* Comcast doles out $240,000 in broadband lobbying fees
By Mike Robuck
The Associated Press reported today that Comcast paid Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates $240,000 in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal government on its behalf.
According to a disclosure form, the firm hired by Comcast lobbied on regulatory policies that pertained to broadband service, programming and other issues. In addition to Congress, the firm also lobbied the White House and the FCC on Comcast’s behalf.
* CTAM adds former Motorola, NCTA execs
By Traci Patterson
The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) announced that Angela Britt and Howard Marcantel have recently joined the organization, with Britt taking over the role of VP of advanced products and Marcantel joining as the VP of educational events.
Britt recently served as senior director of marketing, communications and public affairs for Motorola’s Connected Home Solutions business. In her role, she will manage the CTAM On-Demand Consortium – a group of more than 200 industry representatives working to advance the on-demand category across multiple platforms – as well as help the cable industry develop and position other advanced products, CTAM said.
Marcantel has 17 years of project and event management experience in the broadcast and cable TV fields, including 10 years with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA). He will lead the development of the content for the annual CTAM Summit and other educational events.
* Conklin-Intracom to supply Wegener’s IPTV STBs
By Brian Santo
Conklin-Intracom will offer Wegener’s IPTV set-top boxes (STBs) in its suite of integrated IPTV products.
Wegener’s set-tops will be available as part of Conklin-Intracom’s fs|cdn IPTV system, which the latter says is based on a unique architecture that provides cost-efficient scaling from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Wegener’s SMD-515 IPTV STB supports MPEG-4/H.264 and MPEG-2 decoding in standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) video formats with optional digital video recording (DVR) capability.
Conklin-Intracom is currently using Wegener’s STBs in IPTV field trials being conducted by five telco operators in North America.
* Verizon expands services in Ore., N.C.
By Traci Patterson
Verizon is deploying its fiber optic network to customers’ homes and businesses in the Portland, Ore., metro area.
A total of 48,000 additional homes will be connected to the FiOS Internet service, which offers download speeds of up to 30 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 15 Mbps, along with more than 250 channels and 10,000 on-demand titles from FiOS TV.
Also, 2,600 additional customers in the Cashiers area of western North Carolina now have access to Verizon’s high-speed Internet service.
* Alvarion supplies WiMAX to TDS
By Brian Santo
TDS Telecommunications has launched a WiMAX service in Madison, Wis., using Alvarion’s IEEE 802.16e 4Motion system. TDS will utilize the network, operating in the 2.5 GHz frequency band, to provide business and residential VoIP, as well as wireless data service.
* Embarq adds online music service
By Traci Patterson
Embarq announced Unlimited Music, a new service delivered along with Synacor that will enable Embarq’s residential high-speed Internet customers to download and listen to more than 3 million music selections from their myembarq homepage.
For a monthly subscription fee of $9.95, Embarq’s high-speed Internet customers will be able to download an Embarq-branded media player provided by MediaNet Digital’s music division, MusicNet, and then access and download any of the songs available in the music database to their MP3 player, Embarq said. Customers will also be able to burn the songs to a CD for an additional $.99 per song.
More Broadband Direct:
• AT&T offering Wi-Fi free to subs; adds new U-verse data tier
• Slow cell phone sales dog Motorola’s profits
• Ciena to buy World Wide Packets
• Cisco launches new Catalyst switches, capabilities
• Videotron picks Concurrent’s MHBOSS for VOD upgrade
