Ofcom report
Ofcom just released a report today about global telecommunications developments. Key findings here.
Unsurprisingly, people are watching less television, spending less time reading newspapers, spending less time listening to radio offline. Young people do even less of these things. And Ofcom notes that there is a lot of online advertising.
Ofcom is absorbed with “convergence” — that word for the future that current incumbents would like to see, when services are available online but neatly divided into labeled “IPTV,” “movies” etc. categories. The data seems to indicate that convergence is already here, without the need for labels — and the categories aren't always so clear.
And, this just in:
Our 2006 UK Communications Market research on young people in the UK has highlighted the growing role of the internet as an integral part of the social fabric for many young adults today, with the majority using it as a tool for interacting with peers and meeting new people via online communities, often referred to as ‘social networking’.
Aha.
But on a serious note, this:
Next-generation networks (NGNs) will be able to carry the full range of current communications services via data packets, and the nature and timing of NGN deployment will depend partially on the policy decisions regulators make about whether to intervene (and in what manner) in relation to these infrastructure upgrades.
What? The internet already can carry any packet. With enough bandwidth installed, any kind of communication can be watched and interacted with enjoyably. So what's missing that requires an acronym? Why not say we're deploying bandwidth — why invoke a whole slew of centralized standard-setting exercises?
Much to ponder, at any rate.
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