BBWN Bites: Charter Pitches Idea of C-Band Auction
Also in today's BBWN Bites: Dish promotes a CFO, smart home products are fit to ship in Europe, and Tele2 will audit a string of recent, major outages.
Charter, the Competitive Carrier Association and ACA Connects have co-opted Intelsat's efforts to propel the FCC to research, then approve, the use of mid-band satellite spectrum for wireless carriers. In a filing today, the trio suggests cable and TV operators get C-band spectrum for use over fiber, and recommends the FCC follows the 5G path by holding a C-band auction that undoubtedly will generate billions of dollars. Satellite providers Intelsat and SES, plus Intel -- all members of the C-Band Alliance -- no doubt began prepping for this battle, which Light Reading reported on earlier this year. (See Satellite's Grip on C-Band Spectrum for 5G Could Be Slipping.)
Dish Network promoted Paul Orban to executive vice president and chief financial officer from his previous positions as senior vice president, chief accounting officer, principal financial officer and controller. Orban, a 23-year Dish vet, will still report to Dish president and CEO Erik Carlson.
Shipments of smart home products in Europe increased 23.9% to 21.3 million units in the first quarter 2019, IDC said. Google's smart speakers accounted for 45.1% of speakers shipped versus Amazon Echo, which represented 41.8%.
In the Parthenon of Good or Evil
Hellenic police chose Intracom Telecom to design a solution featuring facial recognition and other authentication technologies to speed up ID authentication and verification.
From homes to cities, the Hellenic Police Directorate contracted Intracom Telecom for a "smart policing" initiative designed to accelerate identification and verification of residents, vehicles and documentation. The provider will conduct the study, then create and deploy a solution for the Athens-based PD featuring face recognition and integrated authentication technologies in an Orwellian nightmare or anti-terrorist, security officer's dream.
Swedish operator Tele2 hired Analysys Mason, working in cooperation with its internal technology division, to conduct an audit of its network's components and infrastructure after three major outages in 12 months.
The market's heating up for Deutsche Telekom-backed OTE's sale of its majority stake in Telekom Romania. Market leader Orange; RCS&RDS, Romania's fixed-line cable and Internet leader; and two "former Soviet space" providers are bidding for OTE/Telekom, Ziarul Financiar reported. OTE/Telekom wants to leave Romania before September.
Michael Joseph returns to Safaricom as interim CEO, following the death of CEO Bob Collymore on July 1. Joseph, a board member and chairman of the board of Kenya Airways, was Safaricom CEO for the decade before Collymore.
Polish consumers in seven more cities now can get 1-Gig broadband, courtesy of UPC Polska, Liberty Global Europe's Polish provider. By summer's end, the operator expects its Giga service will cover 2 million-plus households across 12 cities, representing 60% of its footprint.
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— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter or @alisoncdiana.
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Here's where you can find episode links for 'The Divide,' Light Reading's podcast series featuring conversations with broadband providers and policymakers working to close the digital divide.
As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will present our Cable Next-Gen Europe conference as a free digital symposium on June 21.
Charter has sparked RDOF work in all 24 states where it won bids. The cable op booked about $19 million in RDOF revenues in Q1, and expects to have about $9 million per month come in over the next ten years.
As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will stage the Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference as a free digital event over two half-days in mid-March.
Launch of 2-Gig and 5-Gig FTTP tiers in 70-plus markets puts more pressure on cable ops to enhance their existing DOCSIS 3.1 network or accelerate their upgrade activity centered on the new DOCSIS 4.0 specs.
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