The internet is the UK’s fastest growing advertising medium, with spend rising 41% to £2.02 billion in 2006, and a further 30% rise expected for 2007. Three drivers underpin this growth: more intense use of the internet as broadband connections become standard, very strong growth in e-commerce, which is driving up paid-for search, and improving yields through rich-media formats. These factors will continue to propel growth of internet ad spend in the near future

Ofcom has reintroduced price cuts to the UK mobile call termination rates, cutting 2G call termination rates by between 9% and 19% over four years and introducing termination regulation for 3G calls that will cut rates by 45%

UK broadband market growth fell to 3.2 million net additions in 2006 from 3.8 million in 2005. With 47% of UK households already on broadband, new entrant unbundlers (BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse) are racing against the clock of a maturing market to sign up customers

H3G’s H2 2006 results were a mixed bag, with the UK’s revenue growth strong but Italy’s weak, churn reduced but unit SACs up, and non-SAC operating costs reduced but capex up sharply

Iliad’s 2006 results were solid with broadband subscriber growth on target, DSL market share up one point to 19%, ARPU up 7% to €34.5/month and churn (enviably) at just below 1% per month. Over 1 million of Iliad’s subscribers have dropped France Télécom line rental and Iliad now completely owns those fixed-line telecoms customer relationships

Aggregate mobile service revenue growth in the December quarter was stable at 4.2% although, given an easing of termination rate cuts, the underlying growth actually dropped by 0.5 percentage points

Mobile handset form factors have continued to multiply, but the general trend is for flagship models to be slimmer, sleeker and more metallic

Virgin Media’s Q4 results were again mixed – increasing competition is continuing to have a significant effect on net additions but, as yet, most higher ARPU customers are staying put, permitting modest revenue growth

Mobile WiMAX is still being heavily hyped as the future of mobile broadband, with Sprint in the US, with its $3 billion network rollout, being lauded as the pioneer

Vodafone and Orange are planning to share their 3G networks in the UK, and are looking at potentially sharing their 2G networks in due course