Information Policy

400,000 Norwegian domain names

Yesterday the counter at Norid rounded 400 000 domain names for the first time. The number has increased tenfold in ten years, and the growth is still strong. A domain name within .no is an obvious first choice among Norwegian companies.

http://www.norid.no/nytt/pressemelding20080924.en.html

European Parliament supports alternative and community media

The European Parliament, meeting in Brussels last week for its plenary session, adopted a report by Karin Resetarits (Die Liberalen, Austria) which calls on the European Union to encourage alternative media in Europe in order to promote pluralism and cultural diversity. Stemming from the old family of 'free radio' and other pirate broadcasting, alternative media today is often a community media, addressing a certain category of the population for example the Muslim population, senior citizens or young people. They can be distinguished from commercial media by the fact that they are not profit-making but purely social, linked with their community by the service they provide. Mrs Resetarits would like to see this recognised by the European Commission and the Member States. The support measures recommended by Mrs Resetarits are mostly of a technical nature, legal (attribution of frequencies) and financial (possible financing by the EU)

http://www.ejc.net/media_news/european_parliament_supports_alternative_and_community_media/

Social Networking Sites: Commissioner Reding stresses their economic and societal importance for Europe

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, will today give a speech on Social Networking. It will be the first public statement of the Commissioner on this subject. The speech will be given at today's Safer Internet Forum that takes place in Luxembourg and focuses on Safer Internet and children this year. Commissioner Reding will underline the importance of self-regulation and will also meet representatives of the social networking companies Myspace and Dailymotion.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/465&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Number of cell phone subscribers to hit 4 billion this year, UN says

The number of mobile cellular subscribers worldwide will reach the 4 billion mark by the end of 2008, the head of the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) announced yesterday.

The number of subscribers has surged nearly 25 per cent annually for the past eight years. Mobile penetration stood at only 12 per cent in 2000, growing to reach over 60 per cent by the end of 2008.

“The fact that 4 billion subscribers have been registered worldwide indicates that it is technically feasible to connect the world to the benefits of ICT [information and communication technology] and that it is a visible business opportunity,” ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said in New York at a high-level event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight anti-poverty targets agreed upon by world leaders in 2000.

“Clearly, ICTs have the potential to act as catalysts to achieve the 2015 targets of the MDGs,” he added.

The ITU emphasized the need to carefully interpret data. A 61 per cent penetration rate does not mean in reality that every other person in the world is using a mobile phone; rather, the statistics reflect the number of subscriptions, not people. Double counting could occur if people have multiple cellular subscriptions, while some could be sharing their phone with others.

The agency also cautioned that penetration rates vary by region and even within countries.

Rapidly developing economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China are driving the growth in the number of cellular subscribers, with these nations alone accounting for over 1.3 billion of them by the end of 2008.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=27530&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

EU adopts law to raise telecom competition

BRUSSELS: The European Parliament adopted measures Wednesday to increase competition in EU telecommunications markets in a bid to give consumers a wider choice and less-costly services.

The EU telecommunications commissioner, Viviane Reding, who drafted the package, wants to make it easier for new entrants to compete with established operators in the €300 billion, or $440 billion, sector.

The EU assembly voted 597 in favor, with 55 against and 29 abstentions, on a proposal to force telecommunication companies to run their network and retail services as separate businesses to give competitors easier access to their networks.

Big operators like Deutsche Telekom and France Télécom opposed this "functional separation" measure, which would be a "last resort nuclear option" for national regulators if other pro-competition measures failed.

However, the assembly watered down another prime aspect of the package, Reding's proposal for an EU telecom "super regulator" that would also include Internet security.

It voted 490 to 105 to create a less powerful alternative, the Body of European Regulators in Telecoms, that would not include Internet security.

The body will be financed by a mix of EU and national funds. Reding wanted it paid for solely by the EU, a step she believed would ensure it was fully independent and not beholden to national governments that could be tempted to protect former state-owned operators.

"This vote is very good news for European consumers," said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for Reding. "It's a strong signal for the single market in the EU."

National governments have the final say on the package and the assembly's first vote will form the basis of a joint deal with member states.

The assembly also voted to scrap Reding's plan to give the European Commission a veto over national competition "remedies."

It backed steps to make more efficient EU-wide use of radio frequencies freed up by broadcasters switching from analog to digital so that mobile phone operators can offer new services in several countries.

However, the vote ensures that member states remain in charge of spectrum usage nationally, and Reding's aim of stronger EU-wide decision-making on spectrum was diluted.

The final measure, to be voted on later, will concern improving consumer protection by strengthening the obligation on operators to provide a minimum service of specific quality at an affordable price.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/24/business/telecom.php