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April 10, 2007
This
weekly e-mail newsletter covers everything related to Telco-IP
Television.
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AT&T Offers Year of Free HD to Fight
Cable
The nation’s largest telephone company will offer
new video customers one year of free HD programming -- an
attempt to convert cable subscribers to its U-Verse TV service
or the satellite services it resells from DirecTV
and EchoStar Communications. In a
promotion scheduled to run for a few months,
AT&T said it will provide more than 25
channels of HD programming, including those of local broadcast
affiliates, free to new U-verse TV
subscribers.
AT&T regularly charges $10 per month
for HD service with U-verse TV, which is now available in
parts of 15 metro areas. Most cable operators also charge an
additional monthly fee, about $10 to $15, for a tier of HD
channels.
"Free access to HD programming for a year
gives consumers yet another reason to select AT&T over the
competition," AT&T chief marketing officer for consumer
marketing Rick Welday said in announcing the deal.
In
areas where U-verse TV is unavailable, AT&T will offer
free HD service -- up to 31 channels -- to customers who sign
up for direct-broadcast satellite service from DirecTV or
EchoStar’s Dish Network.
AT&T said the free-HD offer
through Dish will be available until May 31 and through
DirecTV until June 26. The U-verse TV offer is available
through June 30.
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Verizon Has a Date with Eisner’s Prom
Queen
Verizon Communications will carry the first production from
Vuguru,
former Disney CEO Michael
Eisner's new-media studio, across all of its platforms.
Prom Queen -- which was created specifically
for the wireless and broadband platforms -- will be carried on
Verizon
Wireless’ V CAST, via the telco’s high-speed-Internet
service and on its FiOS
TV video service.
Verizon said Prom Queen
is currently available via V CAST video and will be added
to broadband and FiOS TV customers’ lineup “soon.”
According to Vuguru, “Prom Queen is a
scripted, serialized mystery told over 80 episodes, each
running 90 seconds long. Set against the final two months of
the school year, Prom Queen has a blend of love,
gossip, and betrayal -- all of the twists and turns of high
school leading up to the biggest night of any senior's life:
prom night.”
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Motorola Ships IPTV Set-Top No.
1M
Motorola announced that it has shipped its
millionth IPTV set-top -- although the technology is still a
small part of its business, representing less than 2% of
digital-cable set-tops the company has sold.
In
February 2006, Motorola bought Kreatel
Communications, a Swedish developer of IP-based
digital set-tops primarily sold to European telecommunications
operators and Internet-service providers. Kreatel shipped its
first IP set-top in May 2001.
Last October, Motorola
said it had shipped 50 million set-tops to date, including
those dating back to the days of General
Instrument, which Motorola acquired in 2000.
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FiOS TV Adds NESN HD
Verizon Communications said it will offer
HD broadcasts of Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball and
Bruins National Hockey League games, and other programming
carried by New England Sports Network, to
FiOS TV subscribers in the Boston market. NESN HD will be
available on FiOS TV channel 829 at no additional charge.
Verizon currently offers FiOS TV, which carries 24 other HD
channels, to more than 270,000 households in 40 Massachusetts
communities.
NESN is owned by the Red Sox and the
Bruins.
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SES Americom, Home2US Team Up on
International Fare
SES Americom and Home2US
announced a joint marketing agreement to deliver international
programming across a variety of media.
The two
companies also announced the addition of Korean News
Network, YTN, Ethiopian TV
Network and Kenya Live TV to the
Home2US lineup, which is currently delivered to ethnic
direct-broadcast satellite audiences over SES Americom's AMC-4
satellite.
SES Americom's IP PRIME IPTV-distribution
system delivers hundreds of standard-definition and HD
channels to any screen on any media platform.
[back to top]
• Oklahoma-based Pioneer Telephone
Cooperative will use Comtrend's
CT-5621 multiport ADSL2+ router as the key
residential premises equipment to support its deployment of
IPTV and broadband services to its more than 140,000 customers
in 30 counties in the state.
• A leading hospitality-solutions provider
reached an agreement to place a series of purchase orders with
Eagle Broadband for its MediaPro IP3000HD
IPTV set-top.
• According to a new report from
Infonetics Research, “IPTV Equipment,
Services, Subscribers, and Capex,” IPTV-equipment sales,
service revenue, subscribers and service-provider capital
expenditures all posted “phenomenal” growth in 2006 and are
expected to continue surging through 2010.
• iSuppli predicted that total
global IPTV subscribers will rise to 103 million in 2011,
expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 92.5%, up from
3.9 million in 2006.
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