> Vendors and service providers alike are finding that broadband, not the old narrowband wireline model, presents the best way to make money. SureWest Communications, for instance, saw a second quarter drop in traditional phone line revenue at the same time it grabbed more money from digital cable and high-speed Internet. Motorola, which is restoring some luster to its tarnished mobile phone business with its Droid broadband mobile wireless products, also expects its cable-centric group to rebound from sluggish second quarter results via a "more favorable product mix" and, of course, the ever-ominous "cost reductions."
> Even as cable's tru2way fades from the retail space, another cable-backed venture steps in. Clearwire has signed a strategic wholesale relationship where Best Buy will use its 4G network to offer mobile broadband service to customers as part of Best Buy Connect. News release.
> Cable marketers, not always the most receptive audience when it comes to criticism, might have to suck it up and take it when Harvard Business School Professor Youngme Moon addresses them at the CTAM Summit in New Orleans in October. News release.
> If you can't lead a horse to water ... Congressmen Rich Boucher (D-Va.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) have extended a carrot to broadcasters who are digging in their heels about giving up any more spectrum by introducing a bill that would make sure that the government can only grab spectrum from broadcasters who give it up voluntarily. Story.
> Stop reading if you think you've heard this before--but please note the geography. Portuguese pay TV operator ZON is successfully migrating subscribers to multiple play bundles even as overall customer totals fall. Sound familiar? Story.
And finally... from the other side of the aisle--and ocean--comes word that French technology behemoth Technicolor has earned a three-year extension from DirecTV to provide a range of SD and HD set-tops and signed an MOU (that's memorandum of understanding) with Verizon as a next-gen FiOS broadband home router supplier. Story.