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NEWS Monday 15th August to Friday 19th August 2005
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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
| Tuesday | |||||
Hong Kong's biggest fixed-line phone company, PCCW posted a 25 percent rise in first-half net profit as its pay TV operation helped offset ferocious competition in its core business.
The company controlled
by Richard Li, said its net profit attributable to shareholders for the first
half totalled US$122 million. PCCW said it has 441,000 NOW broadband pay TV
users.
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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has demanded that Time Warner buy back $20 billion of its stock and spin off its cable division, has met with top executives.
A Time Warner spokesman, said Icahn and company executives "had a frank and open exchange of views."
Last week, Icahn
disclosed that his $2 billion hedge fund held five million shares in the company
in March and had been quietly building his position. He has told other hedge
funds that he believes that Time Warner's stock could be worth about $27 a
share if it spun off the cable unit and bought back shares. TW traded around
at $18.30 this week.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals has delivered TiVo a victory in a lawsuit that was filed against the DVR company in 2001 by Pause Technology. The court affirmed an earlier judgment, which also went in favour of TiVo, from a U.S. District Court judge. That decision found that TiVo did not infringe Pause's patent concerning the rewinding, fast-forwarding and pausing of TV programs.
TiVo said it
plans to seek an order from the district court declaring the matter an "exceptional
case," and requiring Pause to pay all of its attorneys' fees and costs
related to the litigation. TiVo has filed patent applications covering the
design, functionality and operation of its DVR and TiVo service. TiVo also
said has been awarded a number of patents relating to controlling streaming
media in a digital device, including the functions that enable DVRs to pause
live TV as well as rewind, fast-forward, play, play faster, play slower, and
play in reverse television signals cached by the DVR.
Back to top
Al Jazeera TV Network is gearing up for the launch of two new sports channels. The channels, named as Al Jazeera Sports Plus-1 and Al Jazeera Sports Plus-2, will be available for a nominal annual subscription on DTH satellite TV systems. The existing sports channels will remain free-to-air.
Ayman Jaidah, General Manager, Al Jazeera said that the network has currently has two sports channels, but these were not sufficient to offer live coverage of all events and sports related news and documentaries. The new channels were being launched to offer viewers in the Arab region an improved and wider coverage of sports events held around the world.
Al Jazeera had
signed an agreement with the Dubai-based firm, Multichoice for distribution
of the signals of these two channels worldwide.
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Shares in Dansih telco TDC climbed amid fresh speculation that the company was being targeted for takeover by two consortia of private equity funds. TDC has been the subject of repeated takeover speculation since last year when SBC Communications of the US relinquished its control of the company.
Meanwhile TDC has taken its first step to gain a share of the residential
broadband market in the other Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
"We see a ten percent growth in the broadband markets in all of the three
countries during the next years, and we want part of this growth," says
Kim Frimer, President of TDC Solutions.
TDC's Nordic launch is the result of the acquisition of Song's extensive Scandinavian
telecom infrastructure last fall. With a modest investment in networks and
equipment, TDC will gain access to more than half of the residential markets
in the three countries.
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ITV is to launch a free-to-air children's channel on digital TV in the next six months.
The new channel, which will share the new channel ITV4 slot on digital terrestrial service Freeview will take on the BBC's two children's offerings, CBeebies and CBBC. ITV said it would also seek distribution for the new channel on digital cable and satellite TV.
The service will feature ITV's existing programmes for children, which are broadcast on ITV1 in the weekday afternoon CiTV strand.
"This is
a great opportunity for ITV to reinforce its position as a valued and trusted
provider of children's programming in an increasingly competitive market and
to bring ITV to a new generation of viewers," said Nigel Pickard, the
ITV director of programmes, who was in charge of launching the BBC's children's
channels in 2002.
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Mobile TV distributor Kamera has signed a deal with the leading Swedish Sports TV channel SPORT-Expressen, for mobile distribution of their daily sports news to customers in Sweden. The sports news will initially be distributed via the operators Tele2 and 3.
The newspaper
Expressen is a national title with a daily reach of 1.2 million people.In
March 2005, Expressen launched the digital TV channel SPORT-Expressen. The
channel focuses on Swedish sport events and continous news updates.
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Arqiva has announced a five-year contract worth £2million (E2.9m) from Home Entertainment Corporation PLC, to provide integrated playout, uplinking and satellite capacity for its new "ChoicesUK TV" home-entertainment retail channel which launched this week on the Sky Digital platform.
