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NEWS Monday January 31st to Friday February 4th 2005
Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
| Tuesday | |||||
The US government has issued a strong warning about the security risks of VoIP.
A report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which develops technology guidelines for US government agencies, warns: "VoIP systems can be expected to be more vulnerable than conventional telephone systems, in part because they are tied in to the data network, resulting in additional security weaknesses and avenues of attack."
According to Gartner, the market research group, spending by US companies and public-sector organisations on VoIP systems will grow to $903m this year, up from $686m in 2004. Investment in hybrid systems, which handle VoIP and traditional calls, will grow from $1.5bn to $2bn. By 2007 Gartner expects 97 per cent of new phone systems installed in North America to be VoIP or hybrids. The Telecommunication Industry Association predicts that 26m users will have VoIP by 2008.
NIST says a main source of confusion "is the (natural) assumption that, because digitised voice travels in packets just like other data, existing network architectures and tools can be used without change". It warns: "VoIP adds a number of complications to existing network technology and these problems are magnified by security considerations."
Firewalls and intrusion detection systems used to protect data networks often interfere with voice calls by delaying information as it travels across the network. This leads to calls breaking up or being dropped. In addition, firewalls are no defence against internal hackers.
Unless calls
are encrypted, anyone with physical access to an organisation's local area
network can attach monitoring equipment and tap into calls. NIST's report,
signed by Donald Evans, commerce secretary, warns agencies that essential
telephone services, "unless carefully planned, deployed and maintained,
will be at greater risk if based on VoIP."
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Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has reported an 80% jump in quarterly profit, boosted by demand for films on DVD and advertising on its TV channels.
Net income in the three months ending 31 December totalled $386m up from $215m a year earlier. It also predicted that profits would rise in 2005. Revenue during the quarter rose 18% to $6.6bn. Fox Entertainment Group was the best-performing unit.
Cable television,
which includes Fox News also performed well, with operating profit at the
division rising by 46%. Analysts highlighted the poor performance at Sky Italia,
which posted an operating loss of $105m, against $104m a year earlier (see
separate story).
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RUPERT MURDOCH, backed News Corps' Italian satellite television investment amid worries about mounting competition. Sky Italia, is now being challenged by Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset, which has begun selling DTT pay-per-view services in direct competition.
Adding to concerns was Sky Italia's losses of $105 million in the second quarter, against $104 million a year ago. In News Corps' results conference Murdoch compared the business with its British namesake, which after years of investment is highly profitable. "When we started Sky, everybody in Britain was against us. The whole of the media was against us. The BBC establishment was against us, and remains hysterically against us. But we built a business that is not only growing fast but is worth many billions of dollars, and we're confident that we can repeat this experience in Italy."
Sky Italia added
270,000 new subscribers in the period.
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Shares of Alcatel, the world's largest maker of broadband Internet equipment, fell10 percent, after the company's fourth-quarter profit missed analysts' estimates.
Net income was E40 million, compared with a loss of E524m a year earlier. Alcatel's profit had been expected to be E154 million. Alcatel sacrificed profit to gain market share in the fourth quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Jean-Pascal Beaufret. Alcatel recovered from a three-year slump in 2004 as clients including France Telecom SA resumed spending on networks.
The company reported its first annual profit in four years after Chief Executive Serge Tchuruk cut more than 40,000 jobs to stem three years of losses. Alcatel reduced its workforce by 8 percent to about 56,000 at the end of 2004, Beaufret said.
Sales in the fourth quarter rose to E3.81 billion from a restated E3.44 billion a year earlier. Expectations had been for a 9.9 percent increase to E3.78 billion.
Full-year net
income was E281 million, after three years in which Alcatel accumulated E11.7
billion euros in losses. Tchuruk, 67, reorganized the company in 2003 to focus
on three markets -- fixed networks, mobile-phone technology and corporate
and satellite clients.
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Comcast Corporation
has announced it has now deployed more than one million
HD-capable Digital Cable set-top boxes, adding more than 800,000 of them in
2004 alone. Comcast has experienced a 143% increase in the number of customers
connecting HDTV sets during January 2005 versus January 2004.
