TELECOM WORLD 2003 Event, to be held in Geneva from 12 to 18 October 2003. [ ITU Strategy and Policy Unit: Indicators and Statistics]
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Italian regulator stamps guidelines on photo messaging. The Italian data-protection authority has introduced a set of guidelines governing how MMS services and camera phones can be used.
The guidelines have been issued to ensure that camera phones do not
infringe individuals' rights to privacy. The regulations state that it
is prohibited to disseminate a photo captured on a phone to a wide
audience - for example, by uploading it to a web site - without the
prior permission of the person in the photo. The ruling would nip in
the bud the nascent market for moblogging - posting photos directly
from a handset to a web site.
The guidelines also state that anyone who has taken a photo with a
camera phone is effectively processing the personal data of whoever is
in their picture and must therefore respect their rights accordingly.
Furthermore, when an MMS is sent to a legacy handset and must be viewed
in a web or WAP browser, it is the responsibility of the operator to
delete that data after it has been viewed. [ ITU Strategy and Policy Unit: Mobile]
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SMS from the skies. Switzerland-based Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques
(SITA) has announced that its first two-way operational short messaging
service (SMS) in the sky is now commercially available. Airline
passengers may soon be able to send and receive text messages in
midflight. They willl however have to use the in-seat telephone handset
or seatback entertainment console to send and receive SMS messages
while the plane is airborne, instead of their own phones.
This follows a trial of SITA's one-way text messaging service on board Singapore Airlines (SIA)
aircraft. SIA passengers who travel on ten Megatop B747 and Jubilee
B777 planes that fly from Singapore to the US, Europe and Australia can
send SMS and email while on board. Passengers access the messaging
service through the entertainment console. However, they cannot receive
SMS text or email.
The two-way inflight SMS service is available worldwide, and messages are cached, compressed and delivered using UK-based Inmarsat Holdings' satellite system. [ ITU Strategy and Policy Unit: Mobile]
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[FOO] RFID and Bar Codes.
The subtitle of this session is "Annotating the World"; someone is a
good marketer. Ross Stapleton-Gray is explaining how bar codes work,
with an emphasis on the directory services they use. The RFID
directories will be federated. RFIDs have 96 bits, enough to tag
particular cans of Coke, unlike bar codes that are the same for every
can of Coke. Marc Smith, a sociologist at Microsoft and the NetScan guy
(data about newsgroups), shows a handheld reader that scans a bar code
and pulls down info from the Amazon web server. Another button press
and it does a google search.... [ Joho the Blog]
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FCC Commissioner on How the FCC Is Killing the Internet.
Larry Lessig blogs this remarkable paper from Michael Copps, one of the
FCC Commissioners. An excerpt: This Internet may be dying. It may be
dying because entrenched interests are positioning themselves to
control the Internet?s choke-points and they are lobbying the FCC to
aid and abet them. The founders? vision of the Internet is being
exchanged for a constricted and distorted view of technology
development, entrepreneurship and consumer preferences. For its part,
the Commission has already made serious regulatory miscalculations that
could endanger the freedom and lifeblood of the Internet sooner rather
than later. We seem to be buying into... [ Joho the Blog]
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BusinessWeek on Blogs.
BusinessWeek Online has just produced a special report on The Social
Web, and the best article of the bunch is Jane Black's piece on
weblogs, titled, The Wild World of Open Source Media. Jane succinctly
describes the thrall of blogging as well as its impact on the wider
media world, using Salam Pax and the resignations at the NYT as
examples. She did her research as well - discussing diverse viewpoints:
from David Weinberger and Glenn Reynolds, Nick Denton to Clay Shirky.
She also writes kindly about Technorati: It hasn't taken long, however,
for the impact of Sifry's software to exceed his harmless narcissism.
In the eight months since Technorati appeared, it has become a tool not
just for bloggers but for anyone who wants to discover what's on the
global agenda. Well, shucks. ... [ Sifry's Alerts]
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55 million SMS messages sent per day in the U.K.. The
total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages sent across
the four UK GSM networks reached 55 million per day during August 2003,
according to the Mobile Data Association
(MDA). This compares to UK daily averages of 45 million in August 2002
and 34 million in August 2001. August's figure takes the cumulative
total for 2003 to 13.3 billion, against a 12 month MDA forecast for the
year of 20 billion, which allows for Summer slowdown and seasonal
trends. [ ITU Strategy and Policy Unit: Mobile]
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3G Phones Evolve in the Ubiquitous Era. At CEATEC JAPAN 2003, KDDI Corporation exhibited the world's first cellular telephone terminal
that allows video images taken with the phone to be shown on a
television screen. Also on display were cellular telephones that can
receive terrestrial digital television broadcasts (starting in December
in three major metropolitan areas of Japan) and FM radio broadcasts. In
addition, KDDI exhibited a new positioning service featuring a map that
progresses in accordance with the user's movements.
The booths of other manufacturers were also not to be missed. NTT DoCoMo, demonstrated an international videophone
using the 3G WCDMA system, services for which started in the United
Kingdom this month. Visitors use an NTT DoCoMo FOMA telephone to
converse with a Japanese-speaking Londoner in England, letting them
experience the connection quality of the service. On the booth's main
stage, the popular humanoid robot Asimo was used to demonstrate remote
operation of home security systems and digital home appliances with
cellular telephones. Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.,
exhibited a dual-mode cellular telephone compatible with both the WCDMA
system and the 2G GSM system, which is widely used in Europe, and a
cellular telephone terminal capable of receiving terrestrial digital
television broadcasts. [ ITU Strategy and Policy Unit: Mobile]
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© Copyright 2003 Ed Pimentel.
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