The new channel,
which allows HEC to capitalise on the popularity of its 227 ChoicesUK stores
and ChoicesUK Direct operation, will showcase its full range of screen entertainment
products to suit every pocket - from bargain DVDs and games, to high-tech
home cinema equipment.
Back
to top
Randall Stephenson, COO and the point man on SBC Communications' IPTV project says of its' success: "If I bet wrong, I didn't break the future of this business. For a company of this size, $4 billion is very little money. If I bet wrong, it's not much money for us to burn."
Stephenson told USA Today that if IPTV doesn't work out, ""We'll just switch gears and go fiber-to-the-prem, (FTTH)." In other words, the same strategy adopted by rival Verizon, which has doubts about IPTV stability in mass deployment. But Stephenson insists; "It's better to be flexible than dogmatic, especially when new technologies are involved. Necessity is the mother of invention."
SBC plans to
provide IPTV to 18m homes by 2007 but admits there is still work to do to
achieve the "5-9s" or 99.999% reliability standard they use for
voice. In the same article Jeff Weber, an SBC vice president in charge of
IPTV, says: "Scaling is clearly an issue and anybody who tells you otherwise
isn't just dumb they're lying."
On the rumour of hold-ups with the Microsoft operating system and other components,
Stephenson admits SBC is now running about four months late on its deployment
schedule.
Back to top
Macquarie Bank, the super acquisitive Australian group, is the front-runner to buy Taiwan Broadband Communications, the cable operator being sold by the US private equity group Carlyle, for about US$700m
TBC has more than 650,000 subscribers across the island. A sale of TBC, bought in 1999 in one of Carlyle's first Asian buyouts, is set to yield a return of more than three times the US group's original investment.
Macquarie's profits
over the past few years have soared partly due to its ability to buy assets
through debt and then spin them off in listed trusts that offer investors
predictable dividends. Bankers say that Macquarie's model will enable it to
outbid private equity groups for large assets because the Australian group
requires returns of just 7-10 per cent per annum compared to the 25-30 per
cent demanded by private equity groups.
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Rupert Murdoch's mother, the 96 year-old Dame Elisabeth, has weighed into the succession argument to say someone outside the clan might succeed him at the helm of News Corporation.
She was speaking
to Kerry Packer's Bulletin magazine about her grandson Lachlan's decision
to quit the firm. "You can't tell how long Rupert's going to live and
... he'll find it extremely hard to hand over to anybody," Dame Elisabeth
said and went on to speculate "somebody outside the family" might
run News Corp when Rupert goes. "If in the future it looked as though
somebody else was better for that position, he would be very practical and
accept it, and be grateful that there was somebody capable."
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The cable network service operators in Korea have agreed to establish a joint entity next month for cable telephony business. The cable telephony service, expected to start early in 2006, will enable 13 million cable TV subscribers to use wired lines, utilizing their cable networks. The system operators joint entity is planning to provide the service for free, a jolt for the telcos including KT and Hanaro Telecom.
Meanwhile the
number of cable Internet subscribers has exceeded one million as of the end
of June from 400,000 in 2002, comprising 8.3 percent of the total share of
the high-speed Internet service market.
Back to top
Mitsui & Co. and three other companies are seeking to enter the digital satellite broadcasting business in 2007, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun. Current digital satellite broadcasters face financial difficulties due to slow growth in numbers of viewers, though the number of households receiving digital satellite broadcasts is expected to reach 10 million in the near future.
The Internal
Affairs and Communications Ministry plans to accept new applications up to
Sept. 13, and to select at least two more operators within the year. Seeking
the opportunity, despite a government plan to allocate as few as two new digital
DBS channels to newcomers, are: Jupiter Programming Co., a leading television
programming and content provider; Nippon BS Broadcasting Corp., which is affiliated
with mass discount retailer Biccamera Co.; and Star Channel Inc., a movie
content provider.
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Lions Gate Home Entertainment is expected to announce that it plans to produce next-generation digital video discs using Blu-ray technology developed by Sony and others. The decision could give the supporters of the Blu-ray format an edge in its continuing battle against backers of HD-DVD technology, who are supporting a competing format for new high-definition discs. Lions Gate controls about 4 percent of the DVD market.
The Blu-ray technology is being developed by Sony, Panasonic and others, while the HD-DVD standard is backed by Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. Sony's movie studio, as well as Disney and Fox, have also said they will produce Blu-ray DVD's, which will include high-definition video, enhanced audio and stronger copyright protections. Lions Gate, Sony, Disney and Fox sell about 45 percent of the DVD's in the United States.
