July 2011

[Commentary] A recent rundown we conducted on our monthly bills for communications, home entertainment and digital information was striking.

The bill for Cablevision in Connecticut was $232.64, covering cable (including HBO and Showtime) and broadband for our PCs. Our BlackBerrys were another $84.18 and $81.28. The two land lines were a relative bargain at $32.11 and $57.16. The best deal was a phone card for overseas calls (mainly to Beijing) at two cents a minute. Now, there are extenuating circumstances. As a consultant, my wife often works from a home office, and I do a lot of work (this piece, for example) at home also. Except for the cable bill, however, it is hard to separate the purely business from the personal calls and e-mails in what has become for so many of us a 24/7 rhythm of interaction with friends, families and colleagues. But add it all up and home technology has become a significant item in the household budget. As recently as the mid-1990s, dial-up AOL was about $20, and we probably had basic cable, but television was essentially still free, and cell phones were just for calls and, with a two-year contract, the devices mainly were provided gratis. All that added technology has also put pressure on electricity bills (ours can run as high $400 a month) and on the power grids that support the added equipment. USA Today reported recently that electric bills are so inflated in part because cable, satellite and other pay-TV boxes are always operating, even when they are not being used. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the 160 million set-top boxes in U.S. homes cost $3 billion to operate, and two-thirds of that power -- costing $2 billion -- was wasted, because, as one NRDC senior scientist told USA Today, they are "energy vampires," drawing a full quota of energy even when they are not on. The cable industry is working with manufacturers on more efficient equipment, a spokesman said, but it will be years before the overwhelming majority of set-tops are replaced.

More than one in10 homes and businesses that have broadband services are experiencing download speeds that fall short of the government’s target on basic Internet access, according to a survey published on July 6.

Ofcom, the telecoms watchdog, found that at the end of last year 14 per cent of UK premises with fixed-line broadband had download speeds of less than 2 megabits per second, which is broadly the level necessary to watch video-over-the-Internet services, such as the BBC iPlayer. Ofcom’s report, which includes an interactive map, also highlighted how consumers in urban areas often enjoy much faster Internet access than those in the countryside. Cities such as London, Bristol and Edinburgh secured top scores in Ofcom’s review of local authority areas, which included analysis fixed-line broadband take-up, download speeds and availability of superfast Internet access. Rural areas including County Durham, Cumbria and Herefordshire secured low scores.

Telstra Corp., Australia’s biggest phone company, will combine its sales and retail teams into a single unit after agreeing last month to hand over fixed-line assets to the government’s national broadband network.

Gordon Ballantyne will head the customer division, which will be responsible for sales to consumers, business and government, Melbourne-based Telstra said. Deena Shiff will lead a new applications and ventures unit targeting services such as education and health. Telstra agreed last month to give up control of its copper- wire assets to the government’s fiber network in exchange for A$11 billion ($11.8 billion) of compensation, ending its role as a wholesaler to other phone and Internet service providers. Chief Executive Officer David Thodey is also creating specialist teams for cloud-computing and media services and centralizing services such as human resources and finance to cut costs.

The fight against cyber crime needs a stronger common international legal framework to enable perpetrators outside the country of their victims to be tracked down and punished, a British security official said.

James Brokenshire, a Home Office (Interior Ministry) Minister for Crime and Security, added in remarks to reporters that governments and companies had to work much more closely together to fight the "scammers, fraudsters and hackers" who were creating a truly global problem. "Active international partnerships are central to tackling cyber crime," he said. "There needs to be an international response including international treaties, bilateral treaties and common agreements between countries."