* TWC promotes Mathews to EVP of human resources
By Mike Robuck
Time Warner Cable announced that Tom Mathews has been promoted to EVP of human resources. He previously served as TWC’s SVP of human resources. Mathews will continue to lead the human resources department, which includes the areas of compensation and benefits, employee relations, learning and development, talent acquisition and HR information systems.
* Clearwire launches Internet, phone services in Charlotte
By Traci Patterson
Clearwire Corp. has launched its wireless high-speed Internet access and phone service in the Charlotte, N.C., area.
Clearwire’s next-gen wireless broadband solution allows customers to connect virtually anywhere in the Clearwire service area. The operator’s phone service works with a customer’s existing high-speed Internet access and provides unlimited local and long-distance calling.
* Vyyo promotes Ungerer to EVP of corporate strategy
By Traci Patterson
Vyyo Inc. has promoted Walt Ungerer to EVP of corporate strategy and investor relations. For the past three years, Ungerer has served as VP of corporate communications at Vyyo.
Prior to joining Vyyo, he headed up investor relations at Concurrent and held positions with Scientific Atlanta.
“The growth in acceptance of our UltraBand platform over the past year has moved Vyyo to a more prominent position in next-generation cable networks,” said Wayne Davis, CEO of Vyyo. “Walt’s strong background in corporate finance, his extensive experience in cable and his understanding of the technical challenges the industry faces have helped him play a key leadership role for Vyyo.”
* 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched video online in September
By Traci Patterson
Nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users (about 136 million) watched an online video—either a streaming video or a progressive download—in September, making for an average of three hours of online video per person and a total of more than nine billion videos viewed, according to comScore’s Video Metrix report for the month.
Google Sites, which includes YouTube, topped the month’s rankings with the most unique video viewers and the most videos viewed—2.6 billion, of which 2.5 billion occurred at YouTube (27.6 percent market share). Fox Interactive Media gathered 387 million views (4.2 percent),
followed by Yahoo Sites with 381 million (4.1 percent) and Viacom Digital with 304 million (3.3 percent).
* Broadcom sampling single-chip transcoder
By Brian Santo
Broadcom said it has a new single-chip transcoder that can translate the format, the bit rate and the resolution of audio/video content in real-time to match the format appropriate for any particular playback device.
Supported formats include AVC, MPEG-2, VC-1 and MPEG-4, as well as several Dolby formats, MP3 and PCM. The BCM7043 real-time encoder/transcoder chip is sampling to early access customers. Pricing is available upon request.
* RCN offers MiVision to business services customers
By Traci Patterson
RCN Corp. has rolled out MiVision, or “my vision,” to its Business Services customers looking to serve their clientele with Hispanic programming. The programming packages include more than 30 Spanish-language channels and mirror what is currently available to RCN’s residential customers.