ActiveVideo Networks, based in San Jose, Calif., has accused Verizon Communications of infringing five of its interactive television patents. A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleges that Verizon’s FiOS system is using technology developed by ActiveVideo, Cablevision’s top interactive TV vendor.

The patents listed in the suit include:

• United States Patent No. 6,034,678, titled “Cable Television System With Remote Interactive Processor;”
• United States Patent No. 5,550,578, titled “Interactive And Conventional Television Information System;”
• United States Patent No. 6,100,883, titled “Home Interface Controller for Providing Interactive Cable Television;”
• United States Patent No. 5,526,034, titled “Interactive Home Information System with Signal Assignment;” and
• United States Patent No. 6,205,582, titled “Interactive Cable Television System With Frame Server.”

Accusations seem to be flying fast and furious in the interactive TV industry these days. In March, Verizon sued Cablevision, saying it had stolen technology used in its FiOS system.

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
Verizon sues Cablevision over set-top box patents
ITC to investigate Verizon’s patent claims on Cablevision imports

Source:Fierce Telecom

It appears that municipalities might have the upper hand over area telcos and cable operators as North Carolina’s Senate Finance Committee decided to postpone passing a law that would require cities and towns to get voter okay before getting money to construct a broadband network.

Doug Paris, an assistant to Salisbury’s city manager, which got a $30 million loan to construct a Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network in Salisbury, NC says the proposed bill that’s mainly supported by the state’s largest service providers (Time Warner Cable, AT&T and CenturyLink), is in many respects another move to prevent cities and towns to provide competing broadband services.  

“This is another iteration of the previous ones we have seen over the last three years that are designed to contain and cripple existing systems, and set the bar so high for new systems that it would be difficult for communities to move forward,” he said.

Despite the promise that Salisbury and others propose with their broadband plans, Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston, will help municipalities from shouldering potential losses if they can’t maintain a large customer base. “They’re going to own a cable system that may become obsolete and they’re going to say to us (legislators), ‘Please save us,’” Hoyle said, pointing to the case of Davidson and Mooresville, NC that built out their own cable system, but now face a $6.4 million loss that they must cover because they have been unable to reduce customer churn.

For more:
- AP has this article
- DSL Reports has this perspective

Related articles:
North Carolina legislators seek to curtail municipal broadband efforts
North Carolinians learn that cable TV is an expensive do-it-yourself proposition
Salisbury, NC progresses with its municipal FTTH deployment

Source:Fierce Telecom

Rumors that Mexico telecom giant Carlos Slim wants to thwart even more competition in its Brazil market by snapping up Portugal Telecom, which owns a stake in local operator Vivo, have been put to rest.

A report yesterday morning emerged that Slim was going to try to prevent Telefonica (NYSE: TEF), a stakeholder of Vivo, from the remaining piece of the company from Portugal Telecom. The timing of such a deal would have made sense as Slim has moved to consolidate his Brazil telecom holdings, including wireline service provider company Embratel with Claro, the Brazilian unit of America Movil (NasdaqGS: AMOV) to save costs.

But just as fast as the rumor emerged, it was put to rest. “There are no talks with Portugal Telecom’s people,” Slim aide Arturo Elias Ayub told Reuters.

At the same time, Spain’s Telefonica is planning on making another run to buy out the remaining stake in Vivo from Portugal Telecom. Portugal Telecom rejected Telefonica’s $7 billion bid for its stake in Vivo earlier this month.

Enhancing its Brazilian telecom holdings is a strategic must for Telefonica. Not only does Telefonica face increased competition from Slim’s America Movil, but it missed an opportunity to gain a larger piece of the Brazil telecom market when France’s Vivendi outbid the service provider for wireline operator GVT.

For more:
- Reuters has this article
- Bloomberg also has this story

Related articles:
Carlos Slim to consolidate Brazilian wireline, wireless assets
America Movil begins acquisition process for Telmex, Carso Telecom
Slim’s Mexican telecom consolidation plan needs final regulatory approval
Mexico regulator approves Slim’s wireless/wireline consolidation plan
Mexican cable operators protest Slim’s merger plans
Mexico’s Carlos Slim wants to create a wireline/wireless powerhouse

Source:Fierce Telecom

AT&T (NYSE: T) believes that business telecom service spending will continue to improve.

Speaking at this week’s Barclays Capital 2010 Global Communications, Media & Technology Conference in New York City, Ron Spears, CEO of Business Solutions, believes that business spending is beginning to stabilize. “If current trends hold, we would like to think headwinds we’ve seen will start to abate,” he said.

In the most recent quarter, the star performer in AT&T Business solutions was, not surprisingly, IP-based services. During Q1, AT&T reported that IP-based data services grew 5.5 percent, led by 16.7 percent growth in VPN revenues.

What’s making Spears confident about his unit’s future prospects is the increased integration of mobile offerings into its business service suite. A particular growth engine for business mobility will be Machine to Machine (M2M), a service that connects everything from electric meters to hospital IV bottles to a wireless connection. AT&T, which has been providing M2M services to vertical segments such as utilities and health care through its emerging devices unit, expects to produce 20 million M2M connections by 2011.   

Along with M2M, Spears said he’s seeing more businesses adopt Apple’s iPhone, a device they view “as a mobile computer.”  

For more:
- Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones has this article

Related articles:
Business, consumer IP help lift AT&T’s Q1 wireline results
Utilities inject smarts into the electrical grid

Source:Fierce Telecom

RCN Metro’s (NasdaqGS: RCNI) newly-minted partnerships with three emerging Ethernet Exchange operators–CENX, Equinix (NasdaqGS: EQIX) and Neutral Tandem–reflects the fact that expanding its Ethernet out of region through carrier partnerships, while necessary, comes with the price of having to strike complex one-off interconnection agreements.

By taking an all-of-the-above approach with its latest Ethernet expansion drive in its New York City and Chicago markets, RCN Metro will be able extend the availability of its Ethernet services to local, national, and international service providers via Ethernet Exchange Carriers in New York City and Chicago at speeds that scale as low 1 Mbps and up to 10 Gbps.

While each of these Ethernet Exchange carriers are coming at the interconnection problem in their own way, their presence is one tool service providers such as RCN Metro and its wholesale customers can use to expand their reach without sacrificing service quality or support.

Felipe Alvarez, President of RCN Metro said “standardized network interconnections will make it easier for wholesale carriers to purchase and sell our Ethernet services without compromising our service differentiation.” He added that “Ethernet exchanges deliver an efficient and cost effective method of interconnecting on a one-to-many basis.”

For more:
- see the release here

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RCN Metro extends network into Concord, NH
CENX’s Ethernet exchange: 10 million locations can’t be wrong
Felipe Alvarez, President, RCN Metro – Wholesale allstars
RCN Metro targets Toronto’s financial market
Abry partners to acquire RCN for $1.2 billion

Source:Fierce Telecom