Broadband

Popcornflix available on Sony devices

March 14, 2013 1:50 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

Sony Entertainment Network customers with Internet-connected Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players, and Blu-ray Home Theater devices can now access the Popcornflix for free. Popcornflix has been available to people who use Roku and Boxee set-tops.

Monroe supports Canada's alert system

March 14, 2013 1:35 pm | by Brian Santo | Products | Comments

Monroe’s DASDEC emergency messaging platform and R189 One-Net Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) encoder/decoder systems provide comprehensive support for Canada's National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination (NAAD) system requirements. The former is designed for TV and radio broadcasters, the latter for cable, IPTV, and satellite providers.

Rogers’ security service rolls into Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe area

March 14, 2013 12:18 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

Rogers Communications has expanded the availability of its Smart Home Monitoring service into Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe, which includes Hamilton, Oakville, Burlington, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and other areas. Rogers was the first cable operator to launch a home automation and security platform in Canada in September of 2011.

Zenverge to bring MoCA on board

March 13, 2013 1:18 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

The transcoding specialist, fresh off getting its chip adopted by Arris for a new gateway based on the Comcast RDK, is in the process of integrating Entropic’s MoCA circuitry into its products. Entropic is one of Zenverge's investors, along with Motorola and Verizon, among others.

Synacor forms joint venture in China

March 12, 2013 2:03 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

The web-based portal specialist has formed a joint venture with Beijing-based Maxit Technology, as a means of expanding into China. It will be known as Synacor China Limited (and as Beijing Xing Mai Technology Limited in China). Synacor expects to invest about $2 million over two years.

Startup debuts radical new router

March 12, 2013 1:55 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

Compass-EOS, which counts Comcast and Cisco among its investors, has announced a new router based on a new, long-hoped for class of ICs that fully integrate electronic and photonic elements on the same die. The company said the system is now shipping, and noted that several of the new routers are already up and running at customer installations.

Comcast co-hosts IETF meeting

March 12, 2013 12:14 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

For the second straight year, Comcast is a co-sponsor of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 86 meeting, which is taking place this week in Orlando, Fla. Comcast also announced that it had renewed its membership to the Internet Society as a platinum organization supporter for the sixth consecutive year.

Research: Fiber gap for businesses shrinks

March 12, 2013 12:07 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

According to a recent study, the “fiber gap” to businesses across the nation is steadily closing, but 64 percent of commercial buildings in the United States don’t have access to fiber-based network services. Vertical Systems Group’s latest report said that despite the current gap, business fiber availability has more than tripled since 2004 when the penetration rate was 11 percent.

Elemental, deltatre enter marketing deal

March 11, 2013 2:16 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

The combined solution features Elemental video processing systems paired with the deltatre Diva video player, which that company has developed specifically for sporting events, and has designed to be customizable for each individual sport.

Chasing big business

March 8, 2013 6:17 pm | by Craig Kuhl, Contributing Editor | Articles | Comments

The lucrative small- to mid-size business (SMB) services market is growing organically to include larger enterprises and is now in phase two as cable operators and related service providers accelerate the expansion of their business services model to include the enterprise market.

Comcast ups Xfinity speeds in 3 more states

March 8, 2013 1:26 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

Comcast continued its gradual rollout of internet speed upgrades, doubling the downstream speeds of two of the more popular tiers of Xfinity service in Arkansas, Indiana, and Michigan, at no cost. The speed upgrades initially apply to the Blast! and Extreme 50 plans.

Bang the DRM slowly

March 7, 2013 6:10 pm | by Brian Santo | Articles | Comments

There isn’t a single legal concept that has inspired more heartburn in more facets of content distribution than digital rights management (DRM). Consumers have a pretty good idea what DRM is, and plenty vociferously despise it with the same loathing they have for banks, airlines and their communications service providers.

Open Mic: Navigating television’s perfect storm

March 7, 2013 5:37 pm | by Jim Tanner, Chief architect at Clearleap | Articles | Comments

For today’s well-equipped TV watcher, pausing a program on the living room TV set and resuming it on the portable tablet is merely a matter of pressing buttons or swiping screens. A click here, a tap there, and in seconds the program hops from one screen to the next, uninterrupted and ready to resume. Or so it appears.

Cache as cache can: cable cozies up to nDVR

March 7, 2013 2:46 pm | by Mike Robuck | Articles | Comments

Network-based DVR services have been waiting in the wings for years now, but their big debut seems to be only a matter of time now that content rights issues are thawing out and the network architectures are taking shape. nDVR will be, when paired with a content delivery network or cloud, one of the legs that TV Everywhere services stand on once it’s enabled.

ActiveVideo hires Nemani away from Cisco

March 7, 2013 1:17 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

ActiveVideo Networks has hired Murali Nemani as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. He joins ActiveVideo after five years with Cisco, where he directed the launch of the company’s Videoscape solutions for service providers, as well as the expansion of the company’s mobility portfolio for wireless and wireline operators.