The Federal Communications Commission’s Privacy Order (FCC) was overturned by the Senate, clearing the way for ISPs to ramp up consumer data-driven advertising revenue.

While Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising in the US as in other markets, the US is alone in removing regulatory barriers to ISPs taking a piece of the pie.

US ISPs now have a self-regulatory regime for consumer rights on transparency, security and data breaches; but in the UK and EU, privacy advocates prefer enforceable rights.

International subsidiaries continue to perform solidly 

C&W UK’s new Chairman John Pluthero’s turnaround strategy involves shedding 27,000 business customers and focusing on 800 of the largest accounts

Viability is a major concern. Although the Freeview channels and much of the on-demand content will be free, subscriber acquisition costs probably will exceed £200, while per subscriber on-demand revenues are unlikely to amount to much more than £1 or £2 per month 

C&W UK has warned of a sharp drop in organic EBITDA for C&W UK in 2006/07

The main underlying culprit was churn; as we predicted, this has risen as the subscriber base matures, choking off subscriber growth and increasing costs