Advanced Television

ISP

NZ ISP provides Netflix US via VPN

Slingshot, a local ISP in New Zealand, has added a new “global mode” to its Internet plans that allows its customers to access video services such as Netflix or Hulu. Slingshot’s global mode is essentially a VPN, so it reroutes any traffic through servers situated in other countries, so Slingshot subscribers using global mode may […]

July 8, 2014

BT TV complaints now 5x average

Ofcom has published the volumes of complaints made against the major providers of telecoms and pay-TV services between January and March 2014. This is Ofcom’s thirteenth quarterly report, which aims

June 27, 2014

Consumer group: ‘AT&T, DirecTV deal anti-competitive’

US public interest group Public Knowledge is calling on Congress to be vigilant as multiple mergers come before it in the coming months. Public Knowledge senior staff attorney John Bergmayer is testifying June 24 before the House Judiciary Committee in the hearing titled ‘The Proposed Merger of AT&T and DirecTV’. In Bergmayer’s testimony, he will […]

June 24, 2014By Colin Mann

iiNet: ‘File sharing multi-headed Hydra’

Steve Dalby, Chief Regulatory Officer at Australian ISP iiNet, has reawakened the anti-piracy debate by questioning the proposed blocking of file-sharing sites, suggesting that the practice is a multi-headed Hydra that government filtering and legal threats will never slay. Dalby, a regular blogger on copyright and piracy issues, prefaces his latest contribution, by pointing out […]

June 24, 2014By Colin Mann

IDATE: Telecoms recovering slowly

IDATE, partner analyst at the LTE World Summit 2014, has published the findings of its World telecom services watch. After the trough of 2009 and hesitant growth in 2010, the global market has been growing at a moderate pace since 2011. Growth in 2013 stood at 2.4 per cent “`we have observed that, by and […]

June 24, 2014

Senate’s Goodlatte: ‘Deregulated Internet flourishes’

The Honourable Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has prefaced the Senate hearing on Net Neutrality by expressing his scepticism of claims that additional regulation in the Internet marketplace is needed to encourage competition and promote innovation, contending that the Internet has flourished precisely because it is a deregulated market. “Regulation and antitrust […]

June 20, 2014By Colin Mann

Survey: Most Americans oppose Comcast/TWC merger

Most consumers in the United States oppose the proposed merger of the country’s biggest cable TV and broadband Internet providers, according to a new survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. The $45.2 billion deal, which would combine Comcast with Time Warner Cable, is subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission. Cable TV […]

June 20, 2014By Colin Mann

Dutch digital connections up to 6.72m

The number of digital TV connections in the Netherlands grew by 0.9 per cent during the first quarter of this year to 6.72 million on 31 March, according to Telecompaper. The total TV connections grew during the quarter to 7.74 million. The share of digital TV on the whole TV market has grown to 86.8 […]

June 20, 2014

Former Sky boss lambasts its broadband service

Tom Mockridge, formerly CEO at Sky Italia and BSkyB’s deputy chairman from 2012 to early 2013, has called Sky’s broadband offering “lousy”. Mockridge, a blunt-speaking New Zealander, is now running cable company Virgin Media for John Malone. BSkyB is offering subscribers ‘free’ broadband for two years if they sign up to Sky Sports. Mockridge, in […]

June 17, 2014By Chris Forrester

AT&T: ‘DirecTV merger in public interest’

AT&T has filed paperwork at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hoping to convince regulators that the proposed $49 billion merger between the two companies is in the public interest. AT&T says the FCC that the merger would allow the combined company to offer the kinds of products that […]

June 12, 2014By Colin Mann