Paramount, a division of Viacom, and Warner Home Video and Universal Studios Home Video plan to release more than 80 titles in the HD-DVD format starting as early as the fourth quarter this year. Together, the companies control 45 percent of the market for the current generation of discs.
HD-DVD, which
is essentially an upgrade of existing disc technology, is considered cheaper
to produce. Blu-ray supporters say that that Blu-ray discs store more data
than HD-DVD discs, but they are more expensive to produce because of the newer
technology.
Back
to top
Digital Video recording firm TiVo is to launch a service that allows US users to download shows via the Web before they air on TV.
The company said it has secured a deal with the Independent film channel to air select shows from the cable channel via a broadband connection as part of a trial program. TiVohas sent messages to its customers offering to transmit three shows beginning 19 August, before they aired on the IFC channel. It represents TiVo's first move into TV-on-demand.
Last Month, TiVo
launched a new feature to encourage viewers to watch TV commercials instead
of skipping them. When subscribers fast-forward through their recorded commercials,
the new feature inserts pop-up ads, filling a quarter of the TV screen with
information on the products being advertised.
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It has been revealed the 'significant internet search company' Rupert Murdoch referred to last week as an acquisition target is Blinkx the California based video search business.
Any acquisition
would be part of Murdoch's stated aim to build an internet presence to exploit
the groups media assets. Blinkx, a privately held company, searches the web
for video material and can deposit it in pre-detrmined 'smart folders' matching
the searchers interests. News Corp said at its recent results announcement
it would spend another $1-2bn on internet investments.
Back to top
China had more than 25 million digital satellite TV households at the end of 2004, according to The Chinese Market for Digital Set-Top Boxes, the latest report from IMS Research.
This study uncovers that out of 340 million TV households in China at the end of 2004, over 25 million were digital satellite TV households – a similar size to the total digital satellite TV installed-base in the US. This number is much larger than any data that have ever been released by the Chinese authorities, as the majority of these households belong to the "grey market".
"At the moment, satellite TV reception is highly restricted in the urban areas of China. The total number of legally installed digital satellite TV households in China is very small, less than one million based on IMS Research's estimate. However, there is huge number of illegal-installed satellite TV households, mainly existing in the rural areas. The exact number is almost impossible to obtain, as these viewers are served by the 'grey market'," commented Ann Yi-Yen Bird, the report author at IMS Research.
"In order
to uncover the real extent of the Chinese digital satellite TV market, we
have interviewed a large number of STB manufacturers, industry professionals
and activists who are heavily involved in the Chinese digital satellite STB
market. The figures given by the interviewees varied widely. After aggregating
and analysing all the shipment data submitted by the Chinese STB makers and
semiconductor producers, IMS Research believes the real Chinese digital satellite
TV installed base at the end of last year should be over 25 million".
IMS envisions that the number of digital satellite TV households in China
will continue to grow over the next five years and will reach 60 million by
the end of 2010, provided that the Chinese government launches its Direct-To-Home
satellites on time and the "grey market" continues to be tolerated.
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C&W has reached agreement to acquire Energis for at least £600m (E869m). C&W said: "The integration of the two businesses will deliver good cost and capex synergies and add blue-chip customers to our existing base in the large corporate segment. It will also create a stronger player with the scale needed to succeed in the increasingly competitive telecoms industry."
C&W said the purchase price was justified by the cost and capex synergies available from the combination of the two businesses in the UK expected to reach £80m by 2008, but added it would incur one-off costs of between £75m - £100m over three years to realise these benefits. The telecoms operator plans to cut 700 jobs.
C&W which
announced it was returning £250m to shareholders in November, said it
was suspending the buyback programme, as the new transaction would create
a significant tightening of the balance sheet.
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ITV's £134m
(E194m) acquisition of Freeview channel operator SDN has been cleared by the
Office of Fair Trading. ITV announced in April it was buying SDN, which operates
10 digital terrestrial TV channels, including Five, QVC, UKTV Gold, ABC1,
Discovery and Cartoon Network. Buying SDN will provide ITV with revenues from
the channels on its multiplex, as well as the capacity to launch more digital
channels in the future.
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The BBC has announced further details of the pilot for its new local television news service, which is to run from December 2005. The nine month scheme will use the latest broadcasting technology to create different kinds of local television news in five different areas of the West Midlands via digital satellite and on broadband.
