It should be no surprise to anyone to hear again from me that I regard Sweden as one of (if not the) most advanced countries in the world in terms of OPLAN development and deployment.  As is always the case, being ‘first’ sometimes carries its own penalties and Stokab, the open access fibre network in Stockholm which led the world by being 'first' over ten years ago, has certainly had some hurdles to overcome since then.  But last week I was in Stockholm with various supporters of the OPLAN Foundation and was impressed.  Here is something of what is going on....

We all know a media giant when we see one, but did you know they could fight?  Well in the UK over the past week, there has been a battle royal waging between two of the biggest.  In the red corner, Sir Richard Branson and his newly minted "Virgin Media" (born out of NTL/TeleWest's £950m purchase of Virgin Mobile) and  in the blue corner,  Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB which markets the SKY satellite service.  And in the middle of the ring, under the feet of both of them - poor down-trodden consumers.  Let me give you the background.  As one journalist commented, "The only thing missing in this drama is sex."  In case you are wondering - these are two vertically integrated schizophrenic media giants.  Both have their own exclusive distribution networks and both see their fortune coming from using those networks to sell to their consumers, services and 'content' - some of which they own outright and some of which they buy in from others on a wholesale basis....