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Wednesday, September 4, 2002 |
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• Charter signs content deals for Rhapsody, Mag Rack • Maxtor's not the only
hard drive supplier • TWC signs up more ISP partners • Gemstar loses a round in Atlanta • Kanakaris Wireless goes shopping for funds • EarthLink seeks deals to use cable firms' lines • Nortel lands $19.8 million order
Charter signs content deals for Rhapsody, Mag Rack Charter Communications Inc. has been wheeling and dealing to beef up the content offering for its residential broadband customers. The latest: the MSO has inked entertainment deals with Listen.com and Rainbow Media Holdings Inc. The deal with Listen.com will enable Charter to offer its more than 900,000 residential broadband customers access to the Rhapsody subscription-based digital music service. Charter customers can sign up via The Charter Zone, an online site where customers can get information about and sign up for entertainment services offered by Charter. The Rhapsody service gives customers access to 210,000 tracks of on-demand music or programmed Internet radio stations for $9.95 a month. If customers want to customize, they have the ability to build custom radio stations with music from their favorite artists. Listen.com has been busy in the broadband space lately, signing content deals with the likes of Road Runner, NetGear and DirecTV. Separately, Charter announced a video-on-demand deal, which calls for the MSO to roll out Rainbow Media's Mag Rack VOD service in four markets. Beginning Sept. 15, Charter's digital customers in St. Louis; Fort Worth, Texas; Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C.; and select areas of Los Angeles will have access to Mag Rack's on-demand content. Charter is the third MSO to distribute Mag Rack's content. Cablevision and Insight Communications also have agreements for Mag Rack services. Since its launch last year, Mag Rack's content has been made available to roughly 1.6 million VOD-enabled digital customers. Financial terms of the Listen.com and Rainbow Media deals were not disclosed. Related stories:
Maxtor's not the only hard drive
supplier Maxtor Corp. hyped itself Wednesday, announcing that Scientific-Atlanta Inc. has selected its 80 gigabyte QuickView hard drives for the Explorer 8000, an advanced cable set-top that sports on-board digital video recording capabilities. What the hard drive maker failed to mention is that Maxtor is one of three approved suppliers for the Explorer 8000, which has won deployment with Time Warner Cable and a “commitment” for future purchases from Cox Communications. Seagate Technology and Western Digital Corp. also supply hard drives for the 8000. Of those three suppliers, Maxtor is getting the most hard drive business from the set-top maker, an S-A spokesman said, but wouldn't disclose exactly how much business Maxtor is getting compared to S-A's other hard drive suppliers. Keen Personal Media, a division of Western Digital, has licensed its TV4me software to S-A for the 8000, providing the box’s ability to pause live TV, rewind and fast-forward programming, and manage recorded content.
Related stories:
TWC signs up more ISP partners Three more regional ISPs have signed up to offer their competing broadband service over Time Warner Cable systems in select markets. Athenet has launched its ACES high-speed cable access service in Green Bay, Wis. The service is available to the 150,000 customers in this TWC division. Later this month, Athenet will make its service available to the 418,000 customers in Milwaukee. Customers in TWC's Lincoln, Neb. division now have the added choice of subscribing to high-speed Internet access from Internet Nebraska. The service is available to 110,000 customers in Lincoln, York, Columbus, Fremont, Nebraska City, Fairbury, Seward and the surrounding communities. Kansas City's largest locally owned ISP, PlanetKC/Web One, has made its broadband service available to 314,000 people in Kansas City, Kans., Kansas City, Mo. and 52 suburban communities. "Time Warner Cable continues to lead the industry in terms of making multiple ISPs available to its customers," said Glenn Britt, chairman and CEO, in a release. "Customers want choice and we are providing the kind of choice in broadband services that we have long provided in video networks. Moreover, the introduction of multiple ISPs, like the introduction of multiple premium TV channels 30 years ago, has provided a boost to this entire business." As mandated by federal regulators when they approved the merger between AOL and Time Warner last year, AOL has been working to open up its cable systems to competitors. EarthLink was the first ISP to offer its high-speed Internet access over TWC's cable systems. On a national basis, Road Runner, AOL and EarthLink offer this cable modem services over TWC systems. At the regional level, various ISPs have rolled out services in select TWC markets, including Inter.net, Internet Junction Corp., New York Connect.Net Ltd., South Texas Internet Connections Inc., LocalNet and Western Central Ohio Internet Link Express.
