Thirty years ago, TV was for a vast number of Americans (I’d guess a clear majority) a common experience. Up through the 1980s, you could ask almost anybody if they’d seen a particular show the night before, and with only three major networks to choose from, odds were that if they had their TVs on, […]
‘Green’ catching momentum
The SCTE will have a green pavilion at the Cable-Tec Expo. Several cable companies have had individual green programs, but now the industry is preparing a literally concerted effort to get a bit greener. Green technology will be the focus at Cable-Tec Expo’s inaugural Expo Cable Technology Spotlight. The Technology Spotlight, which the SCTE intends […]
IN PERSPECTIVE: Too clever by half
Is there a point to offering excellent speeds at a price that maybe 10 customers might pay? By The Cable Show, Time Warner Cable was already coming under fire for its intent to expand its usage billing tests. CEO Glenn Britt explained that bandwidth is not free, and so it’s reasonable for cable to charge […]
CTO Roundtable: Preparing for a dynamic future
Plenty of stuff to do on multiple screens. Call it “anytime-anywhere,” or “four-screen” or something else – the technical feasibility of delivering multiple services across multiple platforms is here and evolving rapidly. But service providers still have to take care of the fundamentals. This year, the MSO chief technology officers joining us are Chris Bowick […]
IN PERSPECTIVE: What’s in a name?
There are fewer and fewer differences between cable companies and phone companies. Verizon can legitimately be considered the seventh-largest cable operator. With 1.9 million video subscribers, it is larger than Insight, Mediacom and Suddenlink, with Bright House Networks next on the list. Comcast, meanwhile, has surpassed one of the three remaining Baby Bells – Qwest […]
IN PERSPECTIVE: Google on TV
Having a multiplicity of sources will make content discovery difficult, so guides will grow in importance. In the long term, whoever ends up controlling the program guide wins. It’s a theory. It’s based on a few obvious expectations: 1) There will continue to be multiple, ever-richer sources for video – subscription-based and free (“free” via […]
You Snooze, You Lose
Cable takes business from sleeping telcos. MSOs have been hearing it for years, that providing business services is like printing money. It turns out the enterprise market is fruit that isn’t hanging all that low, but small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) represent a clearly lucrative market that even the smallest operators can justify targeting. Enterprise […]
IN PERSPECTIVE: Cable’s cannibal diet
Cable’s investment in Sprint-Clearwire is going to be problematic. I got a demo of the Clear residential/mobile service last month, in a car with an in-dash screen and WiMAX (and Wi-Fi – Wi-Fi can come free with WiMAX). As we drove across the Willamette River and back, then picked our way through downtown Portland, Ore., […]
Traffic woes come to the core
Put smarts at the edge to help manage the backbone.. Managing bandwidth from the headend to the set-top is an ongoing challenge because the resource is always constrained at some point by some limit – the capacity of a node, for example, or the total spectrum available, be it 750 MHz, 860 MHz or 1 […]
Test time
With competition heating up, network testing and monitoring become critical priorities Historically, executive suites were nearly impervious to any mention of test and measurement. Lately, however, cable companies have come to appreciate that the latest generation of T&M equipment may be as critical for retaining subscribers as DVRs have been in attracting them and gigabit […]