Australia’s competition regulator has raised concerns that the planned A$2 billion takeover of pay-TV operator Austar by rival Foxtel, part owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, could hurt competition on three fronts. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has delayed its decision on Foxtel’s bid until September, a strong indication that it sees problems […]

US phone giant AT&T surprised the industry by announcing that it had added 202,000 net new U-verse pay-TV subscribers between April and June. This takes its total of pay-TV clients to 3.4 million subscribers, up 36 per cent on a year ago, and ahead of Wall Street estimates. The bad news is that AT&T lost […]

US telco Verizon’s Q2 figures show accelerated revenue growth and improved margins across its business groups, leading to a strong earnings performance in second-quarter 2011. Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg said the company continued to see strong customer demand for FiOS Internet and TV, and for cloud and other strategic services. On a consolidated basis, […]

Romtelecom will stop providing its IPTV Dolce package free of charge this August, according to Romanian business newspaper Ziarul Financiar, citing Ovidiu Ghiman, Romtelecom Chief Strategy and Commercial Residential Officer. The Romanian telco has sent letters to those who have access to the IPTV package, informing them they need to subscribe to an IPTV package […]

Organisers for TelcoTV 2011 have announced the schedule for the tenth anniversary of its well‐regarded conference and tradeshow, taking place this year Oct. 25 to 27 at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Celebrating “Ten Years Transforming Telecom and Entertainment,” the three‐day conference program promises value for exhibitors and attendees with education, networking and […]

More than a quarter of the world’s TV households will subscribe to triple-play services of TV, broadband and telephony by 2016, according to Digital TV Research (DTVR). The Triple-Play Forecasts report, which covers 73 countries, estimates that this is up from only 7.1 per cent penetration at end-2010. Report author Simon Murray said that the […]

Four out of ten Europeans households are buying ‘bundled’ Internet, phone and TV services from a single provider, a Eurobarometer survey shows. The survey also found that 65 per cent of people limit their mobile phone calls because of cost and that calls over the Internet are becoming increasingly popular. The E-Communications Household Survey was […]

Although soon-to-be-released figures suggest that video consumption has slipped into third place in terms of consumer spend behind cable and satellite subscriptions and ISP subscriptions, Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association contends that with appropriate actions, the sector’s position can be restored. Participating in the Industry Leadership Debate on ‘Owning a slice […]

Dominant Belgian telco Belgacom is launching a new service that allows customers to watch TV everywhere and on any device, in a transparent way, without having to bother about the technical aspects. The initiative follows the launch in 2010 of a series of new offers on the telco’s IPTV service, Belgacom TV, together with video […]

The European Commission has expressed a number of concerns on proposals by Belgian broadcasting and broadband regulators. In particular, the Commission is asking the Belgian regulators to take full account of market developments in both markets and to further substantiate and justify its reasoning with regard to the broadcasting market. The Commission believes Belgium hasn’t […]