Virgin Media’s plan to double the line speed of most of its broadband customers is the latest in a series of moves to retain its position as the leading high speed internet service provider in the face of BT’s deployment of next generation access (NGA)

The move presages further price increases and an upgrade to offers for new cable customers, but is in the first instance about retaining the large existing base of cable customers currently on 10 Mbit/s

The £150 million or so of incremental capex required is small in the context of NGA, but the impact both on cable churn and demand for higher speeds across the wider market is by no means certain

To draw in competitors to Canal+, French football Ligue 1 broadcasting rights are being tendered in 12 lots, offered in three sequential auctions (non-premium Fans matches, Premium, highlights)

H3G and T-Mobile have agreed to fully share their 3G networks, with their networks being roughly doubled to a combined 13,000 sites over the next two years

Just as digital switchover (DSO) has finally begun, TV broadband convergence is beginning to make its mark in the UK following the launch of hybrid broadcast reception and IPTV services over DSL. In this context, UK DTV Homes Platform Forecasts: 2003-2017 updates our long-term DTV platform homes forecasts from 2006 (UK DTV Platform Growth [2006-40]), covering the digital satellite (DST), cable (DCT) and terrestrial (DTT) platforms

At 30th September 2007 there were approximately 15.1 million fixed broadband subscribers in the UK and residential broadband penetration was approximately 54%. BT remains the country’s largest broadband provider supplying more than 4 million lines, while BSkyB remains the fastest growing ISP

Emap’s sale last week of its consumer magazine and radio divisions to H. Bauer, the German privately-held publisher, for £1.14 billion is nothing short of miraculous given declining consumption and advertising trends in those business sectors currently, and for 2008

Iliad is getting ever closer to securing the French 4th 3G licence on terms with which it is happy, with progress slow but seemingly inevitable, and a licence award likely in H2 2008 followed by service launch in 2010

Google has announced that it will be bidding for 700MHz spectrum in the US, after the FCC adopted most of the ‘open access’ provisions for which it lobbied

After two quarters that have fallen short of earlier guidance, TF1 Q3 results have at last met more subdued investor expectations of marginal growth in flagship TF1 channel advertising revenues in a total market expected to increase by about 4.5% in 2007, chiefly due to digital growth

European mobile revenue growth dropped again to 1.4% from 2.8% last quarter, although the roaming cuts mandated by the EU do approximately explain the drop