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Ofcom to force down wholesale broadband costs, but BT disputes decision

UK broadband prices could drop after regulator announces wholesale price cut

The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has said it will be forcing down the prices that Openreach, the wholesale division of incumbent BT, can charge for broadband and telephone rental. The proposed charge controls would reduce the cost of a “fully unbundled line” from £91.50 to £87.41, and shared unbundled line, where an ISP used the line just to provide broadband, would drop from £14.70 to £11.92, while the cost for phone rental services would drop from £103.68 to £98.81.

Sky looks to retain position with fibre and IPTV offerings

Sky is looking to cut off Netflix, as the UK's go to choice for internet based TV and movies

Sky, the UK TV broadcaster and ISP has announced that it is adding a fibre broadband product to its internet packages, while also for the first time offering an á la carte internet TV service to compete with UK newcomer Netflix.

Sky’s fibre service, based on the UK incumbent BT’s wholesale network, will offer download speed of 40Mb at a cost of £20 a month, undercutting BT. Sky said that the fibre package would be available to 30 per cent of UK homes, and that this would increase in line with BT’s fibre rollout.

Virgin Media to boost speeds for UK cable customers

Virgin Media will increase speeds cable broadband speeds in the UK for free up to 120Mb

UK broadband provider Virgin Media has announced that it is to double the broadband speeds of most of its customers at no extra cost. The ISP, which provides hybrid cable connectivity to four million households across the UK, said that it will double the top-line speeds of all those on its 10Mb, 20Mb, 30Mb and 50Mb packages, while increasing those already on its 100Mb package to 120Mb.

Changing the landscape

Nima Pournejatian is chief technology officer, of Iran’s MobinNet

Nima Pournejatian is the chief technology officer of Iran’s MobinNET Telecom and is speaking on day one of the Broadband MEA conference, due to be held on the 27th March 2012, at the Westin Mina Seyahi Beach Resort and Marina, Dubai, UAE. We catch up with him to find out more about how MobinNET is changing the landscape of the broadband market in Iran.

A land of opportunity

Jayhun Mollazade, CEO of Azqtel. Its WiMAX network covers the city of Baku, Azerbaijan

Jayhun Mollazade was a man with an idea. As an Azerbaijani citizen living in the USA he saw an opportunity to dramatically improve the ageing and archaic soviet telecoms infrastructure of the former Soviet state. Over the past five years, Azerbaijan has put an emphasis on developing its ICT sector and as a result the country now has three mobile carriers along with several ISPs offering ADSL based fixed-line internet connectivity. While the broadband market was growing by 30-40 per cent each year only one of the local carriers was offering 3G services and Mollazade and his partners saw that there was a real opportunity to offer high speed wireless data services.

William Yeung, CEO, Hong Kong Broadband Network

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Telecoms.com talks to William Yeung, CEO, Hong Kong Broadband Network at Broadband World Forum 2011.

Vasiliy Birulin, Head of Multimedia, Beeline

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Telecoms.com talks to Vasiliy Birulin, Head of Multimedia, Beeline at Broadband World Forum 2011.

Valerie Layan, VP Wireless Soltuions and Marketing, EMEA, Alcatel-Lucent

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Telecoms.com talks to Valerie Layan, VP Wireless Soltuions and Marketing, EMEA, Alcatel-Lucent at Broadband World Forum 2011.

Timur Ceylan, Vice President – Technology, Turk Telekom

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Telecoms.com talks to Timur Ceylan, Vice President – Technology, Turk Telekom at Broadband World Forum 2011.

Sunil Kanti Bose, Secretary – Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

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SunilKantiBose, Secretary – Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh