Advanced Television

Policy

DCMS Committee Chair sets out priorities

Following his election as Chair of the UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Julian Knight MP has set out three areas he sees as priorities during his tenure. He said he was “delighted” to have secured the support of the House to lead the DCMS Committee in the new Parliament. “Having […]

January 31, 2020By Colin Mann

Game over for CBA plan?

The key satellite operators within the C-Band Alliance (CBA) are suffering a roller-coaster ride in terms of share value as the ebb and flow of news affects investor confidence – or lack of confidence in any meaningful upside. January 29th, was catastrophic for Intelsat (down a massive 30.26 per cent) and SES (down 8.27 per […]

January 30, 2020By Chris Forrester

BBC News to cut 450 jobs

BBC News has outlined plans to modernise its newsroom to respond to changing audience needs, ensure it is providing a truly universal service, and complete its £80 million (€95m) savings target, suggesting the changes will lead to some 450 job losses. The BBC remains the UK’s most trusted and most consumed news service – but […]

January 30, 2020

Knight new DCMS Committee Chair

Julian Knight, the Conservative MP for Solihull in the UK Midlands, has been elected Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which monitors the policy, administration and expenditure of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and its associated bodies, including the BBC, on behalf of the House of Commons and the […]

January 30, 2020By Colin Mann

Digital UK hires key staff

Freeview platform operator Digital UK says it will be able to call on a management team with significant added firepower in 2020, a year that it says is likely to determine the future of public service broadcasting in Britain. With viewing behaviour increasingly fragmenting and the rise in global competition only growing more invasive, the […]

January 30, 2020

Ofcom boost for service upgrades

UK comms regulator Ofcom has made changes to its regulations that will help broadband companies upgrade customers to faster broadband more efficiently, and support digital infrastructure provider Openreach’s trials in Salisbury and Mildenhall. Openreach’s trials in Salisbury and Mildenhall will test the processes for moving customers off older broadband and telephone services, as part of […]

January 29, 2020By Colin Mann

US C-Band spectrum valuation: $43-$77bn

Last week, Eutelsat, in a submission to the FCC, argued that any auction proceeds from the upcoming sale of C-band satellite spectrum should be limited to a total of $7 billion (€6.36bn). Now, with two independent valuations, the C-Band Alliance (of Intelsat, SES and Telesat) has told the FCC  that while the actual valuation cannot […]

January 29, 2020By Chris Forrester

EU greenlights Huawei 5G

The EU has followed the UK’s example, allowing members to decide what part Huawei can play in their 5G networks, resisting pressure from Washington for an outright ban. EU members can either restrict or exclude high-risk 5G vendors like Huawei from core parts of their telecoms networks, according to the new guidelines, which seek to […]

January 29, 2020

Huawei to have “limited role” in UK 5G

Huawei’s 5G networks will be allowed to remain in the UK but with restrictions, despite pressure from the US to block the firm. The Chinese firm will be banned from supplying kit to “sensitive parts” of the network core. In addition, it will only be allowed to account for 35 per cent of the kit […]

January 28, 2020

Huawei did it come to this?

There has been a week-long drum roll here in the UK leading up to today’s announcement about vendor inclusion in 5G roll out. When the ‘ta da’ moment came it was, of course, a completely predictable political fudge: Huawei (whose name wasn’t mentioned in the statement) will be allowed in, just not in the really […]

January 28, 2020