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The system developed by A&T Systems under contract to Intelsat will simultaneously deliver the most frequently accessed Internet content to correspondent sites world-wide.
Web-based content will be multicast from a hub cache at the warehouse to ISP-operated "kiosks" which, in turn, will cache and offer content to local users.
This dual caching architecture is unique because the "push" mode takes advantage of the multicast protocol, versus the more typical "pull" approach used by other caching systems operating in a unicast mode.
In the first release of the system, the warehouse will contain and manage popular pre-selected content, web sites wishing to offer their content via the warehouse, and content requested from kiosk operators or users.
Teleglobe: http://www.teleglobe.com/
Telefonica said in a press release that both companies have begun the judicial, financial and commercial work to set up a common platform. The agreement, established on a parity basis, will be submitted to the appropriate authorities and its contractual terms should be completed by September 30 of this year, without prejudice to the requirements those authorities may establish.
In other words: the deal needs the approval of the European Union. The EU commission recently rejected a similar deal in Germany because it was considered anti-competitive.
A speciality of the Spanish digital TV was that there were quite a few political battles, with the centre-right government on one side with Via Digital, and the former Socialist government on the other with Canal Satelite.
Canal Satelite has 500,000 subscribers; Via Digital, which was launched in September of last year, has 300,000. Both have recorded huge initial losses and are not expected to break even soon--which probably is the primary reason for the agreement.
Via Digital's main shareholder is telecommunications giant Telefonica, now fully privatised. Others are Spain's state radio and television RTVE, Mexico's Televisa, Japan's Itochu and British media group Pearson.
Canal Satelite shareholders are Spanish media group Prisa, which owns the El Pais newspaper, France's Canal Plus, financial group Grupo March, banks BBV and Bankinter, and savings bank Caja Madrid.
It claims that within just five years from now half of all UK households will have multi-channel pay TV. The survey by Continental Research predicts that nearly thirteen million homes will have some form of Pay TV, and nearly seven and a half million of those will take digital services.
5.5 million homes will have an analogue dish or cable satellite TV, 4.6 million households will take a digital dish or cable TV, and 2.8 million will subscribe to digital terrestrial TV.
The research was based on 4,000 interviews, half taken last November and the remainder carried out this June.
A federal judge in Miami recently granted a preliminary injunction against PrimeTime 24 requiring the company to cut off any subscriber illegally receiving CBS and Fox signals within 90 days. Similar trials are scheduled in other U.S. cities.
Thomas Casey was quoted as saying that the legal action could finally cut off up to 2.7 million satellite dish owners from high-quality network signals. "We have few customers as subscribers. My main customers are DirecTV, EchoStar and the C-band distributors."
Casey said PrimeTime 24 customers could "lobby congressional efforts to clarify the legislation which is, as worded, incomprehensible to the consumers and next to impossible to administer."
Receiving network programming via satellite is legal only if an individual subscriber can't receive a "Grade-B," terrestrial broadcast signal clearly. Says Casey: "The NRTC [National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative] has filed a motion with the FCC for them to clarify what a 'grade B' intensity signal should be.
"The Grade B contour was put together 40 years ago when they first were putting out television stations." In a nutshell, Grade B according to Casey means "half the homes, half the time, 50 percent confidence factor and assumed 30-foot [10 meter high] antenna.
"The 50-50 was promulgated 40 years ago for the specific purpose of determining where you should put the towers so there would be minimal overlap between signals of different cities," he added.
by Dr Sarmaz
That alone has helped driving News Corp.'s share price down, as Anna Murdoch may seek half of his assets, forcing a sale of a large chunk of KRM's shares in the company. The papers showed the value of the couple's joint assets had still to be determined.
In California, divorcing couples generally divide equally the property they acquired during marriage. But because many of Murdoch's assets are spread over several continents, maybe even the Cayman Islands and other tax havens [Sat-ND, 15.02.1998,] the divorce could be a long ordeal, unless an out-of-court settlement is reached.
So far, observers thought the separation was amicable. One analyst said that "if she gets hold of half the stock and starts selling it, that's going to be pretty bad for the stock price." Others think a divorce settlement was unlikely to trigger a fire sale of News Corp. shares because the Murdoch shares were destined for the Murdoch children.
The separation was announced last April in KRM's New York Post by gossip columnist Liz Smith, who wrote that the split was amicable and that Anna Murdoch would remain on the board of News Corp. A News Corp. spokeswoman said there had not been any announcement since the divorce suit saying Anna would leave the board. A Sydney analyst was quoted as saying "I can't see her doing anything too nasty while she's still on the board."
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