HDTV service
is now is available to more than 93% of Comcast customers. In its 62 markets
with HD service, Comcast offers customers an average of 8 to 15 channels of
high-definition programming.
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Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said that there is a need to fund the fast-growing mobile market. The government hopes to increase the number of mobile users from 95 million to between 200 and 250 million by 2007. "We need at least $20bn (£10.6bn) in investment and part of this has to come as foreign direct investment," said Maran.
The decision
to raise the limit for foreign investors faced considerable opposition from
the communist parties, which give crucial support to the coalition headed
by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Potential foreign investors will however
need government approval before they increase their stake beyond 49%, up to
a new limit of 74%.
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Bell ExpressVu, Canada's leading satellite TV service, ended 2004 with more than 1.5 million subscribers, reflecting growth of 8.4 percent when compared to 2003 numbers.
During the year,
Bell ExpressVu had 116,000 net activations, an increase of 40 percent when
compared to 2003. The service, a unit of Canadian communications giant BCE,
said net activation growth was stimulated by the continued success of the
Bell Bundle, as well as initiatives focused on churn containment, which resulted
in the lowest churn level since 2001. Canada's other satellite TV service,
Shaw-backed Star Choice, said it had 824,835 customers as of Nov. 30.
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The number of global mobile phone subscribers will reach nearly two billion by the end of 2005, although most voice calls will still be made by landline, according to a new telecom trends forecast issued by Deloitte's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Group.Deloitte predicts that mobile subscriber growth will continue to rise this year with demand being fuelled by developing countries in Asia and Latin America. The research also suggests that mobile penetration will surpass 100 percent in some developed markets as customers take out second subscriptions for data or for personal use.
Voice will continue
to be the primary source of revenues and profits for mobile operators throughout
the year, accounting for more than 80 per cent of total revenue on average.
Deloitte forecasts that voice volumes will continue to grow during 2005 due
to ease of use and falling prices.
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As part of its plan to bring HD television to German viewers, Premiere has selected Pace Micro Technology to supply an MPEG-4 set-top box that will enable the country's largest digital TV operator to be among the first in Europe to drive this revolutionary viewing experience.
The new service
will incorporate Pace's DS810 set-top box that it says uses new advanced codec
technologies to deliver superb quality pictures and make most efficient use
of available broadcasting bandwidth. Premiere, which commands over half the
six million digital TV households in Germany and Austria, will deliver all
the features of its current satellite service as well as the operator's new,
dedicated highdefinition channels for sport, film and documentaries. The new
Premiere service is expected to begin broadcasting towards the end of 2005.
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The agreement enables Viasat to distribute TV4s three channels to its digital subscribers in Sweden on the Viasat DTH satellite pay-TV platform.
"This agreement
makes us available on all distribution platforms, which positions us very
well for the coming shut-down of the analogue terrestrial network. The new
agreement also adds new and important revenue streams. The competition between
TV4 and MTG's channels remains, however, this feels like a beginning of a
new erawhich is characterized by cooperation rather than confrontation",
said JanScherman, CEO of TV4.
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Orca Interactive announced a global co-marketing agreement with IBM that will help Orca to promote its products in telco tenders worldwide.
Orca will enable
its RiGHTv software to be delivered on the IBM eServer xSeries platform and
WebSphere middleware offering. The sales forces of both companies will then
market this joint IPTV solution on a global scale. IBM will be the prime contractor
in all joint opportunities.
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ICTV announced
the appointment of Jaci Hale as Director of International Marketing and Relationship
Management. Hale, who brings more than a dozen years of cable and communications
marketing experience to her new position, will be responsible for expanding
a wide range of marketing and business development activities for ICTV across
the international arena, including: Marketing Communications; Customer Relationship
Management; and Content Sourcing. She will be based in ICTV's International
offices in Surrey, England.
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BskyB has reaped
the benefit of its major marketing campaign adding 192,000 subscribers in
the second quarter, ahead of the 150,000 expected by analysts. This compares
with 193,000 subs in the same period a year ago. Total subscribers are now
7.6m keeping the company just about on track for its target of reaching 8m
subscribers by the end of 2005. Churn was 9.5% down marginally on the previous
quarter.
The second quarter delivered financial results in line with expectations.
