* Motorola snags gear deals in South Korea
By Mike Robuck
Motorola has landed deals with two South Korean cable operators for its BSR 64000 Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) and Surfboard cable modems.
C&M and CJ CableNet will use the Motorola gear to provide broadband services with 100 Mbps download speeds to their respective customers later this month. The increase in download speeds is the result of channel bonding, which is a key feature of DOCSIS 3.0.
* DirecTV adds public TV stations to HD lineup
By Brian Santo
DirecTV will carry public television stations in high-definition (HD) after cutting a deal with the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The company and the two organizations said that they will work together to develop new video-on-demand (VOD) programming. DirecTV will also carry two national standard-definition (SD) channels of public television programming.
* Cisco wraps up acquisition of Navini
By Brian Santo
Cisco has completed its acquisition of Navini Networks, a specialist in the mobile WiMAX 802.16e-2005 broadband wireless industry. Navini is a pioneer in the integration of “Smart Beamforming” technologies with Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) antennas, a combination that improves the performance and range for WiMAX services and lowers the overall deployment and operational costs for service providers.
* STMicroelectronics bows new SD chip
By Mike Robuck
STMicroelectronics has unveiled a new low-cost set-top box (STB) decoder chip – the STi5202 – intended for standard-definition (SD) terrestrial, cable, satellite and IPTV applications, and for both retail and operator-supplied boxes. It shares the same architecture as STMicroelectronics’ STi7109 single-chip H.264 high-definition (HD) decoder, and it is also software compatible.
The STi5202 comes with a video decoder that supports the H.264/AVC coding standard and MPEG-2, along with a flexible multichannel audio decoder that handles all broadcast audio standards.
* AOL finishes up Quigo deal
By Traci Patterson
AOL has completed its acquisition of Quigo, a site- and content-targeted ad company. The acquisition allows AOL to expand the use of contextual advertising – which matches ads to the contents of a Web page – across AOL’s own Web pages, as well as its third-party networks.
Quigo is the fourth ad-related company that AOL has acquired this year. AOL also purchased Third Screen Media, Adtech and Tacoda.