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Issue no. 357 - 26 March 2006

• UK heads world digital TV take-up (BBC)
  The UK has the world's highest level of digital TV viewers at nearly 70%, says a report by regulator Ofcom. The study says 17.5m homes received digital channels by the end of 2005, with Ofcom expecting the 70% mark to be passed early this year.

• US - Online Dating (Pew Internet & American Life Project Report)
  While online dating is becoming more commonplace, there are strong concerns in the wider public about the dangers of posting personal information on dating sites and about the honesty of those who pursue online dating, according to the Online Dating report.

Issue no. 356 - 27 February 2006

• CA - Young Canadians in a Wired World (Media Awareness Network)
  Young Canadians are more connected than ever, and at a surprisingly early age. The second phase of the Young Canadians in a Wired World (YCWW) research project reveals that an astonishing 94 percent of young people access the Internet from home, with students as early as Grade 4 beginning to rely on the Internet to explore social roles, stay connected with friends and develop their social networks.

• Do consumers understand mobiles? (CommsWatch)
  A poll on consumer understanding of mobile phones has been conducted ahead of the 3GSM World Congress. The Netonomy/YouGov poll found that 79% cent of respondents believe mobile phone services are getting more complicated to understand and configure (up from 71% a year ago). The survey also found that, of non-3G users, less than half (41%) of respondents are confident that they would find 3G phones and services easy to use, while only 4% of respondents were planning to upgrade to a 3G phone.

• UK - Good news and bad news on Net connectivity (CommsWatch)
  The figures on Internet connectivity issued today by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) provide good news and bad news. The good news is that broadband take-up is storming ahead and now accounts for almost two-thirds of all Net users in the UK (the actual figure is 64.2%). The bad news is that, while narrowband users have been upgrading to broadband, the overall number of the Net has virtually plateaued.

• Welcome To The Blogosphere: Population 27.2 Million And Growing (TechWeb News)
  A new blog is created every second and the phenomenon has grown 60 times larger than it was three years ago, says Technorati in its periodic 'State of the Blogosphere'. There are about 27.2 million blogs and 75,000 new ones created each day. At that rate, the blogosphere doubles about every 5.5 months.

Issue no. 355 - 5 February 2006

• Nette progression pour le marché du nommage en 2005 (DomainesInfo)
  Avec 85,6 million de noms enregistrés en 2005 et une croissance de 29% sur un an, le marché mondial du nommage poursuit son embellie. voir aussi Statistiques mondiales des noms de domaine.

Issue no. 353 - 15 January 2006

• UK finally Europe's top dog for broadband (ZDNet UK)
  After years of lagging behind other European nations, Britain can now boast more broadband users than the likes of France or Germany. The UK is now Europe's largest broadband market, according to figures released by analyst firm Point Topic. Point Topic reported that there are now 9.8 million high-speed Internet lines in Britain, compared to 9.7 million in France and 8.4 million in Germany, the second and third largest broadband markets in Europe.

Issue no. 351 - 11 December 2005

• UK - 'Nearly two thirds' watch digital (BBC)
  Digital television is watched in nearly two thirds of UK homes, broadcast watchdog Ofcom has found. The number watching digital TV has risen to 65.9% - representing 16.5 million households. This was an increase of 2.9% since June. Digital TV is accessed through existing TV aerials, or through satellite, cable and television-over-broadband services. Over one million Freeview boxes, which pick up signals using existing aerials, were sold from July to September.

• US warns of fake net domain data (BBC)
  More than 5% of the net's most popular domains have been registered using 'patently false' data. A US congressional report carried out by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) into who owns .com, .net and .org domains found that many owners were hiding their true identity. The findings could mean that many websites are fronts for spammers, phishing gangs and other net criminals. The report also found that measures to improve information about domain owners were not proving effective.

Issue no. 350 - 4 December 2005

• Europe - Home broadband sign-ups 'soaring' (BBC)
  Europeans are signing up for broadband faster than ever research reveals. The report by analysts Datamonitor said high-speed net services were popular because intense competition was driving awareness to new highs and prices to new lows. Datamonitor said it expected the dash for broadband to peter out in two years time when European user numbers topped out at 60% of households. It predicted that up to 8 million UK households will have broadband by 2008.