Sales rose almost 10 per cent to £1.05bn (E1.52bn) compared with £916m
in the same period last year and annualised ARPU rose £17 from a year
ago to £386. Pre-tax profit for the second quarter came in at £103m
compared with £77m in the same quarter last year, and was £154m
after stripping out goodwill amortisation and charges. For the first half
of the year, revenues were up 10% to £1.945bn and pre-tax profits lifted
22 per cent to £250m.
Sky+ households increased by 168,000 to 642,000. Sky multi-room households
increase by 116,000 to 473,000. Advertisers who fear Sky+ will reduce their
impact will not have missed the irony of Sky’s subscriber acquisition
recovery being the result of a heavyweight TV campaign.
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Ofcom: 162 digital channel licenses
in 04
Competition remains fierce in the digital channels sector. Ofcom issued 162
new licences to broadcast TV services in 2004, while 21 were revoked. There
are now over 310 channels (including time-shifted channels but excluding regional
variations and PPV channels) broadcasting in the UK.
Latest figures also show that Freeview is gaining subscribers faster than
Sky, - adding 430,000 in Q3 - although many may be in Sky households.
Other relevant conclusions from the Ofcom survey include: 56% of households
had digital TV as at the end of September 2004, digital channels accounted
for 28% of all viewing, Sky viewers watch more than 12 hours per week of digital
channels on average.
The UK broadband market continues to grow apace. It seems likely that the
total number of broadband connections will have passed the 6 million mark
sometime in December 04. This means that broadband now accounts for 38% of
all Internet connections and has surpassed the number of un-metered dial-up
connections.
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The deadline
for bids for Adelphia Communications passed with at least two bidders making
offers for the entire Denver-based MSO and four others opting for separate
pieces.
According to US press Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. made a joint offer
of about $17 billion. Private-equity giants Providence Equity Partners and
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts -- have made a proposal for all of Adelphia at $15
billion-$16 billion.According to reports key to the success of each bidder
is the mix of cash and stock that is included in the offer. It is expected
that Adelphia’s creditors will favor a bid that leans heavy on the cash
side.
Reports said several smaller cable companies have bid for pieces of Adelphia,
including Patriot Media & Communications (backed by Spectrum Equity Investors,
Bain Capital LLC and Silver Lake Partners), Atlantic Broadband Finance LLC
(backed by ABRY Partners LLC), Jerry Kent_s Cequel III LLC (backed by GS Capital
Partners, the private equity arm of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.), Bresnan
Communications (backed by Providence Equity) and Advance/Newhouse Communications
Bright House Networks.
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CinemaNow, a
provider of video-on-demand for broadband, has made an agreement with NBC
Universal to deliver first-run pay-per-view and library titles, including
movies and television event programming, on a streaming basis via the CinemaNow
web site. As part of the agreement, and along with previously released movies
and pay-per-view television programming from NBC Universal's expansive video
library, CinemaNow will offer NBC Universal's new release films on the same
day they become available in their traditional pay-per-view window.
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Broadband entertainment and communications provider Video Networks Limited (VNL) is enhancing its on-demand replay service, which allows HomeChoice customers to access popular programming from the BBC, Channel 4 and Chelsea TV, for up to seven days after it has been broadcast. A total of four new BBC channels will be added to the line-up and the number of hours available will increase.
Roger Lynch, Chairman and CEO of VNL said the enhancements allowed the development of the HomeChoice service, and demonstrated how Video Networks offered “the most advanced mass market on-demand service in the UK today."
The company’s
service is currently available to 1.4 million homes across London and the
Borough of Stevenage, with 2.4 million homes scheduled to have access by June
2005
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ITV is following Channel 4 into online DVD rental through its website. The ITV MovieClub service will offer customers five DVDs a month for £9.99, (E14) from a library of more than 28,000 titles provided by Video Island, one of the UK's largest online film rental businesses.
Subscribers logging
onto ITV MovieClub via the itv.com/movies website will be able to view video
previews of the latest DVD releases and interviews with Hollywood stars, provided
by MercuryMedia/APTN. They can also access film reviews and features.
