FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed network neutrality rules for the planned commissioners’ vote on December 21st. The meeting agenda notice, issued yesterday, says: “An Order adopting basic rules of the road to preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition, and free expression. These rules would protect consumers’ and innovators’ […]
The South African Development Community (SADC) has announced that the region, which has a population of over 250 million, will adopt DVB-T2, DVB’s second generation digital terrestrial television standard. The decision to adopt DVB-T2 was taken after rigorous testing and in-depth analysis of ISDB-T, DVB-T and DVB-T2. An Ad Hoc Committee of the SADC was […]
Comcast is willing to have the Federal Communications Commission oversee negotiations with Level 3 Communications to resolve their dispute over Internet interconnection fees. “[W]e have not given up hope that Level 3 will make a reasonable business decision in the context of the parties’ overall commercial relationship… Commercial resolution is the appropriate path forward here,” […]
Internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications says Comcast is demanding a recurring fee for transmitting internet movies and “other content” to Comcast customers, accusing the cableco of violating the FCC’s “net neutrality” principles. Comcast says Level 3 is misrepresenting the negotiations between the two companies. “Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the […]
Following the public complaint made by electronic manufacturers for the lack of a real HDTV in the country, the Government is finalising a new piece of legislation that will oblige broadcasters to label their content, in an attempt to avoid public confusion between HD and standard definition services in the market. Several nationwide TV broadcasters […]
France has two months to respond to European Union complaints that free channels awarded to Canal Plus, TF1 and M6 could violate competition rules. The manner in which the channels were granted, to compensate for the switch from analogue to digital television, could violate European Commission rules of transparency and non- discrimination. France’s culture ministry […]
News Corp’s bid to acquire the shares in BSkyB that it does not already own is to be reviewed by the EU competition regulator, now the UK’s own Office of Fair Trading has not sought jurisdiction over the case. The OFT had a deadline of November 26th to ask the EU for permission to review […]
A UK judge has dismissed an application by TV re-streaming site TVCatchup to throw out a copyright case brought against it by Britain’s broadcasters, saying that “the claim does have a real prospect of success”. The website has been re-streaming live TV channels for two years ago. ITV, Channel 4 and Five in June filed […]
Pirate Bay’s co-founders have lost their appeal against convictions for encouraging illegal filesharing, and have had their collective fine increased by $2 million to $6.5 million. A Swedish appeals court ruled that Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom remain guilty of helping Pirate Bay users illicitly share copyrighted music and film content via their […]
On both sides of the Atlantic the rule makers are readying Net Neutrality legislation and seem likely to head in different directions. The FCC in Washington has been trying to bring broadband provision under the mush stricter telecom carrier regime and, in horse-trading to avoid this fate, service providers have backed-off their opposition to Neutrality […]