• Young 'prefer illegal song swaps' (BBC)
  The music industry could be facing a crisis because of the number of young people still illegally downloading from the internet, a report has warned. The report by Jupiter Research suggests European consumers who download music from illegal file-sharing websites outnumber those using legal services. It says illegal networks are used three times as much as legal ones.

Issue no. 349 - 27 November 2005

• EU - The digital divide in Europe (RAPID)
  85% of students used the internet in 2004. In the EU25, 85% of students (aged 16 or more in school or university) used the internet during the first quarter of 2004, as did 60% of employees, 40% of the unemployed and 13% of the retired, compared to an EU25 average of 47% for individuals aged from 16 to 74. During the past decade, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have become widely available to the general public, in both accessibility and cost. However, gaps remain in the use of ICT amongst the EU population depending on factors such as their age, employment status and educational level, and the degree of urbanisation of the area where they live. This information comes from a report released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, which takes a closer look at the magnitude of the digital divide and some possible explanations for its existence.

• Search becomes No. 2 Web activity (CNET News.com)
  Using a search engine is now the No. 2 activity for Web users, research has found. The report also found that reading the news is now the third most popular Web activity. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of U.S. Web users taking advantage of search engines has risen sharply since mid-2004 - from 30 percent of the U.S. Web population in July 2004 to its current level of 41 percent, which translates to some 59 million Americans.

Issue no. 348 - 13 November 2005

• BE - Belgian Internet Users: Broadband or Offline (ClickZ)
  A digital divide separates broadband users from those who don't own PCs in Belgium. A survey released by the Internet Service Providers Association Belgium (ISPA) says the country's online population is just over two million (2.09M) connections. Belgium's population is 10.36 million. The ISPA cites a low household PC penetration for the relatively low number of users.

• E-government in the EU25 - statistics (RAPID)
  In the EU25, 45% of individuals who used the internet obtained information from public authorities? websites during the first quarter of 2004. At the beginning of 2004, 51% of enterprises with internet access obtained information from public authorities? websites. This information comes from Statistics in Focus on e-Government 2004: internet based interaction with European businesses and citizens - Issue number 35/2005, released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

• ES - Un 63% de españoles no utiliza Internet por falta de interés o motivos económicos (El País)
  El 37% de los españoles es usuario de Internet, frente a un 63% que no lo utiliza. La "brecha digital" está determinada por diferencias generacionales y sociales. El internauta promedio es un hombre (55% de las veces), menor de 36 años, con estudios de bachillerato o superiores y con nivel económico medio o alto. En España la Red se usa principalmente como fuente de información y medio de comunicación, según el estudio Internet en España de la Fundación BBVA.

• Firefox fanbase reaches new high (BBC)
  More than 10% of net users are going online with the Firefox browser, show figures from analysis firm One Stat. The global average of 11.5% is the highest percentage of users that the open source browser has ever reached. The research also reveals that Americans are the biggest fans of Firefox with 14.1% using it. In the UK 4.9% use it to get around online.

• FR - Les Français accros au téléphone mobile (ZDNet France)
  Selon la Sofres, 72% des Français possèdent un mobile. Si l'écrasante majorité considère l´avènement de cette technologie comme positive, leur jugement n´est pas sans nuance. Les notions de dépendance, de surveillance et d´incivilité y sont associées. «Le mobile apparaît comme un véritable phénomène de société, sans égal». C'est la conclusion du dernier sondage effectué par TNS Sofres, pour le compte de l'Association française des opérateurs mobiles. Petit rappel des chiffres: 72% des Français possèdent un téléphone mobile personnel et/ou professionnel. Soit un taux d'équipement moyen qui se rapproche du taux d'équipement moyen en téléphone fixe (83 %). Confirmation, les jeunes sont les plus fervents utilisateurs: 94% des 15-17 ans, et 95% des 18-25 ans sont équipés.

• Internet phone calls on the rise (BBC)
  A third of people in the US and Europe will abandon phone lines in favour of wireless and broadband telephony come 2009, say analysts Gartner. Broadband telephony is gaining ground among consumers as people become more confident users of their high-speed net connections.

• OECD Broadband Statistics, June 2005 (OECD)
  Broadband penetration in the OECD grew by 15% in the first half of the year to 11.8 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Korea maintains its lead with 25.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. The Netherlands has the second-highest penetration at 22.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland complete the top five countries for broadband penetration. The strongest per-capita growth over the past 12 months has been in Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland and the United Kingdom. DSL is now the leading broadband platform in 28 OECD countries. Canada and the United States are the two countries with more cable modem than DSL subscribers.

