Ericsson today completed the acquisition of Microsoft's Mediaroom business and TV solution. As the most deployed IPTV platform, with a global market share of around 25%, Mediaroom-powered TV services are offered by nearly 60 of the world's leading operators, delivering services to almost 13 million households, and close to 24 million set top boxes, worldwide.

The physical divide for broadband internet access is being addressed but it's the social divide that really needs attention now.  Point Topic, along with representatives from Ofcom, the ONS, BT, Shelter, the Tinder Foundation and the Oxford Internet Institute amongst others attended the 7th Social Digital Research Symposium in London yesterday.

The ITU Connect Asia Pacific Summit will take place in Bangkok on 18 November 2013. The Summit will be held prior to ITU Telecom World 2013 that will be held 19-21 November at the IMPACT Centre, Bangkok, Thailand.

The 6th Annual Oil & Gas Communications South East Asia: Evolving the ‘Big Data’ Digital Oilfield for Offshore & Deep Water conference, the 19th event in GVF-EMP’s overall global series, will take place on 19th & 20th November 2013 at the InterContinental Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd. has acquired JCA, a London-based provider of content management services, which has an impressive track record of growth and revenues of almost US$ 10 million last year. RRsat, which provides global, end-to-end, content management and distribution services to the rapidly expanding television and radio broadcasting industries, said the acquisition is fully aligned with the company’s growth strategy of becoming a global company with local presence in key locations.

AMOS-4, built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for Spacecom, was successfully launched August 31, 2013 from Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a ZENIT - 3SLB launcher. During the coming three weeks, AMOS-4 will continue its transfer orbit until arriving at 67.250 East, where In Orbit Test will be conducted before continuing to its designated permanent service location at 650 East.

Eutelsat Communications  and Es'hailSat announce that their jointly owned EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 satellite was successfully launched tonight by an Ariane 5 rocket and is on course for geostationary orbit. Lift-off of the Ariane rocket carrying the 6.3 tonne satellite took place at 20.30 UTC. EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1's solar panels were deployed within four hours of separation from the launch vehicle and preparations are underway for the first of four firings of its apogee motor to complete its journey into orbit.

An affiliate of private equity and investment firm Wasserstein & Co. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Globecomm Systems for US$ 14.15 per share or about US$340 million in cash.

C-COM Satellite Systems Inc. announced today that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Vislink, a United Kingdom based secure communication technology provider.

Vislink will promote, market, sell and support the C-COM manufactured range of iNetVu® products, which would complement Vislink's existing product range and allow it to expand into new vertical markets including oil & gas; mining; police, fire, emergency and disaster management.

Global TV advertising expenditure will reach US$ 219 billion in 2018 for the 55 countries  covered in the TV Advertising Forecasts report from Digital TV Research, up by 32%  - or US$ 53 billion - from 2012.  TV advertising spend grew by 4.4% in 2012 to US$ 167 billion, but only 2.8% growth is  forecast for 2013 as the recession bites again in several European territories.