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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Virgin Media sees mobile broadband as complementary

    LONDON
    Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:46am EST

    LONDON (Reuters) - British cable operator Virgin Media said it did not believe mobile broadband had mass appeal in the short term, but it entered the market to offer the service in its high-end mobile, broadband and TV bundles.

    Technology  |  Media

    "Mobile broadband in the short to medium future will be a complementary product in the UK," Chief Executive Neil Berkett said at the Morgan Stanley annual Technology, Media and Telecoms conference in Barcelona.

    He said Virgin Media, which is listed in New York but operates in Britain, had entered the mobile broadband market last month -- with an offering from 15 pounds ($22.25) a month -- and would bundle the service in the same way as it bundles Virgin mobile.

    "At the top end of products, a dongle (mobile broadband modem) will be very cheap indeed," he said.

    Berkett reiterated his support for media regulator Ofcom's view that dominant pay-TV operator BSkyB should provide wholesale access to its premium movies, sport and high-definition content.

    "I have a high degree of confidence there will be a remedy in the marketplace, but not in the next quarter or so," he said.

    Berkett said that with only about 6 million households prepared to pay the current price for premium content, it was "highly unlikely" that Virgin would bid for Premier League football rights.

    (Reporting by Paul Sandle, editing by Will Waterman)
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