Economist on VoIP

"The acquisition by eBay of Skype is a helpful reminder to the world's
trillion-dollar telecoms industry that all phone calls will eventually
be free"

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4400704

VoIP / VoI / VoB

Voice over broadband in France: no regulation on internet telephony
required

The European Commission today endorsed the plans of French national
telecoms regulator ARCEP[1] <> to boost competition in fixed-line
telephony markets. The Commission agrees that ARCEP's regulatory
approach to Internet telephony is an efficient way to encourage
competition between internet carriers of telephone traffic and
traditional telephone networks, but also calls upon it to monitor this
part of the retail market closely for any anti-competitive practices and
if necessary intervene to remedy them.

Conversely, "Voice over the (public) Internet" (VoI) require the
installation of software on a computer and are therefore available only
to a limited customer base. In addition, unlike VoB telephony services,
providers of VoI services are not able to guarantee a quality of
services comparable to traditional telephony, since they do not control
the underlying broadband infrastructure. Therefore, such services are
not part of the relevant markets under review.

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/1146&amp;format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

China's media crackdown

An interesting overview on the challenges the Chinese TV landscape faces
at the moment, by Pietro Ventani for the Asian Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GH27Ad02.html.

China Working Towards the Launch of Telecom Service Fund (ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog)

An article recently published through China Radio International (CRI)
states
that China is working on a program to launch a telecom popularization
service fund. According to an official of the Chinese Ministry of
Information Industry, a common understanding on the launch of the
fund has been reached, but there is so far no related timetable. This
statement was made public at a seminar jointly sponsored by the ministry
and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
To access the full article, click here.
http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/newslog/China+Working+Towards+The+Launch+Of+Telecom+Service+Fund.aspx

COMMENTARY: Dotcom Boom, Version 2

COMMENTARY: Dotcom Boom, Version 2.
Dotcom Boom, Version 2.0
By The Village Grouch
For those of you who cashed in your Netscape shares early and spent the
last six years in a cave, at sea on your yacht, meditating in the
Himalayan foothills, or otherwise out of touch with the world: welcome
back. You'll notice that a few things are different. New York is now
short two very tall buildings, there's a Bush fighting a war in Iraq
again, Hong Kong has a new chief executive, and gasoline is really,
really expensive.
http://www.chinatechnews.com/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=2955

EP backs careful revision of 'TV without frontiers'

EP backs careful revision of 'TV without frontiers'
Parliament has proposed only minor changes to the Television without
Frontiers (TVWF) directive, in a report on promoting works made in
Europe and by independent producers.
http://Euractiv.cabestan.com/Go/index.cfm?WL=31075&WS=57747_1877436&WA=2
758