FilmFour DVD is operated by Lovefilm, another big player in the online DVD
rental market. Blockbuster has also launched an online service as a defensive
measure, and Video Island also operates DVD rental websites for Tesco and
MSN. Other players in this fast-growing home entertainment sector include
Dixons, WH Smith and Amazon. By the end of 2005, it is estimated the number
of DVDs rented through the post will overtake the total number of DVDs and
videos chosen from the shelves of Blockbuster's 740 high street stores.
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Other broadcasters
said to be among the bidders include US groups Turner Broadcasting and Universal
Studios Networks as well as terrestrial broadcaster Five.
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Satellite services company GlobeCast is to distribute home shopping channel Authentic TV on BSkyB’s digital satellite platform, uplinked via Eurobird 28.5°E from GlobeCast’s Brookman’s Park teleport in the UK.
The distribution
service includes an online content storage and broadcast system which will
enable Authentic TV to create and manage its own programming schedules remotely
via the Internet. The channel records some of its content in the USA but all
content, regardless of its source location, can be sent direct to GlobeCast’s
secure server via FTP, removing the need for traditional satellite backhaul.
Once content is received and stored, Authentic TV’s 24/7 programming
schedule is automatically broadcast and uplinked to the Sky Digital platform.
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Subscribers to
Digiturk in Turkey and the Turkish speaking countries in Central Asia and
Caucasus, as well as Turkish communities in Europe, are now able to receive
EuroNews in four language versions. EuroNews is carried in Digiturk’s
most basic programming package reaching all residential customers, as well
as forming part of the operator’s hotel offer in Turkey. The channel
is positioned in the Digiturk EPG on number 49 in the news section and is
available simultaneously in English, French, German and Spanish to approximately
880,000 subscribers.
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TiVo Inc. has
revealed President Marty Yudkovitz has resigned, only weeks after Chief Executive
Michael Ramsay said he would step down. Yudkovitz, who joined the company
in 2003, will stay with TiVo for a time in a consulting capacity. The news
followed the announcement of the availability of an early access software
development kit that will allow third parties to create entertainment and
information applications that extend the TiVo service.
The move supports TiVo's new service strategy Tahiti. The kit gives broadcasters
and developers a flexible way to deploy media rich broadband applications
to TiVo subscribers, helping to create an open platform for those TV viewers,
TiVo said. Analysts saw it as further reaction to increased competition from
cable and DTH players who are increasingly using their own brand DVRs.This
week EchoStar will start running new print and outdoor billboard advertising
that takes aim at TiVo's DVR service while at the same time promoting its
digital recorder technology. The ads target perceptions that TiVo's products
are expensive. Tag lines from the EchoStar print advertising effort include
"Sure, TiVo is hot. TiVo is also expensive" and "For people
who think the idea behind TiVo is cool, but the price isn't."
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Gates sees a
time when set-top boxes snap into a network of digital products – centred
on the PC - that distribute video, music, and photos around the house. He
declines to predict specific revenues but says Microsoft will recoup the $500
million+ it spent on TV software over the past decade. "It will absolutely
pay back those early years," he says. Gates has already committed to
another $1bn of spending on entertainment products. He is confident that consumers
will want IPTV. "People care about the TV viewing experience. If you
can really make it better, it has a really profound impact," he says.
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With test signals
already available on multi-system operators such as Hinduja, Hathway and Seven
Star, the channel is soon going to be available on all networks across Mumbai.
CTBUZZ is also looking to launch similar services in Delhi and Bangalore in
the next two months.
The channel is mainly going to target the youth and socio-economic class A
and B. It relies on content syndication with partners such as Popular Car
Bazaar, Raj Travels, Bharat Matrimony, Excel Video among others.
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NDS Group plc announced its preliminary results for the second quarter ended 31 December 2004. Revenues were up 85% to $142 million with operating income up 134% to $22 million.
Commenting on
NDS's performance, Dr Abe Peled, President and Chief Executive
Officer, said: "This quarter was a landmark quarter for NDS as we activated
our 50 millionth digital-TV smart card further strengthening our lead in the
sector. We have continued to see advances in the Far East region by securing
a significant contract in Shenzhen, China. I recently attended the Consumer
Electronics Show in the US and was delighted to see the results of our work
over the last year highlighted on the DIRECTV stand, as well as to be able
to announce twelve new members to our SVP initiative." NDS is to supply
middleware PVR and interactive technologies to DirecTV, its' fellow News Corp
company.
