AT&T could invest up to $1 billion to deploy fiber for its IPTV Project Lightspeed in California if the state clears the way for video franchising according to an article published in TelecomWeb. AT&T California says it is prepared to invest but is first looking to the California legislature to reform video franchising laws. A promise of $1 billion would be a considerable part of the $4.4 billion AT&T plans on spending for Project Lightspeed through 2008.

Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (CA-32) gave the following statement at a House Telecommunications Subcommittee hearing on proposals to reform our nation's video franchise system. Solis is a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

"That is why I strongly support inclusion of strong, enforceable, anti-discriminatory language in the Committee bill. Non-discrimination in telecommunications is critical to bridging the digital divide, particularly in the Latino community.

TANDBERG Television has today completed the acquisition of US based SkyStream Networks, Inc. The closing follows the signing of the definitive merger agreement on 8th February 2006 and satisfactory completion of all conditions to closing. After closing adjustments, the final purchase consideration was determined to be MUSD 80, made up of a mixture of TANDBERG Television shares and cash. The share value element is MUSD 1.5 and is made up and settled with 77,279 own shares. The number of shares have been determined based on the average share price of TANDBERG Television for the ten day period ending five days prior to closing, which was NOK 130.619 per share. TANDBERG Television holds 181,393 own shares after transactions.

IQPC announced this morning its first conference focused on the IPTV industry in the United States. "IPTV and Beyond: The Future of Broadcast Technology" will take place April 18-20th at the Marriott Del Mar in San Diego, CA, and will feature best practices from companies that have actually completed successful IPTV deployments.

JumpBoxTV Networks, the newest content provider on the Web, today announced it has signed Robert Evans, Ice-T, and Mike Richards to star in three original Web series created and produced by the company. Jumpboxtv.com, which also launches its "Line-Up" site today, will debut with promos of these programs, another original content show, and an exclusive unseen interview with the stars and director of Will and Grace as a salute to the show's final season before fully launching later this month.

According to a new study from ABI Research, the market for home networking and connected entertainment devices will grow at an astonishing rate over the next few years, as the total value of home networking hardware, gateways, networked storage devices and networked entertainment devices rises from $14 billion in end-user revenue in 2005 to more than $85 billion by 2011. The major driver in overall revenue growth for this market is the transformation of most conventional consumer electronics devices such as game consoles, DVD players, TVs and portable media players from stand-alone devices to network-connected ones, using both wireless and wired IP communications technologies.

Modulus Video, Inc., a leading provider of MPEG-4 AVC video compression systems, announced the availability of the new ME1001, delivering all of the high performance characteristics of its standard definition video encoding platform in a new compact form factor. Packing the most comprehensive implementation of the AVC toolkit into a single standard rack unit (1RU), the ME1001 delivers sophisticated Constrained Fidelity Constant Bit Rate (CF CBR) that maximizes bandwidth efficiency and introduces new features to enhance IPTV services including the first embedded low resolution proxy solution for enabling Picture-in-Picture (PIP) for Microsoft TV and Electronic Program Guide (EPG) applications.

BroadRelay, Inc., a Philadelphia-based technology, media and entertainment company, and a wholly owned subsidiary of BroadRelay Holdings, Inc., announced that it has successfully used BroadRelay IPTV Station Manager on its SIVOO portal.

Optibase, Ltd., a provider of advanced digital head-end video solutions, announced that India's state-owned major telecom, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL), will deploy Optibase's IPTV MGW 5100 platforms for its digital head-end that will enable triple play services (video, voice and data) in the Delhi and Mumbai areas. With this deployment, Optibase encoders will be the industry's first to enable large-scale IPTV in India. MTNL is deploying these services targeted at their 3.9 million subscribers along with Time Broadband Services (P) Limited as their video tier partner.

Mayor Curt Pringle, on behalf of the City of Anaheim, filed comments today with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) encouraging federal reforms that increase competition in the cable and video service marketplace and encourage new delivery methods. The FCC is soliciting comments to help the commission implement changes to the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984.

CONNECTIONS today welcomed Siemens Communications Inc. as a Diamond Sponsor to its 2006 event, which will take place at the Santa Clara Convention Center, May 2-4, 2006.

Alcatel and Cramer today announced that they are teaming up to launch a joint Next Generation Network (NGN) solution center to develop an out-of-the box fulfillment solution. The solution will enable wireline service providers to quickly deliver next generation services including high-speed Internet, VoIP, IPTV and support for all IP migration. Cramer and Alcatel will jointly invest in the NGN Solution Center, which will be located at Alcatel's premises in Stuttgart, Germany.

eWAN1, Inc., announced today it has completed the engineering, testing and integration of its proprietary international IP-based TV Guide, or "IPtv Guide," into the Company's new Global Internet Television service offering, which is set to launch and begin IP broadcasting in near High Definition quality to subscribers on April 19th at the "IPTV & Beyond" Expo in San Diego, California.

SkyStream, a leader in IP video delivery solutions, announced today that video-on-demand (VOD) provider ReelTime Media Ltd. of Australia is using its zBand content delivery platform to deliver the latest Hollywood and Australian movies, regional fare and specialized video content to service providers and customers in major metropolitan areas in Australia.

DAVE.TV, an IPTV pioneer and leader in digital entertainment distribution teaming up with Beyond Media, developer of an innovative new BeyondCast™ live streaming technology, today announced the live streaming premier of Adrian Grenier's critically acclaimed short film, "Euthanasia." The production team for the film, including Adrian Grenier from HBO's hit show "Entourage" and the Wahlbergs, a well-known Hollywood family of producers, directors, actors and writers, are among the big names headlining the introduction of the new DAVE.TV and Beyond Media IPTV service, powered by Beyond Media's BeyondCast. The cutting-edge service allows directors, actors, producers, and writers in the film industry to utilize the freedom of the internet and directly reach customers by combining streaming grid technology and end-to-end IPTV solutions to deliver high-quality picture at low bandwidth to the masses.