Australian pay-TV operator Foxtel will consider taking legal action against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) if it is unsuccessful in overturning the regulator’s preliminary view that its A$1.9 billion acquisition of regional pay-TV group Austar is anti-competitive (see ‘Regulator raises Foxtel Austar bid concerns’, July 22). Foxtel chief executive Kim Williams contends that […]
Skylink, an operator of satellite television broadcasting in the Czech and Slovak markets, has approved SMiT’s Irdeto Advanced Security Dual Mode CAM for its digital satellite network services. New product will be launched on the market via local partners on July. SMiT VP Stephen He noted that SMiT had been supplying secure CA modules to […]
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 […]
International private equity firm BC Partners is to buy Com Hem, Sweden’s leading TV, broadband and telephony company, from The Carlyle Group and Providence Equity Partners. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but are understood to be of the order of €1.8 billion. Com Hem has grown to become Sweden’s largest distributor of […]
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, […]
UK quad-play operator Virgin Media, the UK’s leading broadband provider, is successfully delivering internet speeds up to 240 times faster than the national average to trialists in London. Using Virgin Media’s cable network, broadband speeds of up to 1.5Gb are being enjoyed around Old Street, an area known as ‘Silicon Roundabout’, including by members at […]
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 […]
DTH subscriptions will continue to grow, achieving 71 percent of the pay-TV market by 2016, says a report from Dataxis. By the end of this year DTH will edge past cable subscriptions (51 per cent versus cable’s 49 per cent), following a growing trend towards DTH subscription. At present, in Mexico, DTH is operated by […]