The BBC says the pilot will allow it to reach new audiences with relevant locally based programming, providing a service in line with that already delivered by BBC Local Radio stations. On digital satellite, viewers will be able to see news from their area for ten minutes every hour.
Viewers will
have access to the service via the red button on their remote control.
Back to top
Neil Berkett will join NTL as COO from September and will be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the cable company. Berkett arrives from Lloyds TSB, where he was managing director of distribution.
Simon Duffy,
CEO said that, with a large part of NTL's restructuring completed, he felt
it was time to hire a COO. The company had been without one since Duffy, who
joined as COO in April 2003, became chief executive four months later. The
announcement comes as NTL and Telewest, its UK rival, are preparing for a
merger.
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Northern Sky
Research released data that suggests global lease revenues for commercial
satellite capacity could hit $7.3 billion in 2010. Senior analyst Patrick
French says more high-def programming is emerging at a rapid pace, and the
research firm anticipates that the number of full-time HD channels carried
on commercial satellites will nearly quadruple by the end of 2006.
Back to top
BT chief broadband officer Alison Ritchie has decided to leave the company at the end of September.
BT said her broadband team worked end-to-end across the company to deliver BT's broadband strategy and business improvement plans - with the UK now the leading G8 nation for broadband availability with more than 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses connected to asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) enabled exchanges.
Ritchie's previous
senior roles within the company were as chief executive of BT Openworld -
and restructuring project director. The central broadband excellence team
is to be disbanded - though many will continue their work in different parts
of the company.
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Two Way TV has licensed a list of new ETV products to the children's broadcaster on satellite and cable TV. These products will significantly expand Turner's red button presence and help strengthen viewer loyalty says TWTV.
The first of
two satellite TV applications will launch this summer on Cartoon Network called
'Kidnap Chaos.' Based on the channel's popular TV series 'Foster's Home for
Imaginary Friends,' players will be able to wander around a house with 16
rooms and interact with a host of colourful characters while unlocking doors,
finding keys and fighting off baddies.
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to top
The European commission is preparing legal action against the Premier League after negotiations over the sale of television rights seem to have stalled. After 18 months of talks, Commission officials believe the Premiership is dragging its feet over how to open up the sale of the rights to as many competitors as possible.
A statement of objections – a preliminary step to court action - pointing out how the current system infringes European competition laws could be issued as early as next month. The commission is understood to want to limit Sky's ownership to 50% of all live games by the time the next three-year contract starts in 2007. ITV, NTL, Telewest and Setanta have all expressed an interest in bidding. An end to what has been a 13-year monopoly will have a major impact on Sky's business model.
To support of its stand, the Commission is to publish research by media regulator Ofcom for the first time that is sharply critical of the impact of Sky's exclusivity on consumers. The research found that Sky was seen as too expensive and supporters felt they did not see enough of their own teams - about 25% of all games are broadcast live.
League officials are reported as saying it made sense to wait as long as possible because of the fast-moving nature of the media industry. In particular, the long-delayed merger between NTL and Telewest is expected to result in a more effective competitor to Sky.
The Premier League
has argued that the so-called "exclusivity premium" meant that all
clubs benefited from more money coming from one broadcaster. Sky and the league
have successfully argued in the past that a loss of exclusivity would lead
to less money going to clubs.
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Veronis Suhler Stevenson says a new survey shows the pervasiveness of the internet has meant fundamental changes to the advertising model as money shifts online and as consumer attention drifts from traditional media. The report predicts that new media advertising which includes cable and satellite television, internet and video game advertising will grow by nearly 17 per cent every year for the next five years, reaching $69bn by 2009.
By then, spending on digital-based media will push average annual consumer spending on media in the US over the $1,000 level for the first time. "The industry is undergoing a fundamental change, as predicted by internet pundits a decade ago," said James Rutherfurd, executive vice-president of Veronis Suhler Stevenson.
The bust which followed the internet bubble resulted in a severe decrease in advertising in 2000 and 2001 and a recession in the media and communication industries. Last year, the sector grew strongly for the first time since then, up 7.3 per cent. The VSS report estimates growth of 6.8 percent this year to $858bn.
The internet
is proving to be one of the most effective because advertisers can measure
audience response by monitoring the number of people who click on links. This,
combined with consumer complaints about ad clutter, have resulted in a shift
from advertising-based media, such as broadcast television, radio, newspapers
and magazines. Five years ago, these media accounted for 64 per cent of consumer
time spent with media. In five year's time, VSS predicts these will account
for 54 per cent of consumer time spent, with subscription- and fee-based media
accounting for 46 per cent.