• UK - TV on mobiles proves a turn-off (Guardian)
  Most people have no desire to watch television on mobile phones, preferring to use home computers to watch TV while on the internet, according to new research. The findings of a survey of 1,500 entertainment consumers in Britain by Entertainment Media Research (EMR) deflates some of the hype about mobile-television alliances, such as Vodafone's deal with Sky last week.

• US - Teen Content Creators and Consumers (Pew Internet & American Life)
  More than half of online teens have created content for the internet; and most teen downloaders think that getting free music files is easy to do.

Issue no. 347 - 19 October 2005

• UK - Digital music revenue 'triples' (BBC)
  Digital music sale revenue tripled in the first half of 2005 compared with 2004, figures have suggested. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimated 6% of record industry sales were digital, worth $790m (£450m).

Issue no. 343 - 4 September 2005

• DE - Studie: TV wird vom Internet nicht verdrängt (Heise)
  Laut einer aktuellen Studie, die der Verband der deutschen Internetwirtschaft, eco, nun vor der Internationalen Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin vorgestellt hat, wird das Fernsehen auch in Zukunft nicht durch das Internet verdrängt werden. Nach Einschätzung einer Expertenbefragung im Rahmen des Studienprojekts "Internet-Agenda 2015" sind 81 Prozent der Fachleute fest davon überzeugt, dass die meisten Bundesbürger auch in zehn Jahren Fernsehprogramme noch per Satellit oder Kabel beziehen werden und nicht etwa über das Internet.

• FR - Haut débit: le nombre d'abonnés a progressé de 61% en un an (ZDNet France)
  L'internet haut débit poursuit sa croissance en France: au second trimestre 2005, l'Arcep (Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques et des postes) a recensé 7,9 millions d'abonnés. Les différents fournisseurs du secteur ont gagné environ 600.000 clients en trois mois, soit une hausse de 8,3% par rapport au premier trimestre 2005. Le nombre d'abonnés a augmenté de 61% sur une année, par rapport à la même époque en 2004.

• FR - Première étude sur les sanctions pécuniaires en matière d'Internet (Legalis.net)
  Une analyse statistique de la jurisprudence relative au droit de l'Internet vient d'être réalisée par à partir des 568 décisions publiées. Ces décisions concernent le droit des nouvelles technologies. Elles sont réparties en 9 catégories qui feront l'objet d'une étude spécifique pour chacune d'entre elles. Il s'agit de litiges en matière de: Vie privée, Responsabilité, Diffamation, E-commerce, Contenus illicites, Bases de données, Logiciel, Droit d'auteur, Nom de domaine.

• KR - Life in the fast lane (Guardian)
  Of the 16m Korean households, at least 78% have an active broadband connection - more than twice that of the UK. More than 12m individual broadband lines feed a country of 48 million people, pumping data between four and 100 times faster than typical broadband connections in the UK. According to recent reports, Koreans spend more than 20 hours a week surfing the internet - more than twice as long as Britons - and online shopping accounts for 12% of retail sales.

• Mobile downloads to overtake the net (Guardian)
  The mobile phone could overtake the internet as the most popular medium for music downloads before the year is out, the global record industry lobby group has predicted. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said 3G technology would drive the growth of digital music downloads to mobiles. UK mobile phone companies are predicting 3G sales to boom this Christmas, as handsets become more affordable. Digital Music Report 2005.

• OECD: Broadband internet to reshape entire communication sector (Euractiv)
  A new OECD study predicts stiff competition for traditional fixed-line telephony from internet-based solutions. The OECD's 2005 Communication Outlook comes just as traditional telephony carriers are recovering from a period of non-profitability, but, the authors say, they may soon be plunging back into the red. The main threat comes from Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony, which poses a series of challenges - especially to the profitable market in long-distance foreign calls. Using programmes such as the popular Skype VoIP application, users can cut 80% of their phone costs.

