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UK broadband tax and sport list dropped as election looms

In the 'wash up' rush to get laws through parliament before dissolution at the end of this week the government has been heavily trimming its Digital Economy Bill. Most prominent casualty is the £6 (E6.8) pa phone line tax to fund fast broadband. The national rollout of replacement ITV regional news services and giving Ofcom […]

April 8, 2010

FCC loses key ruling on Net Neutrality

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. The verdict – a major blow to Net Neutrality – follows Comcast's challenge to the FCC's authority to rule that they […]

April 8, 2010

Erik Haug appointed CEO of Telenor Denmark

Telenor Group has confirmed that Jon Erik Haug has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Telenor in Denmark. Erik Haug will succeed Henrik Clausen, who is appointed CEO of DiGi, Telenor’s subsidiary in Malaysia. Erik Haug has held several positions within the Telenor Group, most recently as Marketing Director in Telenor in Sweden where he […]

April 8, 2010

Digital executive leaves News Corp

Jeremy Philips, one of Rupert Murdoch's most senior Internet executives, has confirmed he is leaving News Corp, highlighting the media empire's reduced appetite for the digital deal-making he had been hired to oversee. Philips vetted possible deals, working on the group's on-off talks with Yahoo before the Internet company's search agreement with Microsoft.

April 2, 2010

Hollywood warns Spain black list looms

Hollywood studios have warned that Spain could become a 'non viable market' for them because of movie piracy. “People are downloading movies in such large quantities that Spain is on the brink of no longer being a viable home entertainment market for us,” Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, told the Los Angeles Times. […]

April 2, 2010

Ofcom bids to control Sky pricing

As expected UK regulator Ofcom's review of pay-TV has concluded that it should regulate BSkyB's wholesale pricing of its sports channels in a bid, it says, to increase competition and thereby lower prices and increase innovation. Six weeks from now Ofcom expects Sky to cut its ratecard for each of Sky Sports 1 and 2 […]

April 1, 2010

UK court: ISPs are responsible for downloaders

ISPs will have to do more to help content owners protect their content online following a High Court ruling. In a case brought by a group of film studios including Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros, the judge found that Newzbin, a private online forum, was liable for its members' copyright infringement when […]

March 31, 2010

Ofcom to act on broadband speeds

Net firms must do a better job of telling customers about broadband speeds or face stiffer regulation. Ofcom has warned following research the telecoms watchdog carried out on how ISPs sell broadband. It revealed that 74 per cent of customers were not told that the maximum speed on their line was likely to be higher […]

March 31, 2010

VOD providers must fund regulation

UK video-on-demand providers must pay a combined £375,000 (E415,000) to two bodies that will regulate their industry. The Association for Television On Demand (ATVOD) which has been confirmed by Ofcom to co-regulate, along with it, the VOD sector, says running costs for December 2009 to March 2011 are £426,388, and that the VOD providers themselves […]

March 30, 2010

Kudelski Group completes acquisition of OpenTV

OpenTV has completed the previously announced acquisition and OpenTV is now fully owned by the Kudelski Group. In a statement, The Kudelski Group said that it “sees a significant potential in the integration of the teams and product roadmaps of both OpenTV and the Kudelski Group's digital television division. A unified market vision will allow […]

March 30, 2010