Samsung looks to Middle East

Samsung Electronics has signed an agreement with Orbit Showtime Network (OSN) in the United Arab Emirates, states AME Info.

The agreement will see Samsung support the network's high-definition decoder roll-out and channel line-up in the Middle East.

Kyungtae Bae, president of Samsung Electronics Middle East and North Africa, says the partnership will combine OSN's decoders and Samsung's high-definition televisions.

A Korean cable television firm plans to introduce an Internet-based video-on-demand service that allows viewers to access movies from anywhere, reports Korea Times.

The new service by CJ HelloVision, dubbed Tving, is similar to TV Everywhere provided by US cable operator Comcast, which is competing with a growing number of firms such as Hulu for supremacy in Web-based television.

Although Tving will only initially be enabled on personal computing devices like desktops and laptops, CJ HelloVision also plans to introduce a version for mobile devices.

Research and Markets claims significant consolidation has occurred in Nigeria's Internet and broadband sector, from over 400 Internet service providers three years ago to around 150, says TMCnet.

This is supported by the expansion of several competing national fibre backbone networks, applications such as e-commerce, online banking and e-payments, e-health, e-learning and e-government are rapidly evolving.

The arrival of a second international submarine fibre optic cable, Glo-1, has broken the monopoly of Nitels notorious SAT-3/WASC cable and is set to reduce the cost of international bandwidth by up to 90%.