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January 2005
has seen a greater number of interactive television (iTV)
advertising campaigns on Sky than any other month. A total of 45 iTV campaigns
have run on Sky channels this month, an increase of 40% on the previous high
in January 2004, says the channel.
New brands using
iTV for the first time included Virgin EMI, which launched a ground-breaking
promotional campaign for the new album by The Chemical Brothers. Other first-time
iTV advertisers included Hyundai, Grolsch, First Choice, Suzuki Jimny, American
Tourism, Optical Express, Freedom Finance, Ebookers and Skoda.
The growing trend towards greater creativity in iTV advertising is illustrated
by an increase of more than 100% in the number of advertisers using Sky's
most sophisticated interactive solution, the Dedicated Advertiser Location
(DAL). 31% of iTV ratings on Sky channels in January 2005 directed viewers
to DALs, compared with 14% in January 2004
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The World DAB forum says sales in the UK showed an increase of 178% in 2003/2004. Comparatively, Denmark has shown an increase of 350% in 2003/2004, and Belgium 500% in the same period.
Interest in other
countries is also growing, with Norway reporting sales of just over 4,000
units in December. With 70% coverage (growing to 80% within two years) and
plans to switch some popular FM services over to DAB only reception, the DAB
market is expected to boom in 2005.
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Walt Disney has
delivered a 5% rise in quarterly profits thanks to improved TV ratings and
a strong showing from its theme parks. It saw pre-tax pre-exceptional profits
reach $723m in the three months to December, against $688m a year ago. Its
revenues increased from $8.5bn a year ago to $8.7bn. Operating profit from
broadcast businesses including ABC and ESPN rose 36% to $467m while income
from theme parks including Disney World grew 11% to $258m. Disney's movie
business - including Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films - fared less well,
profits falling 27% to $333m.
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Private Media Group Inc a producer of premium-quality adult entertainment, announced that it will launch a secure, high-quality TV Channel and Video-On-Demand (VOD) service on a new, state-of-the-art broadband site.
Through an agreement
with Alfa Audiovisuales S.L., the new service, which is powered by proprietary
technology, enables broadband subscribers to watch the TV Channel and stream
or quickly and easily download full-motion, full-screen, DVD-quality Private
titles. Both TV and VOD can be watched on the consumer's TV screen through
a simple cable connection.
The TV Channel will at first be offered in Spanish, with English soon to follow.
Additional language options will be implemented, starting with German and
eventually including all languages in which Private currently provides content.
TV programming will be in six hour blocks including: Adult Industry News,
Interviews, Behind the Scenes, News Coverage of Special Events and Financial
News Coverage of Private and the Adult Entertainment Industry.
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Espial and A2i announced that A2i will deploy the LX-200 IP set-top box to customers in Korea and Japan. This STB is designed to meet the needs of the hotel and hospital market, but will also drive IPTV revenue for retail stores and IP-based VOD systems in Korea.
A2i says it chose
the Espial Escape browser framework because of its single code base architecture
that allows easy customization for both the applications running in the browser
and localization of the overall look and feel of the design.
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SBC and AT&T said that cost savings were a main driver for the merger. AT&T is a long-distance telecoms firm, while SBC is mainly focused on the local market in the western US. The companies said they expect annual cost savings of at least $2bn from 2008. AT&T investors will receive 0.78 SBC shares for each of their AT&T shares. They will also get a special dividend payment of $1.30 per share. SBC's offer is barely 2% more than AT&T's market value of $15.7bn.
The deal is subject to approval by AT&T's shareholders and regulators. The companies said they expected to complete the agreement during the first half of 2006.
Seven "Baby
Bells", were split off from AT&T in 1984. Following mergers and consolidation,
only three remain.
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BSkyB is set to reveal a big increase in subscribers sau some newspapers. The Sunday Telegraph, said the satellite broadcaster will report on Wednesday it has added more than 170,000 new subscribers in the last three months of 2004, beating consensus forecasts of 150,000 additions.
