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Viewing report
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2008 Europe - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in United Kingdom and Ireland
Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd., Nov 2008, Pages: 203
Ireland’s medium sized telecom market made steady gains in 2008 to address its relatively low broadband penetration rate. The incumbent eircom considered implementing Europe’s first voluntary structural separation earlier in the year before abandoning the exercise for want of government cooperation with part-funding its broadband infrastructure upgrade. eircom investment plans during the next two years are uncertain as the company’s owner, Babcock & Brown, has suffered from the 2008 financial downturn.
The UK, which has one of Europe’s largest and most vibrant telecom markets, retains the largest digital TV market in the European Union. In 2008 digital TV was viewed by almost 90% of UK TV households. DTTV is the most popular TV platform, followed by digital satellite from BSkyB and the BBC’s FreeSat service, launched in March 2008.
The continuing success of BT’s Openreach has helped develop a highly competitive broadband sector, while mobile network upgrades have for the first time enabled mobile broadband services to be a viable alternative to fixed-line services. In conjunction with BT’s hybrid VDSL/fibre plans and the deployment of a 50Mb/s service to most of Virgin Media’s network during 2009, these developments have stimulated the market for triple play services.
Key highlights:
- 2009 will see a further maturity on the quad-play market as operators such as Virgin Media, BSkyB, Vodafone and BT develop commercial interests beyond their historical areas of interest. The fast growing Sky Broadband service ended caps on data usage in mid-2008, highlighting the robustness of its infrastructure and placing enormous pressure on competitors to lift their similar restrictions.
- The Irish government in June 2008 proposed upgrading the national broadband network to achieve universal access by 2010 with data rates matching EU counterparts by 2012. The move would address the country’s slow connection rates which have put a brake on consumer take-up of triple play.
- The UK’s digital and pay TV markets remain among the most developed in Europe, with a range of services reached by about 90% of the population. The imminent aggregated IPTV service Kangaroo service would provide content from the BBC, ITV and C4.
- The mobile data market looks set to grow rapidly in 2009 after operators introduced fixed-price plans, so encouraging consumer use of services. Fierce market competition will favour consumers in coming years as network operators battle churn and try to encourage the use of data services over their completed HSPA networks.
- The UK’s government has shown greater determination to promote fibre in coming years. Two 2008 reports on funding next generation broadband services estimated the cost for national infrastructure to 80% of homes with fibre at between £5 and £29 billion, depending on the deployment chosen. BT’s belated plans to build a VDSL/FttC network covering 40% of households by 2012 may be overtaken by market support of the more expensive but future-proof FttH.
Broadband penetration in Ireland and the UK – 2005 - 2009
Year Ireland UK
2005 7% 16%
2006 12% 21%
2007 18% 26%
2008 22% 29%
2009(e) 25% 33%
(Source: BuddeComm based on industry sources)
Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.
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