If you havent read, ESPN has come out and said that they will be aggressively bidding for the retransmission rights for the next available Olympics, which will be in 2016. Notice I didnt say TV rights. The battle for the Olympics rights will be in spreadsheet projections done by ESPN, NBC and probably DirecTV (my guess, not based on any info), that will have to take in to account what revenues can be generated on TV advertising (traditional and interactive), through cable/satellite subscription revenues, an ever increasing market size for mobile video and advertising, and of course audio/video and text advertising of all types.

When it comes to broadband internet access, you can have speed or large volumes of data transfer. You can't have both. One certainty in the broadband world is that for those of us with cable or DSL modems connecting us to the internet, there is still a finite amount of bandwidth available. When a user consumes a disproportionate and significant amount of bandwidth, it can and will slow down everyone. I hate that.

There is a dirty little secret in the cable industry. Its being kept secret not by the cable distributors, but by the big cable networks. End this practice and the United States goes from being 3rd world by international broadband standards, to top of the charts and exemplary. Make this change and Net Neutrality becomes a non issue. There is plenty of bandwidth for everyone. What is the dirty little secret? That your cable company still delivers basic cable networks in analog.

New York - Broadband provider Verizon (NYSE: VZ) will not be policing its own network for illegal filesharing and reports that a recent test it conducted revealed that the new P4P protocol provides a significant boost in download performance while simultaneously reducing network congestion.

Arlington, Va. - Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults have access to a broadband connection and more than half of American households now subscribe to broadband, according to new research by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

Kirkland, Wash. - Clearwire, the operator of a wireless, high-speed Internet access service, announced on Thursday that it has signed agreements with the nation's two satellite TV broadcasters -- DirecTV and EchoStar Communications, which operates the DISH Network -- that will enable the satellite firms to offer high-speed Internet access to their subscribers.

Washington - A coalition of large technology firms -- including Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel and Philips -- have asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow unused TV channels ("white space") to be used for distribution of Internet access into homes and offices, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

New York - Sundance Channel on Thursday announced that it has partnered with Google's YouTube to make excerpts of its content available on the video-sharing site in 2007. Content will include "Festival Dailies," produced at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and clips from the cable network's original series, films and documentaries. Also available exclusively on YouTube will be a video blog hosted by Crumley and Buice, independent filmmakers who recently screened their latest film within the virtual world "Second Life."

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s MySpace social networking site announced that it has partnered with the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which produces the Emmy Awards, on the 2007 Broadband Emmy Awards.

London - Skype, a provider of Internet telephone services, plans to launch a broadband TV service next year, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

New York - More than three-quarters of active Internet users in the U.S. now have broadband access at home, according to a new report from Nielsen/NetRatings.