August 29, 2008 - Vodacom agrees to $700 million purchase of Africa's Gateway

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August 29, 2008 Sign up Forward Archive Advertise Read more at SmartBrief.com News for telecom industry leaders       News of the Day  Vodacom agrees to $700 million purchase of Africa's Gateway Vodacom has taken aim at Africa's telecom market with the purchase of Gateway Telecommunications, a network and satellite-services company. The acquisition is in line with Vodacom's goal of becoming a more diversified provider, rather than a pure mobile player. Reuters (8/29) , The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (subscription required) (8/29)   Business & Industry Watch  Verizon bundles free DSL with voice subscription Verizon Communications has begun offering new or current voice subscribers six free months of DSL service in a campaign that will run through October across Verizon's 24-state DSL footprint, which covers 33 million homes. The company is asking customers to make a one-year commitment and to sign up for the package online. Multichannel News (8/28) AT&T builds brand buzz with Olympic music clips AT&T reportedly boosted both its brand awareness and online traffic through its sponsorship of a series of Olympic-themed music videos by artists including Sheryl Crow, Nelly and Chris Brown that aired on NBC and Telemundo, and also were available as paid downloads from iTunes and its own entertainment site. AT&T donated the proceeds from the downloads to the U.S. Olympic team, according to this article. Advertising Age (8/28) CEO: South Africa's MTN on the prowl Having a set a goal of becoming the top cell phone carrier in emerging markets, South Africa's MTN wants to become an aggressive buyer over the next several years, according to CEO Phuthuma Nhleko, who said in an interview that the company's considerable leverage enabled it to consider larger deals. "Within reason we will leverage the group again if we think it gives us a meaningful strategic advantage going forward," he said, referring to MTN's recently failed merger plan with India's Reliance Communications. Financial Times (8/28) USTelecom Spotlight Disruptive devices, marketing & content -- free webinars from USTelecom Don't miss these free webinars, now available on demand! Disruptive VOIP Devices explores consumer products including VoiceStick, Majic Jack, Ooma, Skype and Truphone; Marketing by the Numbers explains how to maximize your marketing budget; and CSI Meets IPTV discusses how content security and digital watermarking protect your IPTV service. Interested in learning more on these topics? Don't miss our Disruptive Technology, Demanding Consumers and Your Broadband Future event. Learn more about USTelecom -> NXTcomm  |  News  |  Join USTelecom  |  NextGenWeb  |  Webinars   Video Upload  Germany's T-Home pushes IPTV with free peek, features Deutsche Telekom-owned IPTV operator T-Home will take aggressive moves to pass the 500,000-subscriber mark this year, the Germany provider said at a news conference. T-Home, which is adding 2,000 titles to its on-demand library at no cost to subscribers, will give viewers a free two-month trial of its T-Entertain service. Broadband TV News (8/29) Canoe Ventures members debut new political channel Six of the country's top cable TV providers that are involved with the industry's Canoe Ventures have banded together to offer a new channel called Elections '08 On Demand, a service that allows viewers to select a variety of political content whenever they want it. The new channel, available in about 32 million homes, was developed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks and represents Canoe Ventures' first TV product. The New York Times (8/28) The Buzz(CORPORATE ANNOUNCEMENTS) Integrated Technologies – Global Solutions, a Volt Telecom Group division, (ITGS) delivers products and comprehensive, design, engineering and installation services to improve the security of public, private and government facilities nationwide. Contact us today for a FREE brochure on our turnkey voice, data, security, access and video systems. salesinfo@volt-telecom.com. Interested in learning more about advertising in the USTelecom dailyLead? Contact Amy Abbey at 202-737-5500 ext 250 or aabbey@smartbrief.com.   Technology Trends  Broadband, Web conferencing fuel telecommuting increase More American (42%) and Canadian (40%) companies have instituted telecommuting programs this year, according to a survey from WorldatWork. Technology advancements, including broadband availability and Web conferencing, are helping to propel the uptake. Telephony Online (8/28) Google details its Android app strategy Android Market, an open-source answer to Apple's iPhone App Store, will act as the hub of Google's platform for users to buy, download and review applications and other content, Google disclosed Thursday. Google said it was trying to make it easy for developers to produce applications and get them into users' hands. CNET (8/28)   IP Download  Judge clears Veoh of copyright-infringement allegations A federal judge this week dismissed a suit by Io Group trying to hold Veoh Networks liable for copyright infringement for material that users uploaded to its Web site. As video-streaming services seek "safe harbor" from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a higher profile lawsuit filed by Viacom against Google's YouTube still is pending. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (8/29) Comcast sets limit on heavy-bandwidth users Looking to make its broadband network as fast as possible for all users, Comcast has announced that on Oct. 1 it will set a limit on monthly downloads/uploads at 250 gigabytes. Charlie Douglas, a spokesman for Comcast, said the current median level for the company's broadband users was in the range of 2 to 3 gigabytes, but he added that the country's second-largest broadband provider had "some extremely high-bandwidth users that consume a disproportionate amount of data, and that can degrade service for others. To maintain a high quality of service for users, we've gone with this." San Francisco Chronicle (8/29)   Editor's Note  The dailyLead will not be published on Monday In observance of Labor Day in the U.S., the dailyLead will not be published on Monday, Sept. 1. Publication will resume Tuesday.   LeadQuote  The end of labor is to gain leisure." --Aristotle       This dailyLead was created for webmaster@freeraovat.com Subscriber Tools       Update account information | Change e-mail address | Unsubscribe | Print friendly format | Web version | Search past news | Archive | Privacy policy Advertise Sales Account Director:  Amy Abbey (202) 737-5500 x250 Download Media Kit   Read more at dailyLead.com A powerful Web site for dailyLead readers including: Breaking News Industry Home Competitor News Readers' Choice Press Releases Search Archive       Recent USTelecom dailyLead Issues: Thursday, August 28, 2008 Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Monday, August 25, 2008 Friday, August 22, 2008     Lead Editor:  Susan Rush       Mailing Address: SmartBrief, Inc.®, 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005     © 1999-2008 SmartBrief, Inc.® Legal Information