Advanced Television

Broadband

ONO, Tele 5, lead ratings in Spain

From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain’s largest cable company ONO leads the pay-TV audience ratings with an average share of 7.11 per centin November, well ahead of the digital DTH platform Digital Plus, with 3.95 per cent, Telefonica’s Imagenio and other cable operators, with 5.64 per cent, according to TNS Sofres. The most widely […]

December 5, 2007

UK fast net not needed?

The push for next-generation broadband could be premature, according to regulator Ofcom and BT which have expressed doubts about whether the time is right for rolling out fibre optic networks. “We need significant evidence that such a network is required and I don’t think it exists yet,” said Peter Philips, Ofcom’s head of strategy. Super-fast […]

December 4, 2007

Alcatel-Lucent and HKBN introduce GPON

Alcatel-Lucent and Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (HKBN), a wholly-owned subsidiary of City Telecom have confirmed the deployment of the first Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) in Hong Kong. The collaboration contract also includes network maintenance. Alcatel-Lucent says its Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) solution will enable HKBN to deliver advanced triple play services to its subscribers and […]

December 3, 2007

News Corp online ad network

News Corp’s Internet division plans to launch an online network to sell advertising across Rupert Murdoch’s media group and to other media companies as early as the first half of next year. Fox Interactive Media (FIM) President Peter Levinsohn told Reuters that the network, internally dubbed “FIM Serve,” is the subject of discussion across the […]

November 29, 2007

FCC chief hunts votes on cable

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is reportedly struggling to find enough support from agency commissioners to regulate cable television companies more tightly. The five-member commission is set to vote today on a report, proposed by Kevin Martin that would give the commission expanded powers over the cable industry after making a formal finding […]

November 27, 2007

Spain’s broadband quadruples

From David Del Valle in Madrid The broadband market is growing strongly with plans to reach 8.2 million broadband Internet lines by the end of the year, a penetration rate of 18.4 per cent, against 2.1 million connections back in 2003. Approximately 57 per cent of households in Spain are expected to have broadband services […]

November 27, 2007

FCC OKs broadband for airplanes

The Federal Communications Commission has granted ViaSat blanket authority for domestic operation of up to 1,000 earth stations aboard commercial aircraft. The agency said the earth stations will provide Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Service using standard Ku-band frequency ranges to link with leased transponders on the AMC-6 satellite. According to FCC documents, the ViaSat aircraft earth […]

November 27, 2007

UK broadband use reaches new high

Almost nine out of 10 UK net users are connecting via broadband services, official figures reveal. Information gathered by National Statistics (ONS) for September show that 88.4 per cent of Britons are choosing to use broadband rather than dial-up. The statistics show that 49.2 per cent of those connections are for services advertised at two […]

November 23, 2007

User demand could outpace bandwidth

Consumer and corporate Internet usage could outstrip network capacity both worldwide in two years time, according to 'The Internet Singularity, Delayed' study conducted by Nemertes Research. This study indicates that Internet access infrastructure, especially in North America, will cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years. The financial investment […]

November 21, 2007

Thomson aids German DTT

As a key part of its transition from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting, Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR), part of the German federal broadcaster ARD, has ordered a DVB-T multiplex centre from Thomson. The installation will allow SR's digital services to officially go on air by the end of 2007. German broadcasters are migrating rapidly to digital […]

November 20, 2007