The multi-duct, multi-ring network will service Transtelco’s growing wholesale and enterprise customers in Mexico’s largest city. The new infrastructure will add significant capacity to Mexico City at lower costs and higher capacities. The continued expansion of Mexico City’s broadband infrastructure will enhance Mexico City’s position as one of Mexico’s leading business destinations.

From the Border Region to Central Mexico
Transtelco will connect Mexico City to its US network via its cross-border fibers through Reynosa-McAllen and Nuevo Laredo-Laredo. The addition will enable Transtelco to offer competitive solutions for transport, IP access, metro Ethernet, voice, collocation, content delivery and IT services. Transtelco can now offer new types of services over a significantly wider range of locations to much better serve end-users throughout Mexico and the United States. This new market also enables US-based service providers to efficiently reach businesses based in regions served by Transtelco.

“Mexico City is one of Mexico and Latin America’s premier business destinations. The expansion of Transtelco’s network into this critical market allows Transtelco to expand its footprint in an important manner while offering new services and solutions to a growing customer base at competitive rates,” said Edgar Mosti, vice president of wholesale network services at Transtelco.

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Online video remains a small, but growing, proportion of total TV and video revenues. Informa estimates that it will account for 8 percent of such revenues by 2017. By the end of the decade, if current growth rates continue, it will account for over 10 percent of revenues. However, its value in the market today is concentrated among only a few players.

Online Video Value Concentrated in Apple, Google and Netflix
Giles Cottle, principal analyst and author of “OTT Video Revenue Forecasts” at Informa Telecoms & Media comments, “It’s clear that online video, today, is worth much more than the digital cents and dimes of yore, and is attracting real, and growing, revenues. But this value is concentrated around a select few players. We estimate that Apple, Google, Netflix and the global broadcasters (including Hulu), combined, account for about 70 percent of all online video revenue today – so if you aren’t one of these players, then the chances are you aren’t making a great deal of money from online delivery today.”

As well as a growth in consumption, revenues will be driven by publishers and operators monetizing content on devices beyond the PC, such as tablets and connected TVs. From an advertising point of view, live online video content, which is not being monetized today by most providers, will also drive the market. And pay-TV operators will also have a key role to play.

“The big change to the OTT revenue mix will come when operators start to offer not just low-cost online services, like Sky’s Now TV, but stand-alone online versions of their services that come close, in terms of content availability and price, to their core Pay TV services today. Even very modest take-up of these services will completely distort the online video market,” says Cottle.

US dominance of the global market will wane over the next five years, but the US will still contribute over half of all revenues in 2017. The US accounts for approximately 75 percent of revenues today, but that will drop to less than 60 percent in 2017 as Europe and Asia grow more quickly. Business-model wise, advertising will still be the largest revenue stream in 2017, as it is in 2012.

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Even with the low-growth US economy and the stuttering housing market, home automation systems installed in the US this year almost doubled over 2011 shipments. In 2017, more than 8 million systems will ship, showing a CAGR rate of 45.2 percent between 2011 and 2017.

In the US over the past 12 months, Verizon has rolled out its service offering, cable companies including Comcast and Time Warner have expanded their footprints and security vendors including ADT and Vivint continued to see strong demand for their solutions.

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“We have to suspect that the only purpose of such a report is to impede competition and obstruct Chinese (telecom) companies from entering the U.S. market,” Huawei said in a statement. ZTE took things one step further, issuing a sarcastic statement suggesting that the United States should ban all hardware made in China entirely if they really want to feel secure:

The full report, which you’d have to assume will include actual proof of spying allegations, will be released later today.
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Cable TV operators in United States have faced a continuous decline in pay-TV subscribers. In the first two quarters of 2012, cable TV operators lost nearly 0.8 million subscribers, although their broadband subscriber base has continued to grow. IPTV, which has less penetration than cable or satellite in the US market, gained around 0.6 million subscribers during the same period.

Competition From Over-the-Top Video
ABI Research expects the overall pay-TV subscriber base in North America at the end of 2012 will be down 0.2 percent from 2011, largely because of the availability of Internet content. “As broadband adoption grows, it is likely that pay-TV subscribers are switching to Internet TV services. Internet TV services are cheaper than traditional pay-TV services or even free of charge. Services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc. are cheaper alternatives for pay-TV subscribers, especially in these uncertain economic times,” says Sam Rosen, practice director of TV and video.

The Asia-Pacific region is expected to see the strongest growth in digital TV subscriptions in 2012, reaching 213 million by the end of the year. The ongoing digitization process in countries such as India has been steadily increasing digital TV penetration, though ABI Research is skeptical that the Indian government will reach its target of digital cable to 12 million homes by October 31, 2012.

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This trend toward prepaid should accelerate this year as more and more MVNOs seem determined to get creative on pricing, while the nation’s two largest carriers seem intent on finding new, creative ways to limit consumer choice while increasing prices.
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US WiMAX standard-bearer Clearwire has announced that it has raised $715.5m from its shareholders to fund its deployment of 4G LTE technology.

The firm said it will use the funds for operations and maintenance as well as new network construction. It is currently in the process of adding “LTE Advanced-ready” technology to its 4G network. It has recently completed technical trials using the technology, claiming to have achieved download speeds exceeding 120 Mbps.

The company raised $384.1m from the sale of common shares and mobile operator Sprint, a majority shareholder in the firm, has exercised its preemptive rights to purchase Class B shares, which will provide Clearwire with an additional $331.4m and maintain Sprint’s majority share.

“This equity raise is a critical step for Clearwire to achieve its long-term business plan of creating the first wide-channel TDD-LTE 4G network in the US,” said Erik Prusch, president and CEO of Clearwire.

“The added resources will enable us to continue delivering 4G mobile broadband service to meet the rapidly growing demand in the industry. We remain ideally and uniquely positioned to serve both wholesale and retail customers well into the future.”

The company had been struggling in its attempts to supply ‘4G’ services based on WiMAX, as LTE became established as the global standard. However, it announced a new 4G LTE and WiMAX agreement with Sprint earlier this month worth up to $1.6bn over the next four years,

Towards the end of last year the firm began looking to sell off its spectrum—considered the firm’s greatest asset in light of its technological isolation—in a bid to raise funding. However, this summer, it announced that it had postponed those plans  with CFO Hope Cochrane saying that: “With the near-term capital needs of our current business now satisfied, we will be extremely judicious with our spectrum assets.” The latest funds raised suggest that it will no longer be forced to sell that spectrum.