• P2P file-sharers shun music for software and games (Silicon)
  Peer-to-peer networks are no longer dominated by pirated music files - now, it's cracked software, games and films that are doing the rounds on P2P. According to research from CacheLogic, video content now makes up almost 62 per cent of all traffic on the four largest P2P networks - BitTorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella and Fastrack, the network used by Kazaa. Audio formats are now just some 11 per cent of all P2P traffic, with the remaining 27 per cent being dedicated to 'other' content, such as games and software. see also graph.

• P2P users traveling by eDonkey (CNET News.com)
  A new study by ISP network service CacheLogic suggests that file swappers around the world are converging on a new favorite technology, possibly in response to pressure by Hollywood studios. Last year, British company CacheLogic said BitTorrent - a peer-to-peer technology optimized for downloading large files - was accounting for more than half of all the file-swapping traffic on Internet service provider networks around the world. A year later, peer-to-peer traffic in general continues to account for the majority of data traffic on ISP networks, usually between 50 percent and 70 percent of the total, the company said. But BitTorrent has been overtaken by usage of eDonkey, a rival with more power to search for content, but with similar speedy download features.

• UK - Tease not sleaze on mobile phones (Guardian)
  At the height of the dotcom boom, as mobile phone companies began looking for revenues from non-voice services, adult content was lauded as a money-spinner based on its success in the online world. Since then, all the UK operators have dabbled in the provision of erotic content, either directly or by allowing customers to access content provided by third parties. But the figures do not match the hype. In its report into the mobile entertainment industry, Informa's prediction for the entire mobile phone content market, including music and gaming, is $43bn by 2010. Adult services will account for just 5% of the market.

Issue no. 342 - 31 July 2005

• Boom in legal music downloads (Guardian)
  Legal music downloads have tripled in the past year, an international record industry lobby group said, citing the figures as further proof it is winning the war against piracy. IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents 1,450 record companies in 75 countries, said there were more legal downloads in the US, Britain, Germany and France in the first half of 2005 than in the whole of 2004. IFPI Press Release.

• UK - Online file sharers 'buy more music' (Guardian)
  Computer-literate music fans who illegally share tracks over the internet also spend four and a half times as much on digital music as those who do not, according to research conducted by the music research firm The Leading Question.

• UK prefers broadband to dial-up (BBC)
  Broadband has officially overtaken dial-up as the most popular way for Britons to connect to the internet, government statistics show According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), broadband overtook dial-up in May, making up 50.7% of all net connections.

• US - Teens spurn e-mail for messaging (BBC)
  US teenagers prefer instant messaging rather than e-mail to stay in touch with each other, research shows. A Pew Internet and American Life Project study found online teens are increasingly tech-savvy. Nearly nine out of 10 teenagers say they use the net, up from 74 percent in 2000, according to the Pew study. While e-mail is seen as a tool for communicating with adults, instant messaging was proving the most popular way to chat with friends. Press release.

Issue no. 341 - 9 July 2005

• Mobile content downloading to treble, says report (silicon.com)
  Over the course of the coming 12 months, the market for mobile content, excluding pornography, is set to treble to ?7.6bn, a report from LogicaCMG has found. Around one-fifth of mobile users worldwide have downloaded content via their phone to date - and that figure is expected to rise to 60 per cent in the next 12 months. Ringtones, games and music are the favourite content types, with news and sports also gaining ground. A separate survey recently predicted such 'infotainment' will hit $4.5bn by the year 2007.

• UK - News sites toil as visits rocket (BBC)
  People turned to the net in their millions to check friends and family were fine following the London attacks. Some news sites got a month's traffic on Thursday and the huge surge in visitors caused problems for others. Net monitoring services reported brief outages at some news sites and some pages took longer than normal to load. E-mail traffic reportedly doubled in response to congestion on mobile networks which made it hard to get through to people in central London.

• US - Spyware problems have struck tens of millions of computer users (Pew Internet & American Life Project)
  Tens of millions of Americans have been struck by so-called spyware. Fully 91% of internet users have changed the way they behave online as they try to avoid unwanted and invasive software. Report.

Issue no. 340 - 23 June 2005

• Broadband tips scales against print (Guardian)
  Broadband internet growth will propel the value of the worldwide entertainment and media industries to $1.8 trillion (£990bn) by 2009, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts, as print publishers cede ground to new media. Legal online distribution of games, videos and movies is also tipped to accelerate, countering the effect of piracy. Total spending from new revenue streams such as broadband and digital downloads will rocket from $11.4bn to $73bn over the next five years, according to PwC's report, Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2005-2009.

