Plans to merge the three former Deutsche Telekom cable nets in Germany are shelved admits Kabel Deutschland CEO Adrian von Hammerstein. The German monopoly commission Bundeskartellamt has outlawed the proposal. Kabel Deutschland will turn its attention to buying Level 4 operators that are distributors for the KDG product. The operator has also expressed interest in […]

Italy should set up a company to handle the move to a fibre optic network which would be supported with private and public funds, the head of the telecoms authority has. Corrado Calabro said the proposed company should be modelled on the way existing utilities operate networks and the authority could set tariffs adequate for […]

The BBC’s director of new media and technology Erik Huggers says that the future for free-to-air digital platforms like Freesat and Freeview is ‘unclear’ – suggesting that only IPTV and Project Canvas venture will give consumers the services and features that they need. Huggers said that, despite work on adding HD to Freeview and continued […]

Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications don't yet have tru2way interactive-services technology enabled across their entire footprints, despite having pledged it should be active by July 1st in agreements with consumer-electronics companies last year. But executives from Samsung Electronics and Panasonic, said the two biggest cable operators have made good-faith efforts to date on […]

Consumers are unwilling to part with their broadband services at home even in the midst of the economic downturn, preferring to cut spending on things like dining out and leisure travel, according to a series of studies sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent. Broadband services appear to be nearly recession-proof, with 84 per cent of consumers identifying broadband […]

Tiscali director of television Simon Hunt has backed BT's recent call for broadcasters to pay for the online distribution of their content. “The example I always come back to is the BBC and satellite. The BBC spends a lot of money on Sky so we can watch its programmes at home. It also spends a […]

Comcast and Time Warner announce a partnership on the “TV Everywhere” initiative. Both companies have been leading proponents of the “authentication” online concept, intended to reinforce the pay-TV model by including access to programming delivered via the Internet as part of the monthly subscription. But until now, they’ve taken different approaches. Time Warner' TV Everywhere […]

Germany’s federal cartel office has confirmed it won't be changing its mind on banning the merger of the main three MSOs KDG, Unity and Kabel BW. It also made it clear it would also disallow a merger between any two of them. In a swipe at the companies now struggling investors, the president of the […]

Sixty per cent of US households accessed the Internet via broadband in 2008, according to a report published by analyst firm Strategy Analytics, compared to 95 per cent of South Korean households. This number puts the US in 20th place out of 58 leading countries worldwide. Five of the top ten scorers in the Strategy […]

UK communications minister Lord Carter has defended plans to levy a £6-a-year tax (E7.1) on every phone line to raise up to £1.5 billion to help pay for the next generation of super-fast internet networks, as the most transparent way of investing in a critical part of Britain’s infrastructure. Having looked at the investment plans […]