European operators ‘playing possum’?
Fixed-line and mobile operators in Europe are facing quite a dilemma. On the one hand they are being pressured by European Commissioner Neelie Kroes to improve their network broadband speeds and capacity and that they are not investing enough to meet EU targets. On the other, their customers are wanting to use their internet connections [...]
Carrier billing for content doomed?
Carrier billing for content services is doomed in advanced markets because of fundamental conflicts of interest, and standalone payment specialists are best placed to handle charging. That’s the view from mobile content entrepreneur Simon Buckingham, speaking to Telecoms.com. His latest venture ‘Appitalism’ seeks to combine social networking and the application store model. The gist of Buckingham’s [...]
Can the iPad save CSPs?
It’s not even being delivered yet but I bet most of you are already sick of hearing about the Apple iPad. If you are a CSP (Communications Service Provider) you are probably dreading the extra load it is going to put on your mobile network and how you won’t necessarily see an incremental increase in [...]
Content may be the Emperor, but charging is King.
News Corporation was well advanced in setting up online charging for its newspapers around the world, chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch has stated declaring the company on the threshold of a new era of profitability.
Microsoft & Murdoch Mull Gagging Google
Numerous reports are emerging that Microsoft and media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, are in discussions about removing News Corporation indexes from Google and making its news content exclusively available on Microsoft’s Bing.
People are willing to pay for online news content
If anyone doubted my previous blog regarding Rupert Murdoch’s claim that people would be willing to pay for online news content, the New York Times reports the following. Americans, it turns out, are willing to pay for their online news, but less so than people in many other Western countries, according to a new study by the [...]
Rupert has it right!
Rupert Murdoch is not a man to be ignored. His recent proclamation that good internet content will need to be paid for may have drawn howls from the critics but he makes good sense. So what has Rupert’s stance got to do with us, you may well ask?