> Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) says it's halfway through a nine-month IPv6 public trial and will meet a 2012 deadline to transition its network to support the new standard. "I wouldn't say IPv6 is easy, but it's not impossibly difficult either," Jason Livingood, executive director of Internet systems engineering at Comcast told Network World. Story.
> While the chump change range of $30 billion has been bandied about as the price tag for Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) to buy NBC Universal, the "true price" won't be known until "regulators have decided what conditions to impose," a piece in mysmartrend.com says. Story.
> Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has added his two cents to the Apple TV (Nasdaq: AAPL) pricing situation--and he doesn't like what the computer company has come up with as a business model. He thinks that 99 cent TV show rentals are ruining a TV industry that pay hundreds of millions of dollars for those programs. Story.
> A bill which requires that smartphones, TV programs and "modern communications technologies" be accessible to people with vision and hearing loss is headed to President Obama's desk. Among other provisions of the bill, it would "restore and expand requirements for video descriptions of television programs in addition to requiring cable companies to make their program guides and selection menus accessible to people with vision loss," a news release said.
> Remember 700 MHz, the spectrum over which everyone went wild bidding and which has lain pretty quiet (some might say dormant) ever since? Well, Israeli vendor Wavion has released a new product family of base stations and compatible CPEs for the 700 MHz band using its beamforming technology to extend wireless coverage for rural areas as well as improve indoor penetration in urban and suburban zones. On top of that, Wavion figures it will also work within the newly opened "white space" spectrum between TV broadcast channel spectrum. News release (PDF).
And finally... the upcoming SCTE Cable Tec Expo in New Orleans will feature a collaborative effort with CableLabs to showcase "a number of operational tools and support software," the two organizations said. The CableLabs' demonstration "is the tip of the iceberg in our cooperative relationship" SCTE President-CEO Mark Dzuban said in a news release.