How important is live sport content?

Posted on May 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

I (along with a number of others) have been invited to do a refereed piece on the Convergence Review for the Telecommunications Journal of Australia, focus of my choosing, to be published in the next few months. The topic I have chosen is the competition implications of convergence – in what areas is competition likely to be strengthened and where might new competition concerns arise, what are the key sources of competitive advantage – and possibly market power, who is the ACCC likely to be watching closely going forward in the way it has watched (and regulated) Telstra in the past, and where does exclusive access to premium content fit into this?

While still work-in-progress (although editorial deadline is the end of this week!), my preliminary view based on evidence from market developments in Australia and overseas is that competitive advantage accruing to exclusive access to premium content, including live sport. is weakening, due to both demand and supply factors. However, not all the evidence points in this direction. The bosses of the National Rugby League expect, or at least hope, that revenue from access to screen rights for NRL games over the next 5 years will reach $1 billion, 50% up on the past 5 years. The question in my mind is, why is this if the value of access to this content is diminishing?  Watch the TJA, and this blog, for where I come out on these deliberations. Interesting stuff!

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Posted in ACCC, Broadband, content competition issues, convergence review

Another chink in the media content exclusive access wall?

Posted on April 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Last week’s iiNet/Hollywood studios High Court decision that the ISP was not liable for the illegal file sharing arrangements that occurred on its platform has understandably induced ADFACTS, the body representing the studios, to call for a change to copyright law as “no business model in the world can compete with free”. However, recent history appears to offer contrary evidence. Steve Jobs was keen to say that people pirated music as it was so dammed messy to buy it online legally, and the enormous success of the iPod/iTunes music download model (which really commenced Apple’s amazing ascendancy) occurred as it made it easy to buy and manage electronic music.

I wonder if the same applies to movies? iiNet is saying that an antidote to illegal movie access through file sharing is making the content more readily available. An aspect of this market-driven solution may be that movie houses are conscripted into shifting from what historically have been narrow and tightly held exclusive access for recently released block-buster movies to a model of making the movies available on more platforms early in their screen life. That is, getting their return on investment in movies from more, smaller payments rather than fewer big chunks of money?

My views is that there are many factors working to erode any market power that may have gone with exclusive access rights to movies (and live sport) in the past, with this possibly another of those market-driven factors. The major telecoms/media convergence changes we are witnessing can’t help but be disruptive to existing business models, and while I am sure some changes to copyright law is needed to reflect the reality of the electronic age, markets can sometimes have a way of solving some of their own ills …

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Posted in content competition issues, Copyright

How far do consumer protection responsibilities go?

Posted on April 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

There are two really important, precedent-setting court cases afoot on the consumer protection responsibilities of a platform operator that bring to the surface a big sleeper issue for the NBN world. These are the well-known and long-running iiNet/Hollywood studios High Court case, and the more recent and not-so-widely heralded Google/ACCC AdWords Federal Court matter. The former, in which both a single Federal Court judge and the Full Federal Court have absolved iiNet from a legal responsibility to pro-actively cease service to parties identified as participating in illegal movie file sharing, is currently on appeal with the High court. The final judgement on this is due this Friday, 20 April, and will no doubt get lots of telecoms/media press profile. The latter case, in which the Federal court has come down in favour of the ACCC, found Google had, through the use of its technology, been actively involved in deceptive linked advertising – where a company puts in its Google AdWords search words the names of competitors – so for ( an entirely fictitious!) example, I might do a search for a supplier of Vegemite and find myself at the Marmite website. Left to stand, this judgement sets a scary precedent for the online search industry, and all expect Google to appeal it to the Full federal Court.

Both these matters are around the fundamental issue of just how responsible providers of telecoms and media services are for the activities conducted over their platforms. While the iiNet judgements to date suggest the service provider should not be held responsible – the landlord is not responsible for the exchange of stolen goods by a tenant on its premises – the Google finding sets a precedent for liability even with terms of service provision that prohibit the illegal act and an active policy of suppressing ads that breach these terms. While consumer protection issues are not really my thing, given their commercial significance for the anticipated plethora of retail service providers post-NBN rollout, they are to my mind both well worth watching.

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Posted in Consumer protection

A picture speaks a thousand words …………..

Posted on April 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

Here is the pic I thought I sent as my previous post – a message in it!

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Posted in Broadband

The biggest story in the press today

Posted on March 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

For my money the biggest telecoms/media story in the press today in not (despite the disproportionate page count in the AFR) the supposed goings on at News, nor the NBN 3 year rollout plan. It is the one tucked away on page 43 of the Fin, “Roxon’s exceptional copyright review”, foreshadowing the Attorney-General’s release today of the draft terms of reference for the inquiry into copyright laws in the digital age. This is big stuff for the now-converged telecoms-media commercial world, as has surfaced recently in the Optus TVNow time-shifting case. Getting copyright law right for the new age we are in will be a real challenge, with the first hurdle getting the ToR right. Here’s hoping the industry takes the review seriously from the start and rigorously reviews and weighs in on its scope and emphasis as set in the terms of reference.

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Posted in content competition issues, convergence review, Copyright

The beginning of the end of the DSLAM era

Posted on March 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

The anticipated announcement by Ericsson that it will cease DSLAM production later this year is yet another harbinger of the next generation broadband era, not only in Australia of course but around the world. While not necessarily materially substantial in its own right, as apparently Ericsson is not down the list of DSLAM providers on the basis of volume,, it does send a clear signal that going forward not only will DSLAM procurement become more challenging, ongoing vendor support will start to wane. Certainly in the developed world, the end of copper’s long and honourable run is really upon us.  Makes you wonder what all the fuss re Telstra’s Structural Separation Undertaking, and now the Independent Telecommunications Arbitrator (to police Telstra’s arm’s length relationship between its network and retail divisions for copper-based services), is all about.

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Posted in Broadband, Networks

New iPad LTE Incompatibility in Australia

Posted on March 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

Poor blog form I expect, but given the ACCC’s foreshadowed court action today against Apple re its iPad 4 $G claims, I have cut and pasted below my earlier post expaining this matter. Hope it is helpful for you.

On a lighter note, I am very excited to be going this afternoon to the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art members’ preview of its new building and exhibitions. Will post a pic ot two if I see anything vaguely telecoms/media related!

Previous post on iPAD 4G issue

What is the story re the incompatibility of the new iPad with Australian LTE/4G networks? Although it was my first impression that the new iPad is not compatible with any LTE networks (a strange/uncharacteristic situation for Apple), comments by Kursten Leins in Coms Day today – and I expect by others – suggest I have once again misconceived things and this is not the case.

For the uninitiated, it seems there in more to LTE than meets the unknowing eye (i.e. mine!). What is really going on it seems is that in Australia we are currently using the 1800MHz wireless spectrum band for 4G, when major countries/markets (including the US) are using the 700 MHz band. It seems Australia will move its LTE networks to the 700 MHz when this is freed up as part of the digital dividend from ACMA’s regigg of spectrum use, and presumably “re-stacked” in a way that aligns with the major device markets so this situation will not continue to occur. Nonetheless Kursten Leins predicts next year’s iPad will be compatible with LTE on the 1800 MHz band anyway, while this spectrum use transition occurs. Thanks for the illuminating insights Kursten!

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Posted in ACCC, Mobiles, Networks