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Against trend,
the CEO of Hallmark has told The Independent that it is unlikely to join Freeview.
David Hulbert concedes the DTT platform’s success and that it is challenging
other players but doubts all the FTA channels on it can be sustained in a
restrained advertising market, therefore, it makes more commercial sense for
Hallmark to continue to support, and be an increasingly important part of,
pay-TV.
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Stratos Global Corporation a provider of advanced mobile and fixed-site remote communications solutions, today announced the signing of a letter of intent to purchase Xantic B.V. This transaction will create the world's leading provider of advanced remote communications solutions, with a significantly expanded geographic presence and customer base in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Stratos will acquire 100 percent of Xantic, jointly owned by KPN (65 percent) and Telstra Corporation (35 percent), for a purchase price of approximately US$191 million.
Xantic, with
2004 revenue of approximately US$172 million, employs 270 people worldwide
and operates two Inmarsat Land Earth Stations in Burum, Netherlands, and Perth,
Australia.
Back to top
A new architecture
for high-definition (HD) video encoding was announced today at the Hot Chips
trade fair by Telairity Semiconductor. It says harnessing multiple independent
vector/scalar cores, the multicore Telairity-1 architecture is specifically
designed to handle the demanding computational requirements of the H.264 (MPEG-4
Part 10) HD codec.
Beginning with the T1P2000 multicore video processor, the first system-on-chip
(SoC) to be built using the new architecture, H.264 encoding solutions implemented
with Telairity-1 will offer the smallest footprint and lowest cost for broadcast-quality
H.264 video compression, requiring typically less than one quarter the number
of chips of general-purpose DSP solutions.
Back to top
Five is moving into multichannel TV with a new interactive channel on Sky Digital. Five is teaming up with YooMedia on YooPlay TV, which will showcase the Five quiz show, Brainteaser. It will feature programming between 1pm and 1am and provide interactive games round the clock.
The centrepiece of the channel's output will be Brainteaser, the Endemol-produced phone-in quiz show that has been on Five for three years. Five's co-ownership of the channel allows it to advertise Brainteaser during and after the show's lunchtime broadcast on Five.
For YooMedia,
which also runs fixed-odds games on Avago, the channel is a further development
of the YooPlay brand. YooPlay has existed as an interactive offering on Freeview,
Sky and cable platforms since December 2003, when it succeeded GoPlay.
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Shares in TiVo, fell 6 per cent last week after DirecTV confirmed it would stop marketing TiVo products this year in favour of its own DVR technology. DirecTV is TiVo's single largest customer and accounts for two-thirds of its’ total subscribers.
While TiVo has a leading position in the DVR market, its shares have fluctuated sharply this year amid concerns about the company's ability to increase its subscriber base. Several cable operators, including Cox Communications, are rolling out their own DVRs. TiVo has attempted to offset this trend with a variety of initiatives designed to enhance its offerings, such as enabling subscribers to transfer their recorded TV shows and movies to computers and portable PCs.
TiVo is also
pursuing deals to license its technology to cable and satellite services.
Shares in TiVo jumped in March after it licensed its technology to Comcast,
the largest US cable company, for use in set-top boxes.
Back to top
As of July 31,
there were 4,265,696 million broadband lines, a rise of 27 per cent in comparison
with the same month last year. ADSL takes the lion's share of all these connections
representing 78.4 per cent (3,344,696) with cable taking the rest, 921,000.
Incumbent telco operator Telefonica controls the ADSL market with a share
of 70.9 per cent, cable operators represent 21.5 per cent and the rest (7.5
per cent) corresponds to other ADLS operators. Most of broadband connections
(80 per cent) are made in urban areas, with the largest cities like Madrid
and Barcelona representing 40 per cent of all connections.
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The global number of 3G subscribers are predicted to grow from 30 million in 2004 to over 300 million by 2010, according to Juniper Research. In Next Generation Handsets 2005-2010, it estimates that the total mobile subscriber market will reach 2.7 billion by 2010.
The report also
forecasts that shipments of handsets will break the 1 billion mark by 2009
on the back of emerging Asia Pacific markets and increasing replacement rates
in mature markets.
While the rise of 3G subscribers represents a shift towards hi-tech services
on mobiles, the report argues that 3G’s benefits derive more from its
ability to accommodate greater numbers of users and network traffic, especially
for voice services.
