Vodafone have released new mobile roaming charges for Internet use which will help make usage abroad more affordable. The new rates vary depending on whether you access via your phone or your laptop (presumably by a mobile broadband data contract).

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3999···use.html

The government's proposed 50p monthly levy on fixed copper lines will not be enough to finance fibre broadband access for the entire UK, BT has said.

Full story: »news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/···1,00.htm

Following the release of Lord Carter's Digital Britain Report, the Business & Enterprise Committee of the House of Commons has announced today its intention to open an inquiry into broadband speeds in the UK.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3998···eds.html

Virgin Media and Universal Pictures have announced that PictureBox, an on-demand movie service will launch on the Virgin TV platform in July. The service will allow TV subscribers to view films whenever they like from a rolling selection of 28 films for £5 pounds a month.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3997···dia.html

BT Openzone is set to expand further with a deal to put hotspots in cashpoints, forgetting for a moment that it's not a mobile phone network, and making maximum use of the unlicensed spectrum available to Wi-Fi.

Full story: »www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22···x_wi_fi/

Digital Britain Lord Carter's report on Digital Britain has quite a lot to say on spectrum allocations, though there are still significant gaps to fill before we have a radio spectrum master plan.

Full story: »www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/18···pectrum/

BT is examining its fibre to the cabinet roll out plans and considering increasing coverage to 90% of homes after details of the planned 50p tax on phone lines was revealed in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report on Tuesday.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3995···tax.html

One of the biggest surprises in the Digital Britain report was the news that everyone with a fixed line telephone would pay a broadband tax.

Full story: »news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8105068.stm

So what is the future for the Digital Economy in Britain? The final report has been published and makes for a 245 page report, split into nine chapters, the report in PDF format can be downloaded from www.culture.gov.uk (it is available as a single 3MB PDF file, or a Word document summary, or a single PDF file per chapter).

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3994···out.html

The government plans to impose a 50 pence monthly levy on every phone and broadband line to fund the rollout of fibre to rural areas, it was announced today.

Full story: »www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/16/fibre_levy/

One of the major problems that has held back UK broadband has been the short pay back periods that projects are normally tied to, often as short as three years before a return on investment has to be shown.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3987···and.html

There has been music download services previously, but often these were hampered by Digital Rights Management with rules whereby you stopped your subscription and all the music you had downloaded would no longer play.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3989···ice.html

Two thirds of people pirating content would continue to download illegal material following a warning letter from their ISP according to a survey of 1,500 people for media law firm Wiggin.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3983···ngs.html

Video over an Internet connection is hardly new, back in the dark ages of 2000 there were places where 300Kbps video streams could be found. In 2009 we now have a myriad of totally legal video sources, some in the UK and some hosted abroad, offering video at a wide range of qualities.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3984···ent.html

Channel 4 will be making its back catalogue of programmes available via its 4oD (4 on-demand) online service from July.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3979···4od.html

A brief update this month from the Office of the Telecommunications Adjudicator (OTA2) on the broadband front.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3977···nes.html

Carphone Warehouse have today announced that they will separate TalkTalk from the Carphone Warehouse / Best Buy Europe business by July 2010.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3976···010.html

The Communications Consumer Panel, an independent policy advisory body to Ofcom on consumer interests, has released a study that shows that of the 2,000 people in their 16 focus groups, 84% believe that everyone should have access to broadband no matter where they live, and 73% believe that a low income should not be a barrier to getting it.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3973···ial.html

BT customers will begin to enjoy the result of its much delayed 21CN network upgrade as it today begins to convert its retail broadband offering nationwide to ADSL2+, which will offer speeds of "up to" 20Mbit/s.

Full story: »www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/03/bt_adsl2/

Griffin Internet, the channel focussed business ISP, has confirmed it will be participating in BT's first fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) trials starting on the 1st of July.

Full story: »www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3972···ial.html