UTStarcom has completed the sale of its US handset distribution business, although it will still make handsets and supply them to the renamed, Personal Communications Devices company now backed by AIG Venture Capital in a management buyout for $240 million. New UTStarcom CEO Peter Blackmore made it clear that the business was non-core but profitable, and that the main company would focus on IPTV, softswitches and next generation fixed networks, mostly in Asia.
China Telecom has established an R&D laboratory for IPTV technologies in Shanghai, Chinese newspaper reports said this week, expected to develop technologies in line with international standards and provide IPTV-related testing and validation services. China Telecom offers IPTV in conjunction with Shanghai Media Group and has almost 1 million customers.
In the dying days of last week Blockbuster decided to withdraw its offer to buy Circuit City Stores, saying that market conditions weren’t right, which is code for the fact that Circuit City Stores’ share price fell through the floor. If Blockbuster still wants Circuit, and it has just completed due diligence, then it should be able to get away paying a lot less than the $1 billion that was on the table. The Blockbuster offer was over $6 a share and now the stock is trading at $2.30 a share. It looks like that due diligence threw up some black holes.
The US District Court for the District of Massachusetts has denied Akamai’s motion for a permanent injunction against Limelight Networks, saying it is premature, and also denied Akamai’s motions for partial summary judgment on chunks of the Limelight defense. Additionally, the Court denied Limelight Networks’ motions for a new trial. This case promises to run and run and is about patent infringement in Content Delivery Networks.
Alcatel-Lucent says that it has a frame agreement with French broadband operator Neuf Cegetel to deploy a fiber-to-the-home for 100,000 Apartments in Paris. This has come about under the auspices of the Office Public d’Amenagement et de Construction (public housing) to bridge the digital divide and get good broadband to poorer segments of the community.
Satellite service operator Intelsat says that it transmitted the three most watched programs ever in Spanish TV history last month, to millions of viewers during the broadcast of Spain’s soccer team playing in the final rounds of June’s Euro 2008 soccer championship, which Spain won. Viewers went as high as 17.89 million in the final.
The Open IPTV Forum has added a number of strong new members at its meeting in Madrid last month, the founder members are Ericsson, France Telecom, Nokia Siemens Networks, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Telecom Italia ‘ and a number of other smaller players and to this were added Motorola, BeeTV, Opera Software, FastWeb, Thomson, Digital Fountain, Swisscom, Intel, ZyXEL and DRM specialist Intertrust Technologies bring the number of members to 37. This has been a slow start because a number of the first generation of members were not active in IPTV even though they were large, but the new members list looks more impressive and experienced.
US chip maker Zoran said this week that its Approach 5C advanced image multimedia processor chip is the device which powers LG’s Secret, the latest handset of the LG Black Label Series. The device is claimed to be the slimmest 5 megapixel camera phone on the market, just 11.8 mm thick.
Video transcoding specialist Dilithium said this week that Indosat, the second largest operator in Indonesia, has chosen its DTG multimedia gateway for deployment of advanced mobile video services. This is the 100th deployment of this gateway and Indosat will use it to launch video mail, video portal, Live TV, video dating and citizen reporting all based the functions in the gateway.
Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable television provider in the US, has joined MoCA as a Contributor level member. MoCA can now claim three of the largest cable companies in the US as members. MoCA has specified a coaxial cable based method for carrying video signals around a home, from set top to set top, and is likely to be used by cable for multi-room DVR communication.
DivX this week said that wi-fi router specialist D-Link has announced a DivX Connected device in the US, called the D-Link MediaLounge DSM-330, which allows for the streaming of music, photos, Internet services, and high-definition video from PCs to the television in the DivX codec format.
South Korea’s LG Display revealed a threefold profit increase for its second quarter despite prices for flat-screen panels being in free fall. Net profit to June 30 was $759 million, up from profit of $228 million last year and a slight improvement consecutively. Sales rose 26% to $4.2 billion, up 4% from the previous quarter and the company said the average price per square meter of display dropped around 5% from the first quarter. The company was formerly LG Philips but changed its name after the Philip’s shareholding reduced.
eMarketer forecasts the global music industry will fall from $31.8 billion to $26 billion by 2011. It said the of music on mobile devices was $1.7 billion in 2007 but this will surge to $7.3 billion by 2011, and which when combined with other online music will be around 56% of all music sales. Online sales will rise from $1.9 billion in 2006 to $7.5 billion by 2011, neck and neck with mobile.
Only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones says Nokia, despite the fact that most have old devices lying around at home which they no longer want, according to a consumer survey. Three out of four people added that they don’t even think about recycling their devices and nearly half were unaware that it is even possible to do so. Nokia interviewed 6,500 people in 13 countries to find attitudes and behaviors towards recycling.
Dreampark, one of the leading providers of middleware for cable, terrestrial and IPTV services in the European market, and Edgeware, a supplier of Flash based server systems for On-Demand TV, said they have completed an integration project enabling operators to use the two products together off the shelf. The combined offering enables network PVR, Time Shift TV with trick play, Start Over TV, Historic Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and Scheduled Recordings.