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Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals
Clearwire postpones Sprint vote, could force SoftBank’s hand
May 31, 2013 12:30 pm | by Ben Munsen, Wireless Week | News | CommentsThe wireless broadband carrier has rescheduled a shareholder vote on a bid to buy out Clearwire. Meanwhile, Sprint’s shareholders are scheduled to vote June 12 on SoftBank’s proposal to acquire a 70 percent stake in Sprint. As a result, Softbank may be put in the position of deciding whether to close the deal for Sprint without knowing the fate of Clearwire.
Comcast gives a voice to X1 Remote app
May 30, 2013 12:29 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsComcast subscribers that live in the areas where the cable operator’s next generation X1 platform has been deployed can now bark orders at their TVs by using Comcast’s X1 Remote app. The update to the X1 Remote app lets Comcast X1 customers change channels by saying the network name, or search for program titles, sports teams and actors by speaking into their iPhone microphones.
BlackArrow targets ads to IP devices, forges new partnerships
May 30, 2013 12:21 pm | by Mike Robuck | Products | CommentsBlackArrow announced the availability of a new product, BlackArrow Linear, that will help cable operators extend live and linear TV programming into IP devices. In tandem with the new product release, BlackArrow also announced partnerships with encoding, transcoding and packaging vendors to create an ecosystem for splicing ads into the live streams.
Comcast blends Cisco’s WebEx into Upware marketplace
May 30, 2013 12:17 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsComcast Business announced this morning that it has added Cisco’s WebEx Meeting center into its cloud-based Upware virtual marketplace that was designed to serve the needs of small and medium-sized (SMBs) businesses. With WebEx Meeting Center, businesses can conduct online meetings with customers, vendors, partners and colleagues across their organization or around the world
Dish ups bid for Clearwire
May 30, 2013 12:11 pm | by Ben Munson, Wireless Week | News | CommentsDish Network has raised its bid for Clearwire to $4.40 per share, representing a 29 percent premium over the revised offer of $3.40 per share Sprint last week submitted to the internet wholesaler. The bid caused Clearwire’s stock to skyrocket in after hours trading.
Roku raises $60M from Hearst, News Corp, others
May 29, 2013 4:09 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsRoku Inc., the streaming video device maker, said Wednesday that it has raised $60 million in its sixth round of funding. Media giant Hearst Corp. and an unnamed institutional investor joined existing backers such as News Corp. and its subsidiary British Sky Broadcasting in the round.
Cablemas adds VOD features, including multiscreen
May 29, 2013 1:58 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsCablemás is adopting Conax’s Xtend Multiscreen, which will give the Mexican cable operator the ability to extend the VOD services it has been offering with additional VOD content, and also advanced features such as Catch up, Live TV, nPVR and multiscreen. The Mexican MSO is also adopting enabling products from Evolution Digital, Cubiware, Harmonic and Vubiquity.
Cisco: M2M manifests; video still driving global traffic
May 29, 2013 1:51 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsAccording to the company's latest global Internet traffic report, M2M Internet traffic has begun to have a measurable impact on global IP networks. The latest version of the annual Visual Networking Index also attested to the ongoing nature of other well-known trends: on a global basis, more people are getting connected, data consumption is increasing, and video represents a growing constituent element of global traffic.
Hillcrest Labs joins Comcast RDK lineup
May 29, 2013 1:03 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsAdd another player to the list of vendors that have signed up to license Comcast’s Reference Design Kit (RDK) with today’s addition of Hillcrest Labs to the RDK lineup. With the agreement in hand, Hillcrest will be able to provide software development, integration and testing services to OEMs, semiconductor manufacturers, software vendors, software integrators and MVPDs who are taking part in the RDK effort.
Alterna'TV picks CMC to deliver VOD programming
May 29, 2013 12:55 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsAlterna'TV has drafted Comcast Media Center to launch its lineup of VOD programming for six Spanish-language networks. Comcast Media Center (CMC) will serve up VOD video content from its distribution platform from Canal 22 Internacional, Canal Once TV Mexico, Ecuavisa Internacional, CBTV canal Michoacan, Telemicro Internacional, and LAS (Latin American Sports).
AT&T mobilizes the cloud to service small businesses
May 29, 2013 12:47 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsAT&T has launched a cloud-based platform that was designed to help small businesses share content among co-workers’ mobile devices. Content can be stored, shared and viewed from the cloud while documents can be created, edited and annotated.
Adara racks up two more customer wins
May 29, 2013 12:44 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsAdara Technologies announced this morning it had successfully launched its digital video network upgrade platform with two additional service providers—Darien Communications of Georgia and Beaver Creek Telephone (BCT) of Oregon. By using the platform’s switched digital video capability, both service providers can clear up enough capacity to add hundreds of additional HD channels.
HomeGrid Forum and HomePNA Alliance merge
May 28, 2013 2:13 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsThe merged organization, operating under the HomeGrid Forum name, will continue to support both G.hn and HomePNA. With G.hn-based products beginning to hit the market, the merger creates an organization that will guide those planning new networks based on G.hn as well as migrating from earlier network technologies to G.hn.
Oi taps home Wi-Fi routers for public access
May 28, 2013 2:05 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsThe Brazilian telecommunications provider is preparing to commercialize a technology that North American MSOs have been only talking about so far: the ability to partition residential Wi-Fi routers to use some of the bandwidth for public mobile access. Oi is using enabling technology from Aptilo Networks.
Casa Systems debuts CCAP platform
May 28, 2013 1:59 pm | by Brian Santo | Products | CommentsWhen fully loaded, the C100G can support 8,000 downstreams. The system is a highly available, fully redundant, integrated CCAP (I-CCAP) platform does exactly what CCAP was meant to do: it enables MSOs to deploy MPEG video, IP video (IPTV) and/or DOCSIS broadband over any single port.
