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The BBC has finally been given permission to continue full steam ahead with Project Canvas after getting the nod from the BBC Trust.
Project Canvas is a joint venture to bring internet-video services to television that includes Carphone Warehouse, the BBC, Channel 4, BT, Five, and ITV. It has been officially under review since February of 2009.
The aim of the project is to offer on demand video to subscribers over broadband. Its largest opponent has been BSkyB which is owned by the News Corporation.
This morning the BBC Trust is expected to announce that it will offer its support. In order to get the Canvas technology consumers will need to purchase new set-top boxes priced at about ?200 that should become available by the end of 2010.
A source close to Project Canvas stated that the decision will be positive although it will come with conditions. However, the source stated that the conditions will not be too large or confining.
Canvas will offer up content to users from NHS Direct, LoveFilm, possibly Hulu, and the BBC iPlayer. Additional organizations that want to add access to their content will be welcome to submit application designs that users can shop in much like the Apple app store.
The announcement of approval will welcome the wrath of Virgin Media and Sky who have insisted that it discriminates against pay per use TV operators and that it will not offer anything new on the market that currently is not already available on the commercial market.
Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan
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Tesco unveiled a new plan yesterday to bundle home phone packages and broadband deals in order to compete with the major providers of broadband such as Carphone Warehouse, BT, and Virgin Media.
The retailer announced that it will be able to offer the new package services for the next five years after signing a deal with Cable & Wireless.
Tesco announced the new plans after a two day seminar was conducted with analysts in order to fulfil Tesco?s goal of becoming one of the top telecoms service providers in the UK.
It estimates that it will need to continue to make around ?200m in profits and ?2b in sales annually past its normal medium term. If it achieved this goal the company would gain just under a tenth of the telecoms market in the UK which is valued in total at ?22b per year.
Chief executive of Tesco Telecoms, Lance Batchelor, stated that the combined home phone and broadband bundle deals is the core of the plans for expansion. Batchelor continued to say that this would propel Tesco into the same arena of the major providers in the UK such as Talk Talk and BT.
Consumer experts believe that the new move by Tesco is significant because bundle packages by the leading providers currently makes up a large percent of the market and will cause such providers to lower their prices in order to compete.
Batchelor also said that Tesco?s expenditures as a result of the move will be minimized due to the new partnership with Cable & Wireless.
Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan
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After a few months of rumours circulating about a possible Tesco mobile broadband deal, the giant supermarket chain has finally made it official, stating that by March of 2010 there will be 100 mobile stores open ready to serve customers.
Tesco first started offering its customers mobile deals at the end of 2008, and at the push of CEO Lance Batchelor, is working on a line of mobile broadband deals that will challenge the pay as you go tariffs offered by Carphone Warehouse.
The company is also thinking outside of mobile phones, as it also announced this past June that they will soon offer netbooks and laptops with mobile broadband contracts as an incentive to customers to sign up.
Already with the new pay as you go mobile contracts Tesco has seen an increase in sales of over 71% during the month of September. Acting on this success, the company has teamed up with mobile broadband suppliers, so that they can offer more deals to the public including deals that begin at under ?20 for a pay as you go dongle.
At the moment, Tesco has 52 mobile phone shops with plans in the future that if all goes well with the 100 store launch, that all Tesco Extra Stores will be outfitted with mobile outlets.
Filed under: Broadband Deals by Alan
