Spark, TVNZ to bid for Rugby World Cup rights

Writing at Fairfax's BusinessDay site, Tom Pullar-Strecker reports on a joint Spark-TVNZ bid for the broadcasting rights for the next Rugby World Cup. The tournament will be held in Japan in late 2019.

Meanwhile the New Zealand Herald says Spark and TVNZ have discussed buying rights to domestic New Zealand Rugby fixtures from the 2020 season on.

Either bid could see Sky TV cut adrift from New Zealand's favourite sporting code. This would, in turn, would have implications for its relationship with Vodafone TV.

Vodafone is a Rugby sponsor

It would have wider implications for Vodafone which now sponsors the All Blacks and has a four year deal for digital rights to New Zealand Rugby.

He says the deal would give TVNZ the free-to-air broadcast rights with Spark being able to stream games over broadband.

Neither Spark nor TVNZ would confirm the story. However, Spark told Pullar-Strecker the company is interested in media properties and that includes sports.

This wouldn't be Spark's first foray into streaming sports content. The company's Lightbox Sports previously worked with Coliseum Sports Media which had the rights for English Premier League coverage. More recently giant technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google have made bids for worldwide rights to major sports events.

FCC to end US net neutrality regulations

On Tuesday America's Federal Communications Commission announced its plans to unravel net neutrality regulations established by the Obama administration.

If it follows through, US internet service providers will be free to charge users more to access certain types of content. The ISPs will be able to decide which content their customers can access. They will also be able to slow the delivery of certain types of content.

In the USA many consumers have little or no choice of ISP. The competitive pressure that acts as a brake on discriminating against certain types of content often doesn't apply.

The US net neutrality debate is often framed as a fight over free speech. It pits the giant telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon against wealthy internet giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon.

The internet companies fear the end of net neutrality will give telcos too much power and added ability to clip the ticket.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai expects to have his plan to dismantle net neutrality approved in mid-December. There is likely to be intensive lobbying from both camps before the decision is made.

Pycom brings IoT hardware to NZ

UK-based Internet-of-Things hardware company Pycom is bringing its technology to New Zealand. The company will demonstrate FiPy in Auckland next week. FiPY is a development board that allows IoT engineers to connect sensors to five different radio services: WiFi, Bluetooth, LoRa, Sigfox and dual LTE-M (CAT M1 and NB-IoT). It has a built-in operating system that supports a version of the Python programming language.

Uber hacked

Uber admitted hackers broke into the app's database a year after the event despite mandatory breach reporting laws in many of the markets where the company operations.

The hackers stole personal information on 57 million passengers and drivers. The information information including names, email addresses and phone numbers.

Not only did the company wait a year before revealing its data had been stolen, executives paid the hackers US$100,000 to buy their silence.

Tomizone raises working capital $500K

CommsDay reports that managed WiFi specialist Tomizone says it has completed a $500,000 raising to boost working capital. It also says there has been a jump in subscription based sales.