Advanced Television

Regulation

Bank will sell UK spectrum

Morgan Stanley has won the contract to market the prime broadcast spectrum that will become available for sale once all television stations switch from analogue The auction, which could raise up to £5bn (E6.3bn) for the Treasury, will make available up to eight packages of wavelength in a "sweet spot" on the spectrum. About 128Mhz […]

September 15, 2008

Comcast names limit

Comcast says that to exceed that 250 GB threshold, a customer would have to dowload 125 standard-definition movies.The announcement comes three weeks before Comcast must report to the FCC on how it has managed Internet traffic and how it will better inform customers of that network management, the result of an FCC finding Comcast had […]

August 31, 2008

FCC urged to reject MPAA exemption

But the groups said the waiver _will give the largest motion picture production companies veto power over the connections which are used to connect set-top boxes, receivers, high definition televisions, home theatre systems, digital video recorders and other consumer electronics devices, the groups said in their comments. This veto power will give media companies leverage […]

July 25, 2008

Ofcom relaxes ad rules

Following a consultation on the UK implementation of Brussels’ new Audio Visual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, Ofcom is changing its code on the rules for the distribution of TV advertising. Ofcom has ditched the 20-minute interval rule and the new code will also allow for one advertising break for every 30 minutes of a film, […]

July 25, 2008

UK crackdown on illegal downloads

The ISPs though have rejected demands from the music industry to cut people’s connections if they ignore repeated warnings. An estimated 6.5 million Britons were involved in illicit music downloads over last 12 months, a trend estimated to cost the music industry up to £1 billion in the next five years. The firms have also […]

July 25, 2008

Satellite operators call for EU to guarantee services

Satellite communications play a key role in achieving Europe’s objectives. As the Chairman of ESOA and CEO of Eutelsat, Giuliano Berretta, explained, satellites are “an integral and indispensable part of everyday life whether we talk about TV or emergency communication, connectivity in villages, mountains, islands, in-flight and at sea”. The European Parliament is now debating […]

July 25, 2008

Cable Europe welcomes EU copyright review

Cable Europe, welcomed the decision of the European Commission to address the monopolistic way in which copyright collecting societies are organised in Europe. Cable Europe called for a new copyright collecting system that stimulates the development of new digital content services, and ‘future proofs' collections. Cable operators in Europe regard the Commission's decision (to order […]

July 17, 2008

Court says U-verse IS cable service

AT&T failed to convince a federal judge to vacate a legal precedent declaring that U-verse TV is a cable service. The telco had petitioned the US District Court of Connecticut to declare as moot that court’s July 2007 ruling striking down a finding by the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control from 2006.That regulators, in […]

July 17, 2008

OPTA forces Dutch cable TV to allow resellers

Dutch cable television operators will be forced to allow rivals to resell TV subscriptions under a draft decision by telecoms regulator OPTA. At the same time, OPTA plans to free the former telecoms monopoly KPN from some restrictions in the consumer market for telephony, saying competition was sufficient.KPN has long complained that it has to […]

July 16, 2008

YouTube and Viacom privacy compromise

Google has struck a deal to protect the personal data of millions of YouTube users in the $1 billion copyright court case brought against the video-sharing website by Viacom. Under the deal, Google will make user information and IP addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom in the US […]

July 16, 2008