SatcoDX - TELE-satellite International Magazine

ecording). Additionally, Thomson is integrating a conditional
access content protection application from Conax.
SLOVENIA
TELEKOM SLOVENIJE IPTV MARKET LEADER
Telekom Slovenije has seen its share of the national IPTV market fall by
three percentage points year on year in the first quarter of 2008 to reach
60.4%, according to a report by the Agency for Post and Electronic
Communications (APEK). Alternative operator T2 followed in second
place with a gain of just under 1% to reach a 36.3% share of Slovenia’s
IPTV market, with Amis and Tus Telekom accounting for the remainder.
SPAIN
GREEN LIGHT FOR HISPASAT TAKEOVER
Several Spanish companies including Abertis won permission
from the European Commission for a joint venture to control Spanish
satellite operator Hispasat. The companies involved, besides
Abertis, include SEPI, CDTI, and INTA. Although the Commission
said the deal had raised questions about vertical overlaps
because Abertis ran terrestrial transmitters for TV stations and
also bought satellite capacity, it decided to authorise the deal.
SWITZERLAND
NETSTREAM SELECTS ENTONE FOR IPTV DEPLOYMENT
Swiss ISP Netstream has selected customer premises equipment
from US firm Entone for its high-definition IPTV service
deployments in the country. Netstream is a provider of managed
services and systems integration to a number of operators in Switzerland,
and selected Entone’s Hydra HD IPTV video gateway
and Amulet HD IPTV receiver for the service deployments.
TURKEY
TURKEY PREPARES TWO NEW SATELLITES
Having successfully launched Turksat 3A in June, Turksat is preparing
to launch two others, Turksat 4A and 5A. The Turkish satellite
operator will decide on the features of Turksat 4A in August
and launch it in 2011. Turksat 4A will offer broadcasting services
covering the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia and Africa.
Work on 5A will begin in Turkey and will be completely done by
Turkish engineers, with plans for a launch in 2013 or 2014.
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC LAUNCHES HD TESTS ON FREEVIEW
The BBC has begun DVB-T2 test transmissions from the Guildford
transmitter southwest of London, in preparation for HD on Freeview.
This follows the approval by the DVB Project of the DVB-T2 specification
and this will be the first time signals compliant with the DVB-T2 specification
will be broadcast. DVB-T2 is the next generation digital terrestrial
transmission standard for new HDTV services on Freeview. DVB-T2
can provide more capacity and this will be essential for HDTV services
to be launched on Freeview, currently planned for the end of 2009.
BBC TO LAUNCH UHD TV TRIALS
In conjunction Italian and Japanese public broadcasters RAI and NHK,
this September the BBC will begin trials of Ultra High Definition (UHD)
TV. UHD, also known as Super Hi-Vision, produces a resolution of
7,680 × 4,320 pixels which is around four times as wide and four times
as high as existing High Definition TV. With 4000 Scanning Lines, NHK
is promising consumers an experience which feels close enough to
reality to make them want to reach out and touch the on-screen action.
BT ENDS FIRST HALF WITH 282.000 IPTV SUBSCRIBERS
British Telecom has signed up 68.000 customers to its pay-TV service
BT Vision during the three months to June 30. The company, which
launched the IPTV service commercially last summer, ended June
with 282.000 BT Vision customers. While customers can sign up to BT
Vision without actually taking a monthly subscription, to make the service
profitable, BT needs customers to take out regular subscriptions.
N O R T H A M E R I C A
IPTV SUBSCRIBERS TOP 1.8 MILLION IN 2007
The number of IPTV users in the Americas surged to 1.8 million by the
end of last year, up 257.1% from 501,000 in December 2006, according
to a recent report by iSuppli. The majority of that growth came from