Canada may see more revised telecom regulation; Rochester, MN rejects public-offered broadband

> The Great White North occasionally offers its southern neighbors more than Alberta Clippers, so U.S. cable operators might want to pay heed to comments from Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (sometimes thought of as the Canadian FCC) who said the country has to "rethink" how it regulates broadcasting and telecom. Story.

> The Rochester (Minn.) City Council has thought the better of it and rejected the idea of a public-offered Internet broadband service. The deal was opposed by incumbent cable provider Charter Communications which said its spent $30 million "in the last few years upgrading its service, extending lines and doubling the number of individual ‘nodes' serving customers," according to a newspaper article. Story.

> The Ukraine may be a cable hotbed but the latest news is that piracy is running rampant and that only around 40 percent of the country's 700 cable operators own a license. Story.

And finally... SureWest, which recently announced a reorganization, is pushing ahead with a bandwidth management and high definition strategy and will use BigBand's switched digital video (SDV) technology. News release.