BRIEFS

Cable World, August 25, 2003

MINNESOTA PUC LOOKS TO REGULATE VoIP SERVICE

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has given Vonage 30 days to obtain certification to provide VoIP service in the North Star State. The PUC issued its order Wednesday, a move that one telecom observer is calling "the most aggressive attempt to regulate VoIP to date." Vonage maintains that it is not, in fact, a phone company, but a data exchange provider, not unlike an ISP. As a condition of the PUC order, Vonage must file a complete telephone company application and divulge its price list and e911 strategy.

OPENTV ANTES UP

It's a good thing Brandon Walsh didn't have OpenTV at his house. The sideburned moral conscience of Beverly Hills, 90210 once became so addicted to games of chance that he surreptitiously turned the Peach Pit After Dark into an illicit gambling den. Boy, was Nat steamed when he found out about that. Anyway, the reason we brought up that whole dark period is because OpenTV just scarfed up the assets of BettingCorp Limited, a London-based developer of betting and gaming tech. BettingCorp allows gamblers to wager via the Internet or ITV, but also implements safeguards that block gambling in areas where it is illegal to do so. The cost to OpenTV: $10M in cash and stocks.

C-COR GAINS ON NET SALES, SHAVES LOSSES

C-COR.net showed some progress in its latest earnings call, racking up $52 million in net sales for the fourth quarter, a slight gain from the Q3's $50.1 million. While any upward movement is occasion for merriment, bear in mind that that figure is quite a drop from Q4 2002's tally of $69.2 million. That said, C-COR managed to narrow its net loss from $37.2 million last year to $13.3 million this year.

CEDAR POINT GETS CABLELABS CERTIFICATION NOD

Cedar Point Communications announced last week that its Safari C3 call management system had belatedly earned PacketCable 1.0 qualification from CableLabs. Mark Dzuban, EVP, cable telephony deployment for Cedar Point, called the regulatory body's endorsement "a major milestone" for both the company and the cable industry at large. The qualification came during the second leg of certification wave 26.