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Vodafone has struck a deal with Sky Sports to show live coverage of the Soccer Saturday TV show on customers’ 3G mobile phones. The programme, broadcast every Saturday during the English Football season, features Jeff Stelling and his panel of pundits commenting on match day action as it happens.
The show will
be made available through the Sky Sports Service on Vodafone live!, which
also features video highlights of every goal from every Barclays Premiership
game. Vodafone customers currently subscribing to watch every Barclays Premiership
goal, which also includes every wicket from this summer’s Ashes series,
will receive Gillette Soccer Saturday for no additional charge. Existing 3G
customers not currently subscribed can pay £5 per month with the first
month free. Alternatively customers can pay £1 per day.
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Widevine has
announced it has joined the Coral Consortium a forum comprising representatives
from across the content distribution value chain that are creating a voluntary
standard to provide for interoperability among disparate DRM approaches. Its
membership includes three major film studios and all four major record labels.
Back to top
Several Silicon Valley podcast technology firms have attracted VC investors. The investments by Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Charles River Ventures and Amicus Ventures represent a vote of confidence in podcasting, which some believe could transform commercial radio.
Podcasts are
independently produced audio shows uploaded to the internet so listeners can
download and listen to them on computers or portable music players. The two
start-ups that received funding, Podshow and Odeo, aim to simplify podcasting
with software to create podcasts and enable listeners to download them to
their computers.
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New Pricing and Packaging offers subscribers a triple play option including 1Mb Broadband, Digital TV, Video On-Demand and Free Evening and Weekend Telephone Calls for just £17.99 a month (E26). Existing subscribers will benefit from new packages with the majority seeing an increase in channels and a monthly price decrease.
HomeChoice will now offer customers three options – a ‘Base Pack’, a ‘Big Pack’ or a ‘Max Pack’. Current customers will be migrated to the most relevant new package from September 1st. The majority of customers will see a decrease in their monthly bill and all subscribers will see an increase in the number of channels they are able to receive. HomeChoice will be holding current prices for 12 months for any customers who see a price increase as a result of the new packaging. HomeChoice will now offer broadband speeds of up to 8Mb.
The Base Pack
delivers an introductory selection of digital TV channels, digital radio stations
and a sample of video on-demand for the TV, a choice of broadband speeds for
the PC, and two different free call options for the home phone. Subscribers
can tailor their packs further by selecting from the various add-ons. The
Base Pack offers access to over 50 digital TV, video on-demand and digital
radio channels.
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Softel-USA, the interactive iTV solutions provider and supplier of distribution and transmission technologies, and Two Way TV, a leading provider of live, competitive, enhanced TV entertainment and interactive TV applications and technology, announce today that Two Way TV has joined the MediaSphere Alliance Program.
Sam Pemberton, president & CEO of Softel-USA said, "Two Way TV applications for UK broadcaster ITV, play out on MediaSphere systems at Sky every day. Two Way TV’s playout management systems are a great compliment to the MediaSphere Family of products."
James Turner,
head of sales at Two Way TV said, "We are keen to expand our relationship
with Softel into the US OCAP market. Our advanced scheduling and playout system
driving Softel-USA’s MediaSphere DSM-CC object carousel is an unbeatable
combination."
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Telewest Broadband has announced plans to shake-up its blueyonder internet services and outlined its capability to go much faster in the future. It will roll-out speed upgrades from next month, on a region-by-region basis and at no extra cost to existing or new customers. Maximum speed will now be 10Mb.
All the tiers will remain free of usage limitations, following research showing consumers' confusion over bandwidth caps. The company believes its unlimited policy continues to give customers peace of mind and the ability to get the most out of rich media content.
Eric Tveter,
president and chief operating officer of Telewest Broadband, said: "There
have been a few ISPs making a fuss about 2Mb services recently, but that often
represents the maximum speed they can offer at the moment. We're making 2Mb
our minimum speed."
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OpenTV Corp. announced that StarHub, Singapore's integrated info-communications provider, has selected OpenTV as a key technology partner for the development of its advanced digital set-top box platform on which StarHub will offer expanded iTV services featuring a DVR offering. StarHub expects to launch this DVR offering within the next six months.
Enabled by OpenTV's
latest generation of middleware known as Core 2.0 and OpenTV's PVR 2.0 technology,
the StarHub DVR will be a two-way digital set-top box with a high capacity
hard-disk that will allow subscribers to record, store and replay programming
at the touch of a button on the remote control.
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