US researcher Infonetics Research says that spending on IPTV and switched video equipment fell in the first quarter of 2009, down 11% on the immediate prior quarter to $1.0 billion. This was caused mainly by macroeconomic conditions and a slowdown in U-Verse IPTV rollouts at AT&T and in SDV rollouts at Comcast. The only region to see growth was Central and Latin America. But for the year as a whole 2009 will be ahead of 2008, Infonetics says, and will grow at a healthy pace over the next 4 quarters. VoD servers are quickly transforming from solid-state based, centralized devices connected to a master storage library, to being flash-based memory in a switched architecture, led by BigBand, Cisco, Motorola, and Verivue. IP set-top box vendor revenue will grow at an average of 14% annually between 2008 and 2013.
TDD cellular specialist IPWireless announced two deals that will see TD-CDMA technology deployed in the 700 MHz band, one with Southern Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority in the US to build a wireless broadband network for rural residents and another network for USA Choice Internet Services Company, a provider of Internet services to the underserved economic areas in Northwest and Central Pennsylvania. Both companies won spectrum in the 700 MHz auction.
Add supported music download service Qtrax is being sued by vendors which says they have not been paid, including one suit from database management supplier Oracle over a $1.9 million bounced check, according to CNET. Other cases have been filed by Millennium Information Technologies and Las Vegas Wall Street Group. The company says it has just landed more funding and will launch soon.
Australian Internet Service Provider iiNet says it will launch an IPTV service in the first half of next year according to Advanced TV News, and says that it is just putting the finishing touches to a set top that can provide time shifting and enough storage, for the right price. iiNet has about 215,600 broadband customers.
AT&T will launch its first pop-up TV adverts after experimenting with the technology itself. The idea is to get extra U-Verse revenue from customers who usually fast forward through adverts. BroadbandReports says that all 2 million U-verse TV customers who are currently watching TV see the same adverts. The first advert played last week for Domino Pizza.
US analyst group Juniper Research has issued a report about the future of ultra low cost handsets, saying that it is just as big an opportunity as the smart phone end of the market. Juniper forecasts annual sales will grow by 22% a year to 2014 reaching over 700 million units while the entire handset market grows by some 1.5 billion subscribers, with most new subs of this type in countries where luxury spend is very small. Currently Nokia leads, but so far market penetration of these markets is less than 10% and only four countries – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ‘ have handset costs down low enough, though Ghana may soon join them.
UK ISP Tiscali, recently bought by Carphone Warehouse, has added the ESPN sports channels and ESPN America to its IPTV service. Initially the channels will cost one penny a month until the end of September, and then jump to full price at around $16 a month. The new ESPN channel will offer English Premier soccer games which had once belonged to Setanta, plus coverage of German, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian football.
A federal judge has ruled that RealNetworks’ DVD-copying RealDVD software product does violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and has banned its distribution. “This is a victory for the creators and producers of motion pictures and television shows and for the rule of law in our digital economy,” said Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) CEO Dan Glickman. RealNetworks is expected to appeal the decision.