India - BSNL to launch triple play broadband services in Pune, Chennai
November 17, 2006 (The Hindu) - India's public sector telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., (BSNL) plans to roll out triple play broadband services by January 2007, starting with the cities of Pune and Chennai.

Malta - ICT usage by households and individuals: 2006
November 16, 2006 - Use of television remained predominant in Maltese households. In 2006, there was a notable shift away from the use of Cable TV towards Satellite dishes and digital TV.

NeoMagic Announces Availability of NeoMobileTV™ Companion Chip for Worldwide Mobile TV Market
November 16, 2006 - NeoMagic Corporation announced today the availability of its NeoMobileTV™ companion chip for the fast growing digital mobile TV market. The NeoMobileTV companion chip is optimized to deliver high quality video and audio at very low power for mobile TV applications in mobile phones and other handheld products. In addition, it is designed to work with all major mobile TV tuners and demodulators to support mobile TV standards around the world including ISDB-T, T-DMB, E-DMB, DVB-H and MediaFlo.

Microtune Unveils New Lower-Power, High-Performance Analog/Digital TV Tuner for Portable Devices
November 16, 2006 - Expanding its portfolio of products for the emerging portable digital TV market, Microtune®, Inc. today announced a new tuner chip that brings quality digital TV to PC notebooks, portable TVs, tuner sticks, portable DVD players and other small devices that demand both high performance and lower power. Called the MicroTuner™ MT2130, the new tuner, when integrated into portable consumer products, allows users to watch analog and digital TV across cable or off-air broadcasts, to time-shift programs and to capture video for multimedia applications.

Sling Media, Inc., and 3 to Deliver Exclusive new Mobile TV Service
November 16, 2006 - Sling Media, Inc., a digital lifestyle consumer electronics products company, and the 3 Group, the global leader in 3G mobile broadband, today announced that they are partnering to give customers access to their home TV channels on their mobile handsets. The announcement was made today as part of Hutchison Whampoa’s global launch of the X-Series from 3, which unveils the true power of the internet on mobile broadband.

Qatar Telecom unveils its new DVB-H service
November 16, 2006 (Khaleej Times) - Qatar Telecom (Qtel) unveiled its new DVB H (Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld) service on Monday, through which 13 television channels can be viewed on a specially-enabled mobile phone handset.

DMC joins hands with du, EMI, and DMI to introduce DVB-H mobile TV in the UAE
November 16, 2006 (AME Info) - Dubai Media City (DMC), the media hub of the region, today announced that it is partnering with the UAE's new telecom operator, du and the country's largest broadcast companies, Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) and Emirates Media Incorporated (EMI) to introduce DVB-H, a unique new mobile TV technology in the UAE.

Vivendi Reports Strong Growth of Adjusted Net Income for the First Nine Months (+16.3%) and the Third Quarter (+28.2%) (Vivendi Share Price Chart)
November 16, 2006 - Revenues increased to €14,499 million compared to €14,005 million for the first nine months of 2005, representing an increase of €494 million (+3.5%).
Canal+ Group First nine months:
Canal+ Group’s EBITA was €338 million, up €43 million compared to the same period last year. On a comparable basis, EBITA was up €50 million, or 17.4% compared to the same period last year. This increase reflects the strong growth of pay-TV operations which were up €47 million. Growth of portfolio (subscriptions up nearly 270,000 compared to end of September 2005) and revenue per subscriber has more than offset extra costs linked to the new, exclusive soccer contract.

eircom commits €1 Billion to develop Irish telecoms infrastructure
November 15, 2006 - eircom today announced that it intends to invest up to €1 billion on telecommunications projects in Ireland over the next three years. This investment comprises previously announced fixed line and mobile capital expenditure of €250 million per annum, as well as an incremental capital expenditure of up to €300 million over the next three years.
The new investment allows eircom to offer an improved end to end customer experience, and gain internal efficiencies through improved IT architecture and platforms. It will deliver enhanced broadband services, develop a Next Generation core IP network as well as initiate the rollout of fibre to the curb (FTTC). Fibre to the curb allows broadband speeds and services that are currently not available in Ireland. It will provide speeds of up to 25Mbps, capable of supporting a range of exciting new services including IPTV and video on demand.

Digital TV Conversion Sweeping the World and Impacting TV Market
November 15, 2006 - The international migration from analog broadcasting to digital terrestrial television (DTT) marches on with a significant impact on the television set market, reports In-Stat. Many nations have announced an analog broadcast shutoff date, but how they implement this change varies, the high-tech market research firm says. Some countries are allocating spectrum so they can transmit analog and digital broadcasts concurrently for a number of years. Other countries are rolling out DTT regionally and shutting down analog service as the rollout is completed.

Spain - TVE plans free-to-air satellite transmission of its DTT channels [Sp]
November 15, 2006 (Satelite Infos) - Televisión Española plans to launch a free-to-air satellite version of its DTT service, covering all of Spain. The public network will celebrate its incorporation, next January, with the launching of a platform that will distribute the entire TVE content, through the satellites of Hispasat and Eutelsat with whom extended contracts have already been negotiated.

Maltacom expects digital television by mid next year
November 15, 2006 (Malta Independent) - Maltacom is “back in business”, following the privatisation of the former parastatal corporation and a period of business readjustment, and expects to be the first Maltese telephony operator to offer quadruple play services when it launches its digital television services in the first half of next year.