BSkyB is chasing
a target of 8m subscribers by the end of 2005, up from 7.4m at the end of
the previous quarter, and 10m by 2010. Citigroup predicts a rise of 108,000
subscribers taking the Sky Plus personal video recorder service, taking the
total close to 600,000.
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US papers say Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Providence Equity Partners, the US private equity groups, are planning to make a joint bid for all of Adelphia, the bankrupt cable company.
Adelphia, whose
creditors say should be sold for at least $17.5bn, set a deadline of this
week for offers, either for the whole company or for each of seven clusters
of assets. Time Warner and Comcast are also expected to put forward a joint
bid for the whole company .. The two companies worked together last year to
become part owners of PanAmSat, the satellite operator that is already considering
an initial public offering.
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The digital music
market accessories market is expected to grow to $750m this year, from $250m
last year, with iPod accessories including cases, adaptors and speakers thought
to account for around 85% of that figure, according to leading accessory maker
Belkin. Apple is encouraging firms to develop iPod accessories to help sustain
demand for the popular gadgets.
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NTT DoCoMo and
StarHub Ltd., Singapore's integrated info-communications provider, jointly
announced a strategic partnership under which StarHub will launch i-mode services
exclusively in Singapore by the fourth quarter of this year. Under the DoCoMo-StarHub
agreement, StarHub will offer i-mode services over
both its 2.5G and 3G networks.
Commenting on
the alliance for mobile communications in Singapore, Terry Clontz, President
and CEO, StarHub, said: "We are extremely delighted to become the exclusive
provider of i-mode services in Singapore, enabling us to further expand our
extensive suite of mobile content and applications. With the deployment of
i-mode, mobile users can look forward to enjoying yet another world-class,
premium service offering by StarHub."
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EchoStar announced that its DISH Network satellite TV service has passed the 11 million customer milestone. In the last five years, DISH Network has added more than 7.6 million net new customers.
"We are
pleased that one out of every 10 U.S. households now subscribes to DISH Network,
an achievement that took just over eight years," said Charles Ergen,
chairman and chief executive officer of EchoStar.
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Verizon announced that Verizon will use the Microsoft TV platform for the commercial rollout of Verizon's FiOS TV service, planned for later this year.
The Microsoft TV platform will support high-definition television, digital video recording and on-demand programming offered by Verizon on the FiOS platform. In addition, it will provide FiOS TV customers with an interactive programming guide that is attractive, intuitive and easy to use. Verizon and its third-party partners will use the Microsoft software to add advanced applications for future FiOS TV services, differentiating Verizon in the marketplace and bringing consumers the benefits of voice, video and data convergence.
"With FiOS TV, Verizon will be able to offer its customers more channels, more choices and great value," said Bob Ingalls, president of Verizon's Retail Markets group. "The Microsoft TV platform not only provides us with advanced digital TV capabilities that are designed to serve the millions of Verizon subscribers we ultimately expect will choose FiOS TV, but it gives us virtually unlimited potential to evolve our interactive services into the most seamlessly integrated offering in the industry."
The Microsoft
TV platform will work in parallel with Verizon's iobiSM service delivery platform,
which allows information to be shared across many different networks, applications
and devices.
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RadioScape has announced that it is expanding its business to include the direct supply of its award winning DAB modules. Until now, the company licensed the designs for these modules to third party manufacturers who built and supplied the modules to the radio OEMs.
Orders will now be placed directly with RadioScape who will control the supply chain right through to delivery to the customer. It says this will enable significant savings to be made on the costs of the modules that can be passed on to customers. New modules can also be brought to market far faster. The manufacturing will be done by a subcontractor in China, Nam Tai Electronics Inc.
Meanwhile Texas
Instruments is working with RadioScape to develop the necessary hardware and
software to support for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM). TI will supply the necessary
digital signal processor (DSP) along with RadioScape's software radio technology.
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Amino is partnering with a leading South African distributor, NuLAN Multimedia. The company will supply IPTV set-top boxes from Amino's AmiNET range and will offer rapid product delivery and local support.
"IPTV is
a global phenomenon which has sparked a great deal of interest in emerging
telecommunications markets around the world," noted Bob Giddy, CEO, Amino.
