4/14/97
@Home Partners with Rogers and Shaw
AVIC Chosen To Provide Upgrade for Hebei System
RCN To Bring Voice, Video, and Data Services to Boston
Continental Upgrading Southern Florida System
Comcast's Philadelpia System To Feature GI's Telco Return Cable Modem
@Home Partners with Rogers and Shaw
@Home has announced that they have partnered with the Canadian MSOs Rogers
Cablesystems and Shaw Communications to
provide Canadians with access to the @Home Internet backbone via the
creation of a service to be called WAVE@Home. As part of the agreement,
Rogers and Shaw will be making a minority equity investment in @Home.
Rogers and Shaw will work through Vision.com to promote the WAVE@Home
service to other Canadian operators. Under current plans, WAVE@Home will
become available to more than 5 million homes, including 2 million homes by
the end of 1997.
@Home
http://www.home.net
Wave
http://www.wave.ca
Rogers Cablesystems
http://www.rogers.ca
Shaw Communications
http://www.shaw.ca
AVIC Chosen To Provide Upgrade for Hebei System
AVIC Group International has announced that they
have signed a $45 million contract with the Hebei
Provincial Cable Television Station that calls for the
company to provide the Chinese cable provider with
an upgrade to a bi-directional HFC network.
Currently, the Hebei system passes 2.5 million homes
and serves 1.6 million subscribers. By the year 2000,
Hebei expects the system to pass more than 12.5 million
homes.
New service offerings that are being planned include Internet access,
telephony, and private LANs.
AVIC is currently reviewing technology from many different vendors.
AVIC Group International
http://www.amex.com/weblink/av/index.htm
RCN To Bring Voice, Video, and Data Services to Boston
Residential Communications Network [RCN] has announced an aggressive plan to
deliver bi-directional voice, video, and
data services to the Boston area. Through a joint venture with Boston
Edison, RCN plans to compete with local telephone and cable providers by
building a fiber network and obtaining a cable franchise.
Currently, RCN is offering voice, video and data services to a small group
of apartment buildings in Boston. However, the company expects to quickly
expand its offerings to cover Somerville, Brookline, Arlington, Waltham and
Watertown. Subsequent communities to be targeted include Framingham,
Newton, Needham, Natick and Lexington.
A FCC ruling indicates that part of RCN's current service is being offered
without the proper legal authority.
Local competitors including Continental Cablevision, Nynex and Time Warner
are closely monitoring RCN's moves. In fact, TW and Continental are in the
process of introducing legal challenges to the RCN service. In addition,
Continental has sped up plans to offer cable telephony, and expects to be
introducing the service in the Boston area next year.
RCN has announced they will offer local phone service to Bostonians at a
rate 5% below the Nynex service. Long distance service will be offered at a
flat rate of 14 cents per minute. For telephone subscribers, RCN will
provide 100 channels of video for $19.95 per month.
Continental Upgrading Southern Florida System
Continental Cablevision has announced that they are upgrading some of their
systems in southern Florida.
Currently, work is underway in Lauderhill. Plans call for the MSO to also
upgrade systems in Hillsboro Beach, Lighthouse
Point, Oakland Park, Plantation and parts of unincorporated Broward.
Continental Cablevision
http://www.continental.com
Comcast's Philadelpia System To Feature GI's Telco Return Cable Modem
Comcast has announced that the MSO's Philadelphia system will use
NextLevel's SURFboard telco return cable modem for the soon to be
introduced Comcast@Home service. Comcast has signed a letter of intent for
intial 5,000 units, with the potential to expand the order to 50,000 modems.
NextLevel will provide it's half size ISA card one-way cable modem
and an external version of the modem that is expected to be available next
month.
Comcast
http://www.comcast.com
NextLevel
http://www.gi.com
SURFboard
http://www.surfboard.com
© Copyright 2000 Gecko Research & Publishing
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