Following congressional approval of sweeping tax reform this week, and the FCC’s recent rollback of net neutrality regulations, Comcast NBCUniversal announced it would ramp up capital investments and award holiday bonuses.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that more than 100,000 frontline and non-executive employees will each receive a $1,000 bonus this holiday season. Additionally the company anticipates capital expenditures “well in excess” of $50 billion over the next five years. Spending will focus on infrastructure tied to improvements and expansions of Comcast’s broadband plant and capacity. The company will also invest in its TV, film, and theme park offerings.
Roberts said the company expects to add thousands of new direct and indirect jobs as a result of the investment. More details about capital spending will be revealed during the company’s fourth quarter earnings report, slated for Jan. 24.
AT&T likewise reiterated plans for an additional $1 billion in capital spending next year, and said it will pay a $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 U.S. employees once the tax bill is signed into law.
Starting Wednesday (Dec. 20) Amazon Fire TV customers can browse the web on their TV.
The company launched Mozilla Firefox and Amazon Silk browsers on all Amazon Fire TV devices in more than 200 countries and territories.
Amazon says the Silk browsers has been optimized for Fire TV, with an intuitive design that lets customers easily discover websites, launch bookmarks from the curated home screen, use the Fire TV remote buttons to navigate individual pages, or search for specific web content.
“With full web browsers on Fire TV, our customers’ entertainment and information options are greatly expanded. We want to make it easy for customers to access the Web from the comfort of their couch,” Marc Whitten, VP of Amazon Fire TV and Appstore, said in a statement. “We’re excited to bring web browsing to customers on every Fire TV device in every country where they’re sold.”
Communications infrastructure provider CommScope has named Morgan Kurk as its new COO, effective January 1.
Kurk, who currently holds the role of CTO at CommScope, replaces Randy Crenshaw, who is retiring at the end of the year after 32 years with the company.
In his new role Kurk will oversee the company’s Mobility Solutions and Connectivity Solutions units, and Global Supply Chain and Office of Technology segments.
Kurk has 25 years of experience in information and communication technology industries. He got his start as a hardware development engineer for base stations and product manager for a CDMA base station product line at Motorola. He later joined Allen Telecom, which eventually became part of Andrew Corp., and ultimately CommScope. Prior to his recent COO appointment, Kurk held the CTO role, as well as SVP and wireless segment leader, and SVP and enterprise segment leader.
“As our current chief technology officer and previous leader of our wireless and enterprise businesses, Morgan is well positioned to take on this top operational role,” Eddie Edwards, president and CEO of CommScope. “Morgan will focus on enhancing CommScope’s role as a key strategic partner to our customers as they transition to the networks of the future.”
Limelight Networks said it has expanded its global content delivery network capacity by 39 percent, in a move that supports the company’s long-term focus on expanding in key countries across the globe.
Specifically, Limelight it has expanded its CDN global egress capacity to 28 Tbps, increased the average server capacity by 175 percent, reduced power consumption, and added 11 new Points-of-Presence (PoPs) this year.
New PoPs were added in Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Spain, and the United States.
The company says it was also able to reduce its carbon footprint by nearly 1,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide and decreased power costs by 10 percent this year through proprietary software and network upgrades.
“Continued investment in our network and software is paying off, resulting in broader coverage, greater capacity, increased network performance, and a superior quality of experience for our customers,” Dan Carney, SVP of operations at Limelight Networks, said in a statement.