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ASEAN | China | Commercial activity | Government policy | Regulatory action | Technology | Telecoms | US

What will the Trans-Pacific Partnership mean for the technology, media and telecoms industries?
ByRob Bratby 31 December 2011

Apologies to readers for the long hiatus between recent blog posts. With hindsight (and English understatement), I may have rather underestimated the time that would be taken up in relocating personally from London to Singapore to set up our office there. It is not without irony that I find the time to write this by…

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Commercial activity | Regulatory action | UK | US

‘White-spaces’ wi-fi trial in TV spectrum
ByRob Bratby 27 June 2011

A consortium including Microsoft, BBC, BT and BSkyB today announced a trial of the use of white-space spectrum for wireless broadband. The trial, mirroring a US trial on Microsoft’s Seattle campus, will start on Wednesday. In contrast to existing licence exempt wi-fi networks that use 2.4 GHz spectrum, the trial’s use of sub-1GHz ‘sweet spot’ spectrum (currently used for…

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Commercial activity | EU | Government policy | Regulatory action | Telecoms | UK | US

Internet regulation: building consumer trust?
ByRob Bratby 6 June 2011

Today’s FT article by Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone, highlights the importance of regulation for all the players in the on-line ecosystem – those building the pipes and plumbing of network infrastructure, those creating compelling content and services and those who provide search, aggregation or other services. His central thesis is that both regulators and market players should…

Read More Internet regulation: building consumer trust?
Commercial activity | M&A | Telecoms | US

Microsoft buys Skype: comparison with eBay deal logic
ByRob Bratby 11 May 2011

The big story yesterday was the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. It was only 6 years ago that eBay bought Skype for $ 2.6 billion. I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the publicly announced rationales for the deals. First, here is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday: “Skype is…

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Commercial activity | Technology | Telecoms | US

RIM and Google compete to acquire Nortel’s patents
ByRob Bratby 21 April 2011

Readers with long memories will remember Nortel’s glory days of the 1990s, when it expanded rapidly by supplying equipment on the back of significant investment in competitive telecoms networks unleashed by the first wave of telecoms market liberalisation. It was badly hit by the dot.com crash, but managed to struggle through the noughties before filing for creditor protection…

Read More RIM and Google compete to acquire Nortel’s patents
EU | Regulatory action | US

Commission maintains its softly, softly approach on net neutrality (whilst carrying big stick)
ByRob Bratby 19 April 2011

Net neutrality. A topic that stirs strong emotion and strident commentary that sometimes bears little resemblance to the underlying issues. The European Commission today published a remarkably thoughtful, balanced and considered Communication on the open internet and net neutrality in Europe. It concludes that the current rules on transparency, switching and quality of service that…

Read More Commission maintains its softly, softly approach on net neutrality (whilst carrying big stick)
Commercial activity | Regulatory action | Telecoms | US

AT&T and T-Mobile USA merger to face regulatory scrutiny
ByRob Bratby 21 March 2011

The biggest news this weekend was the announcement of the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. The deal is conditional on regulatory approval, and I’ll be watching with interest as the other US mobile networks seek to gain advantage through the regulatory process. AT&T is the second largest US network and…

Read More AT&T and T-Mobile USA merger to face regulatory scrutiny
ASEAN | China | Commercial activity | EU | Technology | Telecoms | UK | US

Microsoft to rescue Nokia?
ByRob Bratby 11 February 2011

“There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way…

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EU | Regulatory action | Telecoms | US

FCC approves nine White Space Database Adminstrators
ByRob Bratby 9 February 2011

In some areas, it seems that Europe is always following the US. One of those areas is white space cognitive radio. Whilst European and UK regulators seem content for the process to proceed at a leisurely pace, the Federal Communications Commission has recently provisionally approved nine white space database administrators for the TV band in the US. The approved…

Read More FCC approves nine White Space Database Adminstrators
Commercial activity | Technology | US

LinkedIn announces first social media IPO of 2011: dot.com hype or sustainable business model?
ByRob Bratby 28 January 2011

It is a sign of the changing times that I learnt about LinkedIn’s IPO through twitter last night, and that LinkedIn itself blogged about it. Seasoned IPO watchers will be aware that process has been started with the filing of their S-1 Registration Statement at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At this stage, details of…

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Commercial activity | Technology | Telecoms | US

Will Apple’s move into NFC mobile payment reshape industry alliances?
ByRob Bratby 26 January 2011

My eye was caught today by a story on TechCrunch (an excellent blog BTW) that Apple may incorporate near field communications technology (NFC) into its next generation of devices, thereby enabling ‘real’ payments on the move. For those confused as to the difference between mobile payment for real and virtual goods the easiest way to think about it is to think…

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EU | Government policy | Regulatory action | Telecoms | UK | US

Cognitive radio: the road to mobile broadband delivery, or the path to anarchic interference?
ByRob Bratby 24 January 2011

For those who are not familiar with the term, cognitive radio (also sometimes described as white-space radio) describes a way of using radio spectrum in which unlicensed devices do not use particular assigned frequencies but rather constantly assess the available spectrum, determine which parts of it are currently unused and make use of that spectrum to transmit…

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