The European Commission has asked the EU’s highest court to rule on the legality of a controversial treaty covering copyright, counterfeiting and Internet freedom. The EU executive said in a statement “[we have]…decided to ask the European Court of Justice for a legal opinion to clarify that the ACTA agreement and its implementation must be […]
The UK advertising regulator has banned a TV ad by BSkyB aimed at users of its Anytime+ service after almost 100 complaints claimed it was misleading and unfair because Sky refused to offer the deal to all customers. The TV ad campaign, which ran with the line “welcome to the world of better offers”, targeted […]
Following yesterday’s reports in US press that Cisco was looking to sell Scientific-Atlanta, the company has moved to confirm its commitment to set-top boxes, describing such comments as “erroneous” and “unsourced”. In a Service Provider blog, Corporate Communications head John Earnhardt drew attention to comments made earlier in the month by Cisco Chairman and CEO […]
UK Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said a fund has been set up to collect an ‘interference fund’ from mobile companies who are bidding for 4G mobile spectrum. The new networks will allow home broadband speeds to be delivered to mobile phones, but will cause some interference to existing TV signals. Most users will be able […]
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has welcomed an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) move to allow governments to take “necessary actions” when foreign powers deliberately interfere with satellite transmissions. Member states approved a revision of the ITU regulations that will give governments greater powers to counter the practice. The decision was taken at this year’s ITU […]
Advanced Television is sad to report the passing away on Saturday February 18th after a 15-month illness of Shane O’Neill, former Chief Strategy Officer of Liberty Global and President, Chellomedia. O’Neill’s early career was with KPMG in Dublin, before moving to Australia to work with Macquarie bank. He subsequently joined Goldman Sachs and built up […]
Social networking websites cannot be forced to install anti-piracy software in a bid to stop members illegally file-sharing. The ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is in a case between Belgian-based social network Netlog and SABAM, a music royalities collection firm also based in Belgium. “The owner of an online social network cannot […]
Belgian cable operator has Telenet reported full year revenues up six per cent year-on-year to €1.37 billion. EBITDA rose 8 per cent to €723.4 million while the margin advanced to 52.6 per cent. Meanwhile, the net profit fell 81 per cent to €16.8 million on the back of increasing losses on derivatives, higher depreciation costs, […]
OAO Rostelecom, Russia’s dominant fixed-line phone operator, plans to boost its stake in pay television operator National Telecommunications, or NTK to 100 per cent, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant. Rostelecom could spend $460 million to acquire the 28 per cent of NTK shares it doesn’t already own from OAO Gazprombank.
Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES reported record profits for its full year 2011 numbers (to December 31st) as well as continued growth in its fleet (which now numbers 50 satellites) helped by this past week’s launch of SES-4. However, overall launch delays of new satellites plus some problems with specific satellites harmed, and continue to harm, […]