US Patent Office Publishes First Digital Entertainment Guide For Mobile Devices From GIST Communications
November 14, 2006 - GIST Communications, delivering mobile digital services for managing TV content, announced that the patent application for its popular UGuide™ has been published by the US Patent Office. UGuide is designed to work with any PVR, including set-top boxes and Media Center PCs, by enabling users to remotely manage and schedule recordings via a cellular network, using the application on a wireless mobile device.

Motorola to buy Netopia in $208 mln deal
November 14, 2006 (Reuters) - Mobile phone maker Motorola Inc. on Tuesday said it had agreed to buy broadband home network equipment provider Netopia Inc. in a deal with a total equity value of about $208 million.

TiVo Introduces New Service Feature That Allows Home Movies to Be Sent Over the Internet Directly to Television Sets
November 14, 2006 - TiVo, the creator of and leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), today announced that it will debut a break-through new service early next year which will provide friends and families scattered across the country with an easy way to share their home videos, by sending them directly to the television. Rather than burning and mailing DVDs, or viewing videos uploaded on a computer, friends and family will now be able to set-up their own private channel to send home videos directly to a TiVo subscriber's TV set.

TiVo Announces Comprehensive Broadband Video Delivery Approach
November 14, 2006 - TiVo Inc. today unveiled a comprehensive broadband strategy designed to put even more control in the hands of consumers by greatly expanding their television choices, taking the concept that "It's not TV unless it's on the TV" to a whole new level. TiVo continues to innovate and lead the category by empowering consumers to select their own content and bring it from the Internet to their TV, where they can enjoy it from the comfort of their living room.

Toshiba Rolls Out Second-Generation, Single-Chip Solution For Mid-Range And Low-End Digital TV Applications As Well As Add-On Modules For Digital CRT And LCD TV Applications
November 14, 2006 - Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today expanded its TC904XX family of highly integrated, single-chip system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for mid-range and low-end digital TV applications with the introduction of a second-generation product. Available in two versions and designated TC90407XBG and TC90407FG, the new SoCs were specifically designed for North American TV standards, including the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standard and digital cable. Compared to the previous generation devices, they integrate more on-chip functional blocks to reduce system cost and support new algorithms that improve picture quality significantly.

Optibase Provides IPTV Solution in Hungary
November 14, 2006 - Optibase, Ltd. a leader in advanced digital video solutions today announced that it is providing its IPTV solution to Hungarian Internet service provider, TVnet. Upgrading its current internet and telephony services, TVnet has added IPTV to its basket of services, to commence in Budapest in December.

FASTWEB: 9M 2006 revenues at 897 million Euro (+32% YoY)
November 13, 2006 - The Board of Directors of FASTWEB S.p.A. (Milan, MTAX: FWB), Italy's second-largest fixed telecommunications service provider, today approved the results at 30 September 2006.
The company signed an agreement with SKY Italia, whereby both companies will integrate their services with those of the other operator. Consequently, FASTWEB will offer its IPTV customers the entire SKY portfolio of award winning television channels, SKY will in turn be able to offer its customer base FASTWEB's voice service and high speed internet access.
The agreement with SKY Italia consolidates FASTWEB's strategy to offer the entire television content currently available on the market through its IPTV platform. As part of this strategy, FASTWEB introduced Italy's first integrated decoder in September, a set top box capable to receive Digital Terrestrial programming together with all other content already available on FASTWEB TV (analog terrestrial channels, thematic channels, SKY satellite channels, content on-demand). The new decoder also supports High Definition (HD) content transmission that will soon be available to FASTWEB's customers.

Kagan Forecasts 65.9 Mil. VOD Homes in U.S. by 2016
November 13, 2006 - A new study from Kagan Research, VIDEO ON DEMAND: A STRATEGIC AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, reports that in spite of the issues VOD has faced, including the impact of DVRs on the market, DRM, revenue models and bandwidth constraints, on-demand services still offer the potential for a major revenue stream for distributors.

The TV market in Italy 2006-2008 - Analysis and Perspectives
November 13, 2006 - In 2005 the Italian TV market reached €7.4 billion. For 2006 we expect a 8.2% growth, thus reaching €8 billion. At the end of 2008 the TV market will be worth more than €9 billion, recording an average growth by 7.4% yearly.

S. Korea's Humax to supply digital set-top box to Thai broadcaster
November 13, 2006 (Yonhap) - Humax Co., a South Korean digital set-top box manufacturer, said Monday it has signed a US$11 million dollar contract to supply digital set-top boxes to a Thai broadcasting company.

BigBand Networks and TVWorks Demonstrate Enhanced TV Capabilities At CableLabs® Interop
November 13, 2006 - BigBand Networks, Inc., a leading provider of broadband multimedia infrastructure for video, voice and data, and TVWorks, a joint-venture between Comcast Communications and Cox Communications focused on developing next-generation interactive cable technology and services, announced that they demonstrated enhanced television (ETV) capabilities as part of a series of interoperability testing at CableLabs® headquarters in Louisville, Colo.

Widevine® Technologies Selected by TELUS to Protect Video Content on Multiple Devices
November 13, 2006 - Widevine Technologies, the world’s leading provider of downloadable content protection, forensic watermarking and digital copy protection solutions, today announced that TELUS has signed a six-year agreement to apply its video content protection technology across a number of platforms.

Abilis Systems Adopts ARC’s Configurable Processor to Create Single Chip Mobile TV Receiver Solution
November 13, 2006 - ARC International, the world leader in configurable subsystems and CPU/DSP cores, today announced that the configurable ARC™ 605 processor has been adopted by Abilis Systems, a Kudelski Group company, for the development of a single-chip TV receiver solution targeted at mobile TV terminals.