Gemstar loses a round in Atlanta When it rains it pours, and for Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. it looks like a flood may be on the way. The interactive programming guide developer has lost another court battle. On Friday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled that Scientific-Atlanta Inc., Pioneer North America Inc. and Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. did not infringe on two of Gemstar's patents. The court also denied Gemstar's motion for a summary judgment in a separate case pending against S-A. Gemstar plans to appeal the decision. The ruling came one day after the International Trade Commission denied Gemstar's request to review a June decision that S-A, Pioneer and EchoStar did not engage in unfair trade practices related to its patents. As if losing a few rounds in court wasn't enough, last week the Nasdaq put Gemstar on notice for failing to file its Form 10-Q reflecting its second quarter results in a timely fashion. Gemstar's stock faces a possible delisting from the NASDAQ National Stock Market. The company has said it needs more time to review the impact of recent patent infringement decisions on its Q2 numbers. It also plans to restate its full-year 2001 results to reverse the recognition of roughly $20 million in revenue related to its TV Guide subsidiary. Gemstar shares were shedding 14 cents, trading at
$3.70 as of 12:22 p.m. EDT. Related story:
Kanakaris Wireless goes shopping for funds Kanakaris Wireless has signed a letter-of-intent for financing of as much as $3 million. Of the $3 million in potential financing from New York-based investment funds, the company expects to close on $600,000 of the investment in the near future, although no specific timetable was revealed. Once secured, the funds will be used to support the company's content distribution and video distribution business. Kanakaris delivers streaming feature films online via its www.CinemaPop.com Web site. Using Kanakaris' recently developed Click and View movie player, subscribers can watch movies online on-demand with no download time, according to the company. For $4.95 per month, subscribers gain access to Kanakaris' movie portfolio, which consists of more than 400 titles. Potential subscribers can access a five minute preview of any online film, a feature which also helps users to see free if charge. The company uses the feature to attract new customers. In June, the company launched a new on-demand hybrid technology and revenue plan. The technology supplements the company's streaming video delivery business. Related story:
EarthLink seeks deals to use cable firms' lines
EarthLink Inc., the third-largest US Web access service, is negotiating with Cablevision Systems Corp., Adelphia Communications Corp. and other cable TV companies to sell Internet service over their lines. Chief Executive Garry Betty said he hopes to announce agreements by year-end. EarthLink is trying to sign up more subscribers for its high-speed Internet service as the number of subscribers to its regular dial-up service declines. EarthLink shares fell 16 cents to $ 5.94 on the NASDAQ
Stock Market. Related stories:
Nortel lands $19.8 million order
Nortel Networks has won a $19.8 million ($31 million Canadian) contract to supply fiber-optic systems for a telecom network in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. The deal with Chunghwa Telecom will expand the island country's fixed-line telecom broadband services, Nortel said. Chunghwa will begin service on the network next year. "This new, high-speed, high-bandwidth backbone is expected to ... provide a reliable and scalable platform for deployment of (third-generation) wireless multimedia services in the years to come," said Masood Tariq, president of Nortel's Asia-Pacific operations. In July, Chunghwa awarded Nortel a contract for fiber-optic
equipment for a network to link islands in the Taiwan Strait to
the Taiwan mainland.
• Judge rules against Napster The fat lady is about to sing. Napster Inc. has most likely played its last tune, after a bankruptcy court judge denied its sale to Bertelsmann AG. Judge Peter Walsh said the deal with Bertelsmann was not in the best interest of Napster's creditors. Napster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. After the decision, Napster laid off most of its
employees and changed the message on its Web site to read "Napster
Was Here." The one-time king of the file-swapping world said
it will probably file for Chapter 7 to liquidate its assets. • Groups rally against EchoStar-DirecTV merger About 100 people gathered in Washington, D.C. today in front of the Department of Justice to speak out against the pending merger between satellite heavyweights, EchoStar Communications Corp. and DirecTV. During the rally, Matthew Polka, president of the American Cable Association, said a marriage between these large satellite providers would hinder competition in small, rural markets, not foster it as EchoStar and DirecTV have contended. The rally was designed to convince the DOJ and the Federal Communications Commission to stop the merger. • CommWorks' IP equipment carries 10-billion minutes CommWorks' IP telephony equipment has carried more than 10 billion minutes of voice traffic for service providers, according to the company. The company first launched its telephony equipment in April 2000. • Telco taps Next Level Telco Chibardun Telephone Cooperative is looking to stay competitive with Charter Communications in Wisconsin, and is turning to Next Level Communications to make it happen. The company has selected Next Level's Full Service Access Platform to bundle digital television, high-speed Internet access and telephone services to its customers northwest Wisconsin.
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