09/28, 12:30am
US cable TV wants channels unbundled
US cable and satellite providers signaled Tuesday that they wanted to unbundle their channel packages to stave off the incursion of Internet video and a tough economy. DirecTV, Mediacom, Suddenlink, and others are pushing the FCC and others to alter retransmission fee systems and let them sell access by the channel so that they can lower the actual cost of selling TV services. At costs as high as $4 per month just for ESPN and now with normally free-to-air networks charging for access, they argued to Reuters and others that they were forced to charge high prices.
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08/14, 10:35pm
TWC to reduce competition with Insight deal
Time Warner is about to try and consolidate the cable industry further by buying Insight, a last-minute leak brought out Sunday night. The deal would buy Insight out from the Carlyle Groupe for $3 billion and absorb the cable provider's debts. Final bidding had wrapped up at the start of the July, WSJ said, and the new deal was just Insight reaching a promised target of picking a winning buyer within a month's time.
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03/18, 4:50pm
Comcast to bring 100Mbps to the USA in 2011
The largest cable provider in the US, Comcast, will double the speed of its fastest available residential Internet service as it plans on beginning to introduce a 100Mbps download service. Currently, it offers is 50Mbps service to more than three quarters of its customers across the USA. Comcast hopes to be able to offer the 100Mbps service to most if not all of its subscribers in about 12 to 18 months.
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