There are now more than 18 million residential broadband subscribers in North America, according to new figures from research firm Kinetic Strategies. It is estimated that 1.9 million new subscribers were added in the third quarter to take the total to 18.08 million. Of these, 15 million are based in the US where broadband internet… Continue reading North American Broadband Population Set To Top 20 Million

Downloadable games will replace ringtones as the most profitable mobile content and entertainment service in Western Europe, according to Analysys. In a new report, the telecoms consultancy suggests that mobile games have the best short term growth prospects with revenues expected to surge from E255 million in 2002 to more than E3 billion in 2005.… Continue reading Mobile Games Revenues To Increase Tenfold

BSkyB reckons that its satellite customer base could ultimately pass ten million, within a UK pay-TV market penetration of 80%, according to analysts at Merrill Lynch. The broker itself is now forecasting that there will be 8.1 million Sky satellite subscribers by 2010. This is an upgrade on the July forecast, which put Sky at… Continue reading BSkyB Bullish On Its Future, Says Merrill Lynch

Shares in AOL Time Warner fell 14% yesterday following a downbeat forecast on the prospects for its America Online division. The world’s largest media company believes that things will get worse before they get better and is predicting that advertising and commerce sales at its internet arm will fall by up to 50% in 2003.… Continue reading Difficult Times Ahead For America Online

Strong sales of Sony’s PlayStation 2 console look set to boost revenues for Future Network, publisher of the Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine, according to analysts at Merrill Lynch. Experience from the original PlayStation console shows that Future sold around one magazine for every ten consoles sold; Sony has just announced that ten million PlayStation… Continue reading Strong PlayStation 2 Sales To Boost Future Network Revenues

Vivendi Universal has decided to take up its option and buy BT’s 26% stake in Cegetel, giving it 70% control of the French telecoms group. Jean-René Fourtou, Chairman and CEO of Vivendi, said yesterday that the company had sufficient funds to match Vodafone’s E4 billion bid for the shareholding. Under a binding agreement, Vivendi had… Continue reading Vivendi Swoops For Cegetel Stake

Half of UK firms now order goods and services online, a 52% increase on 2001, according to a new study by the Department of Trade and Industry. The International Benchmarking Study 2002 revealed that UK companies are becoming increasingly acquainted with the merits of e-business. Over 90% of businesses now have access to the internet,… Continue reading UK Businesses Keen To Develop The e-Economy

The Irish telecoms sector saw revenues increase by 4% and there was a 10% movement of customers from the incumbent to other fixed line operators in the last quarter. A report from the newly-created Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) found that 162,000 Carrier Pre-Selection (CPS) lines are now rolled out in the country and at… Continue reading Irish Telecoms Industry In Good Heart

This year will witness the start of a ‘massive expansion’ in the growth of digital television (DTV) in the Asia Pacific region, with growth forecast to be 57% over 2001, reaching 7.9 million homes. These figures come from a new report from Informa Media Group, produced in association the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association (CASBAA).… Continue reading Asia-Pacific Digital Television Forecasts From Informa Media

Television provided via the internet, whilst still largely in the planning stages, could become a significant entertainment platform in the second half of the decade, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. A global survey of over 30 commercial and planned internet protocol television (IPTV) systems, shows that Asia-Pacific and Europe are likely to… Continue reading Internet-Delivered TV Set To Grow, Says Strategy Analytics