Spain’s competition watchdog has launched a probe of the country’s three largest mobile-phone operators for possible collusion, Spain’s Consumer and Users Organisation said. The National Competition Commission is investigating whether Telefonica’s Movistar, Vodafone and France Telecom’s Orange co-ordinated a rise in their tariffs in March. All three raised tariffs to compensate for the banning of […]

Having apparently been outperforming many of its rivals dust during the past year and a half, the world's leading telecommunications equipment maker issued a sales and profit warning. It said its operating profit for the third quarter of 2007 was expected to be down 36 per cent compared with the same period last year. It […]

EchoStar Communications Corp shares rose 4 per cent on speculation that US telco giant AT&T could buy the satellite television provider within a year. Echostar’s television service would complement AT&T’s efforts to expand a high-speed fibre network it is building to sell TV services to better compete with cable and telecommunications rivals.

The Competition Commission has extended the timetable for completing its inquiry into BSkyB’s £940 million (E1.3bn) purchase of a 17.9 per cent stake in ITV until next year. It had intended to hand over the results of its inquiry to John Hutton, the secretary of state for business enterprise and regulatory reform, by November 7. […]

Industry body the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has applauded a call by regional political leaders for Governments to “effectively address” the issue of satellite and cable TV signal theft. “The new priority given by the APEC ministers to this problem is great news,” said Marcel Fenez, the Chairman of CASBAA. “With […]

A dispute has broken out between UK television networks and their and Ofcom over the public service remit of channels such as ITV1 and Channel 4. Ed Richards, chief executive of the media and communications regulator, signalled renewed pressure to finalise the remit of channels such as ITV1 and Channel 4, saying that the public […]

Pace Microtechnology put out a Market Update saying “Pace is continuing to perform well and the Board now expects that the outcome for the shortened 2007 year will be significantly ahead of its existing expectations. This primarily results from ongoing action to improve business efficiencies, which is delivering results ahead of our expectations across the […]

From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish police has disbanded a network of pay-TV hackers by arresting 27 people across the country who would have defrauded the pay-TV companies of E10 million. Amonsgt the detainees there are 10 distributors of keys and codes through the Internet, nine sellers of manipulated set-top-boxes and eight responsible […]

The Dolan family's effort to take Cablevision Systems private is being opposed by a large shareholder and a major proxy advisory firm. Mario Gabelli, a longtime media investor, said that the funds he controls would vote against the proposed transaction at a special shareholders' meeting scheduled for October 24th. Gabelli said he believed his clients […]

Discovery Communications has expanded its web presence with the acquisition of online knowledge repository HowStuffWorks for an estimated $250 million (E176m). Discovery will use HowStuffWorks to showcase its existing footage, uploading programme clips into entries on the site. It also plans to create a HowStuffWorks-branded series to air daily on Discovery Channel from next summer. […]