Advanced Television

Broadband

Italy: 43% growth in FTTH connections

Fibre technology now accounts for nearly half of fixed access connections in Italy, according to the latest edition of the Communications Observatory of Italy’s telecommunications sector regulator (AgCom). At the end of December 2019, there were 7.76 million FTTC accesses or 39.7 per cent of the total (+21.7 per cent year-on-year), while FTTH lines totaled […]

April 28, 2020From Branislav Pekic in Rome

The only way is up for satellite shares

Just about every single player in Quilty Analytics ‘Satellite and Space’ sectors is suffering depressed share prices – largely as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic – and in many cases dramatically so. There has already been fall-out with OneWeb and Speedcast entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Other hard-hit players, such as the In-Flight Communications […]

April 28, 2020

FCC: Digital divide continuing to close

The Federal Communications Commission has released its annual Broadband Deployment Report, which reveals that the number of Americans lacking access to fixed terrestrial broadband service at 25/3 Mbps continued to decline, going down by more than 14 per cent in 2018. The number of Americans without access to 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband […]

April 27, 2020

Sky research: Lockdown’s ‘boxset effect’

At a time when the Great British Public is spending an unprecedented amount of time indoors, everyone has had to change and adapt how they are living their lives. It’s no surprise that Brits are consuming more TV, more apps and using more broadband, according to multiplay operator Sky. Sky’s research reveals what TV shows […]

April 27, 2020

Musk: “Starlink beta test soon”

Elon Musk’s Starlink mega-constellation will initiate beta testing of the system in about 3 months, and public beta testing in about 6 months, according to Tweets from Musk. There are now just over 400 Starlink craft operational and Musk indicated in his Tweets that the beta tests will start in the “high latitudes” – taken […]

April 27, 2020By Chris Forrester

ViaSat to boost US satellite broadband with MEO

Satellite operator ViaSat of Carlsbad, California, which already operates a fleet of geostationary satellites for broadband services, has received the go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch a fleet of 20 Medium Earth orbiting (MEO) satellites. The FCC’s permission came on April 23 following an application made by ViaSat back in 2018. The […]

April 27, 2020By Chris Forrester

Dish Network confirms Sprint/Boost expansion

Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network is moving forward with its plan to create a 4th cellular network in the US. A Dish official has reportedly confirmed to specialist news-site Light Reading that the DTH broadcaster will purchase about 9.3 million subscribers to Sprint’s Boost mobile telephony system. Boost uses capacity from T-Mobile, although Dish has obligations […]

April 27, 2020By Chris Forrester

Malaysia: Astro expands services with Allo

Astro Malaysia Holdings and Allo Technology have announced a strategic partnership where Astro will offer its bundled broadband and content offering to new and existing residential areas connected by Allo. The offering, which will provide Malaysian residents with high speed broadband connections as well as Astro’s content, is part of Astro’s support of the Government’s […]

April 27, 2020

Stankey named AT&T CEO

John Stankey will become AT&T CEO on July 1st replacing the departing Randall Stephenson. Stephenson has served as AT&T’s CEO for over 13 years and oversaw the acquisitions of Time Warner (now known as WarnerMedia) and satellite TV provider DirecTV. AT&T said that Stephenson will remain the company’s executive chairman until January 2021 “to ensure […]

April 24, 2020

UK altnets hail fibre roll out progress

The UK’s independent network sector has been praised for its significant contribution as the country was revealed as one of the fastest growers in Europe for delivering fibre networks to homes and businesses. The UK is revealed as one of five of the fastest-growing markets in Europe for making new connections in the FTTH Council […]

April 24, 2020By Colin Mann