Harmonic has acquired the transcoding software vendor Rhozet Corporation for $15.5 million (€11.3 million) in a mixture of cash and 1.1 million Harmonic shares to compliment its line of compression products for broadcast and IP-based platforms. The deal is expected to close by the end of this month. “With the addition of the Rhozet universal [...]
Virgin-Sky case could continue into 2008
July 25, 2007 10.29 Europe/London By
Virgin Media subscribers looking for a return of Sky’s basic channels could be in for a long wait. The High Court in London heard on Tuesday that the case between the two companies might continue for at least another year. Virgin is alleging that BSkyB is abusing its dominant position in the marketplace by increasing [...]
KPN loses bid to open Dutch cablenets
July 24, 2007 17.02 Europe/London By
Dutch cablenets Casema, Essent, Multikabel, UPC, and Delta Kabel have won their appeal against OPTA’s March 17, 2006 ruling on broadcast distribution services. The business tribunal (College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, CBb) has overruled the regulator’s decision ordering the cable operators to open up their networks to other providers of broadcast distribution services and [...]
TV Cabo detects illegal connections
July 24, 2007 15.20 Europe/London By
Since the start of the year, the Portuguese cable operator TV Cabo has detected 7,000 illegal connections to its cable TV network. It succeeded in signing up 1,000, and informed the regulator Anacom of 200 cases of illegal reception among the remaining 6,000. ATVCabo source told the daily Expresso that the company is investing €2 [...]
Norway boost for Canal Digital
July 24, 2007 12.18 Europe/London By
Strong subscriber growth from Canal Digital in the Norwegian market have helped Telenor Broadcast increase its revenues by 14% in the financial quarter ending June 30, 2007 compared to the second quarter of 2006. Telenor Broadcast recorded revenues of NOK 1,776m (€224.87m) and EBITDA of NOK 462m. Subscriptions within the Norwegian market increased by 8%, [...]
Triple play performs for Com Hem
July 24, 2007 10.58 Europe/London By
Sweden’s dominant cable operator Com Hem took advantage of demand across digital TV telephony and broadband services as it improved its net sales by 13.9% in the second half of the year. Com Hem recorded net sales of SEK869 million (€94.8m) as its EBITDA climbed by 31.9% to SEK401m. The number of broadband customers rose [...]
Medical appointment service goes live
July 23, 2007 11.27 Europe/London By
The UK’s digital booking service for doctor’s appointments has gone live on Sky Digital, Virgin Media and mobile phones. The national service covers over 1,100 surgeries across the country and is operated by local government’s not for profit organisation DigiTV. Trials in South Yorkshire showed that patients were less likely to miss an appointment when [...]
Multikabel M-CMTS rollout reaches 50,000 subs
July 20, 2007 10.04 Europe/London By
The rollout of BigBand Networks modular cable termination system (M-CMTS) with Multikabel in the Netherlands has passed more than 50,000 subscribers. The deployment is believed to be the first commercial deployment of M-CMTS based on the CableLabs specification. “The economic benefits of BigBand’s M-CMTS solution are substantial. BigBand’s solution has allowed us to roll out [...]
Setanta free for Virgin big basic customers
July 20, 2007 07.55 Europe/London By
Virgin Media and Setanta Sports have agreed a significant distribution deal that will place six Setanta channels in Virgin Media’s big basic XL TV package. The cablenet has stressed that the pricing is a permenant fixture and not a limited. Subscribers to Virgin’s M and L packages can get the Setanta package for an additional [...]
New dawn for Hungarian cable
July 19, 2007 21.45 Europe/London By
Hungary’s cable industry is bracing itself for huge change following the scrapping of a rule that prevented operators from providing services to more than one-third of the population. The move has not only halted legal action being taken by the EC against the country for failing to comply with European telecom legislation but also paves [...]