"Our distribution partnerships at the heart of these markets will allow
us to better serve the growing current and future demand for digital TV services
and allow us to provide high levels of technical support to customers and
end-users."
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Reti Televisive Digitali (RTD) has launched two new Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) channels and new MHP interactive TV (iTV) applications and services based on the DigiHost platform from Irish iTV software company DigiSoft.TV.
RTD already provides
24-hour coverage to an area of Italy from Lombardy to Milan, Como, Varese
and Pavia, with a population in excess of five million people. The MHP applications
RTD have developed in conjunction with DigiSoft, and will be launching using
Digisoft's DigiHost iTV management platform.
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Monday 31st January to February 4th 2005
The US Federal
Communications Commission has decided against appealing to the Supreme Court
over a ruling that put on hold regulations that would have allowed media conglomerates
to control larger market shares.
The FCC had tried to ease media ownership restrictions. But the US Court of
Appeals said the agency failed to sufficiently justify the limits it set.
Newspapers planned to challenge whether the rules were constitutional, the
FCC official said, and thus the agency did not want to join in that effort
and potentially undermine all of its regulations limiting media ownership.
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Head of BT entertainment
division Andrew Burke, spoke about the possibility of creating content for
all platforms. He said “if content is on-demand, consumers have pulled
it up rather than had it pushed to them, then it is the consumers' choice
to watch it. There is no watershed on the net".
In fact, Internet service providers have long claimed no responsibility for
the content they carry on their servers since the Law Commission dubbed them
"mere conduits" back in 2002. This defence does not apply if they
have actual knowledge of illegal content and have failed to remove it.
Richard Ayers, portal director at Tiscali, said there was little point trying
to regulate the internet because it would be impossible. Huge changes are
afoot in 2005, he predicted, as companies such as the BBC offer TV content
over the net.
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Microsoft has reported better-than-expected final-quarter figures on the back of strong global PC and server computer sales, with recoveries in the software giant's video games and internet sectors.
Total revenues
were $10.82bn, an increase of almost 7% from the equivalent 2003 quarter,
with net income up to $3.46bn. Microsoft's home and entertainment division
reported its first profit, of $84m, compared to a loss of $397m the previous
year. The mobile and embedded devices division reduced its losses to $4m,
(2003: $110m), with revenues up 44%.
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T-Mobile added 1.9m net new customers worldwide in Q4 led by growth in the US, but saw a slowdown in growth at home in Germany. The Deutsche Telekom company signed up 113,000 new customers in its domestic market, equating to growth of 2.8%, losing ground on rivals. Vodafone, mmO2 and E-Plus which have all reported bigger gains.
US MNO Verizon reported strong demand for its mobile services as it booked Q4 net profits of $3.04bn, against a $1.46bn loss a year ago, with sales growing 6% to $18.3bn. Verizon Wireless added 1.7m net new customers in the period.
Japanese MNO
KDDI reported demand up for 3G services as its group profit doubled year-on-year
to $739m in the third quarter, on sales up 0.7%. KDDI lowered its full-year
forecast in part because of a forthcoming law in Japan banning mobile phone
use while driving.
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TANDBERG Television announced that it has received an order, valued in excess of $9M, from a leading North American satellite broadcaster.
The contract
is the world’s first for an MPEG-4 AVC HDTV video headend and will see
TANDBERG Television deploy its EN5990 encoder within fully redundant systems
complete with its Reflex statistical multiplexing software. TANDBERG Television
has developed the EN5990 to enable broadcasters to respond to the increased
consumer demand for more HDTV programming. By using the flexibility and bandwidth
efficiency of MPEG-4 AVC the bandwidth required for the real-time delivery
of High Definition images can be halved compared to traditional MPEG-2 solutions.
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EuroNews, European Comment show
Launching this
month "Comment" is a new programme that will use a combination of
TV, print and on-line channels, along with face-to-face events, to encourage
interactive dialogue about issues at the heart of the news. Broadcast 6 times
per day, in EuroNews' seven broadcast
languages, Comment will bring viewers a topical news story for debate at a
dedicated web forum.
The most popular
"Comment" of each week will feature in European Voice where a quarter
page Comment section will feature the lead topic and encourage readers to
visit the web forum and have their say on key issues.
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