Broadband growth has been very strong in the UK, with 7 million businesses and households connecting to the Internet via a broadband cable or DSL connection at the end of Q1 2005. Driven by rapid migration of dial-up Internet users to broadband, we expect high levels of net adds to continue in 2005 and 2006, before declining steeply as the market approaches saturation.

As unbundlers in France increasingly look to migrate their customers from shared to full access – principally to sever the underlying telephony customer relationship with the incumbent and reduce churn – Fastweb in Italy has decided to go in the opposite direction.

In January this year, Ofcom published its eagerly-awaited consultation document, “Spectrum Framework Review: Implementation Plan”, containing its plans for the release of new mobile spectrum and the liberalisation of existing mobile spectrum. This report reviews the implications of Ofcom's hesitant moves towards spectrum liberalisation and the vast amount of new mobile spectrum that will be released onto the market.

We find that the hype is overblown, with low underlying consumer interest and the potential for a mass market service still several years away due to 3G actually being an inappropriate delivery mechanism.

Handset manufacturers are likely to be the only significant winners from mobile TV, able to keep top-end handset prices high with yet another seldom-used feature.

H3G has made great strides this year, but these have mainly been in terms of reported subscribers and market perception rather than in fundamental terms. In this report we examine in depth both its global business model and the all-important funding available in order to assess the likely future for the business, and its subsequent impact on the GSM operators.

The experience in France of local loop unbundling (LLU) could be indicative of LLU in the UK. About 20% of France's 6 million DSL connections will be unbundled by Q4 2004 (just 4.5% of all lines), and the LLU share of DSL connections could climb to 50% by the end of 2006.

Vodafone this week announced its formal 3G launch to great fanfare, with new handsets, services and pricing. This brief note gives our view on the launch and likely impact in Europe and Japan.

TV-over-DSL has been pioneered in the UK by HomeChoice and Kingston Interactive Television (KIT), but their combined customer base is only about 15,000. ISPs and telcos are considering TV as a potential extra application for the local networks they intend to build in urban areas by unbundling local loops. We define TV-over-DSL as the multicast distribution of conventional free-to-air (FTA), subscription and PPV channels over the copper wire to the TV set. Unicast on demand video (VoD) services is the subject of a forthcoming report because its characteristics and market context are entirely different.

NTL’s successful reshaping of its balance sheet over the last two years since it emerged from Chapter 11 has meant that the company is now a reliable future generator of cash. Management disciplines have improved substantially. Unsurprisingly, the company would therefore also like to be considered as a growth stock.

This note updates on 3G in Japan [2004-24] after visits to NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone Japan, and recent announcements in advance of Vodafone’s investor day next week. We conclude that the market's outlook remains poor and, in particular, Vodafone Japan will struggle.

The profitability of the UK 2G mobile networks depends on the continued avoidance of a price war. Are there any signs yet of retail price erosion? This report suggests that mobile prices have in fact risen in the last two years, despite the entry of ‘3’, the growth of Virgin Mobile and the regulatory pressure on termination charges.