• EU - High-speed internet connections growing fast (RAPID)
  Take-up of high-speed broadband internet connections is growing fast. There are now 40 million broadband lines in the EU, an increase of 70% on last year. This represents 45 000 new broadband lines on average per day, up from 29 000 per day in 2003. Broadband access in the EU - Situation at 1 January 2005.

• Europe - TV & Radio lose out to Internet among youth audience (Press Release)
  15-24 year olds across Europe are spending less time watching TV and listening to the radio as a result of using the Internet, according to research from the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), the pan-European trade organisation for sellers of interactive media. Almost half of 15-24 year olds (46%) are watching less TV, preferring instead to browse the web while 22% are listening to less radio. A third of those questioned are even reading less, choosing to consume information over the Internet.

Issue no. 339 - 29 May 2005

• EU - Internet usage in the EU 25 (OfcomWatch)
  A report released by Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Communities) has just presented the results of surveys of internet usage in the 25 EU Member States as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Norway and Iceland (the report also covers broadband connections, e-commerce and e-government). The reference period was the first quarter of 2004. Press Release.

• OECD Broadband Statistics, December 2004 (OECD)
  Broadband markets continued their rapid growth in the OECD during 2004. While all OECD countries have seen an increase in broadband subscriptions, growth has been particularly rapid in parts of Europe. The expansion of broadband networks in 2004 has brought with it a host of new services in many OECD countries, including voice over IP and video over broadband.

Issue no. 338 - 7 May 2005

• 50 Millionen Downloads für Mozilla-Webbrowser Firefox (Heise)
  Die Mozilla-Foundation bejubelt 50 Millionen Downloads ihres Standalone-Webbrosers Firefox. Mitte Februar erst erreichte Firefox die Marke von 25 Millionen Downloads, 99 Tage nach Veröffentlichung der Version 1.0. Browser-Anteile auf heise online im April 2005: Firefox 39,6 %, Internet Explorer 6.0x 29,7 %. Browser-Hersteller: Mozilla & co (Gecko-Engine)48,8 %,Microsoft 32,1 %.

• P2P Fuels Global Bandwidth Binge (Wired)
  Internet users consumed more bandwidth than ever last year, driven by the growing popularity of peer-to-peer networks and heightened demand for video files. Burgeoning demand also prompted internet carriers to upgrade their network capacity to handle the upswing in traffic. "From mid-2004, we saw a significant shift away from music and on to video," said Andrew Parker, chief technical officer at CacheLogic, a firm based in England that monitors global peer-to-peer traffic. CacheLogic estimates that P2P applications consume between 60 percent and 80 percent of capacity on consumer ISP networks. Efforts by the film and recording industries to crack down on illegal trading of copyright works haven't resulted in a drop in traffic volumes. In North America, where the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America have focused enforcement efforts, Parker said there has been virtually no change in P2P traffic levels since the groups began cracking down on illegal file trading. "In some parts of the world we have seen the opposite happen. The publicity created by the MPAA actually drove users to find out what all the fuss was about and resulted in an increase in traffic levels," Parker said.

• UK - Broadband hits 43 per cent of net connections (vnunet.com)
  The latest monthly update from National Statistics shows a modest 1.9 per cent increase in the number of active UK subscriptions to the internet in the 12 months to February 2005. The market share for broadband connections continued to increase, and currently accounts for 43 per cent of all connections. This compares with a market share of 23.6 per cent a year earlier.

• UK now has more mobiles than people (vnunet.com)
  There are now more mobile phones in the UK than people, according to a report from management consultants Analysys. Mobile penetration in the UK, Sweden and Italy rose to 101 per cent, 103 per cent and 104 per cent respectively in 2005. The company expects the rest of Europe to reach 100 per cent by 2007, largely due to customers with more than one phone. Attempts by some countries to move customers from pre-pay to contract services have hurt growth.

Issue no. 337 - 13 April 2005

• UK - BT hits 5M target - well ahead of time (CommsWatch)
  Three years ago, BT set itself some ambitious targets for broadband wholesale customers: Summer 2003 1 million, Summer 2004 2 million, Summer 2006 5 million. BT has announced that it has achieved its target of 5 million broadband customers - more than year ahead of the planned timetable.

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