* Sprint, AT&T take access fee dispute to FCC
By Brian Santo
Sprint and AT&T are taking a spat about access charges to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for adjudication.
Sprint has a no-fee arrangement with AT&T in some states, but not all where they both do business. Sprint is arguing that the conditions the government set on AT&T in allowing it to buy BellSouth also give Sprint the right to unilaterally declare a no-fee relationship in all states where the two do business with each other.
If so, Sprint stands to save money. The amount is unknown because neither party has disclosed the terms of the agreement between them, but the Associated Press reports that some analysts calculate the savings could run to the hundreds of millions of dollars.
* YouTube accounted for 1 of 3 online videos viewed in Jan.
By Mike Robuck
According to information released last week by comScore, YouTube’s Web site accounted for one-third of the 9.8 billion videos that were viewed online, across the nation, in the month of January.
The total number of online videos ticked down slightly from the number viewed in December, which was a record-breaking month with 10.1 billion views.
Google’s Web sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property in January, with nearly 3.4 billion videos viewed (a 34.3 percent share of videos), gaining 1.7 share points versus the previous month. YouTube accounted for more than 96 percent of all videos viewed at the property.
Fox Interactive Media ranked second, with 584 million (6 percent), followed by Yahoo sites, with 315 million (3.2 percent), and Microsoft sites, with 199 million (2 percent).
* Wegener gets $1.6M STB order from Conklin-Intracom
By Traci Patterson
Wegener Corp. has received an order for its SMD-515 IPTV set-top boxes (STBs) – totaling more than $1.6 million – from Conklin-Intracom. Shipments are scheduled for Wegener’s third and fourth quarters of 2008.
The STBs will support the IPTV offerings of multiple telco operators, the company said. The SMD-515 STBs support MPEG-4/H.264 and MPEG-2 decoding in both standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD), as well as premium IPTV services such as video-on-demand (VOD) and integrated personal video recording (PVR).
Wegener’s STBs – as a part of Conklin-Intracom's fs|cdn integrated middleware and conditional access IPTV solution – are in commercial deployment by telcos and operators in the U.S. and internationally, the company said.
* Cedar Point names Arietta as EMEA sales exec
By Traci Patterson
Cedar Point Communications has named Ivan Arietta as the VP of sales for the European, Middle Eastern and African markets.
He will be responsible for driving the development of Cedar Point’s Safari C³ Multimedia Switching System in the regions. Arietta’s 30-year international background includes positions with Avaya, Sonus Networks and Nortel Networks.
* Vonage increases board size with addition of Misner
By Traci Patterson
Vonage’s board of directors has elected Jeff Misner as a new member, increasing the size of its board from seven to eight members.
As a director, Misner will serve on the audit committee. Misner currently serves as the CFO and EVP of Continental Airlines Inc. Prior to Continental, Misner was a tax and business consultant who served as a tax partner with Ernst and Young, as well as Kenneth Leventhal and Co.
More Broadband Direct:
• Field technicians suing Charter over wages
• Cox, Charter delivering fiber optic cable telecom link
• Launch mishap dings Dish’s HD efforts
• Two more Sprint board members to leave
• Dish Network asks court to rehear patent dispute with TiVo
• TiVo ready to send Web videos to TVs
• Losing business, Qwest dropping employees
• Broadband Briefs for 3/18/08
