During our recent conference, The Cable Show, I took a camera over to CableNET, a technology exhibit that’s been held for 16 years. Its goal has always been to show “…next-generation broadband technologies and services that cable operators are expected to deliver to consumers in the near term.”

I wanted to capture something about tru2way, since that set of technical specifications has been in the news lately. This video attempts to show that there are three key parts to tru2way: consumer electronics, such as TV sets or other devices; applications, which can be written once and then run anywhere; and cable operators, who would then support tru2way on their networks.

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Earlier today, we issued the announcement: Sony Electronics and Major U.S. Cable Operators Negotiate National “Two-Way” Plug and Play Solution.

Here’s some of the coverage:

• Sony Embraces tru2way
• Sony, Cable Bury Two-Way Hatchet
• Sony signs up to support tru2way
• Sony to Build ‘Tru2way’ Interactive TVs
• Sony + Tru2way = No More Set-top Boxes?
• Sony commits to ‘Tru2way’ TV

For more on tru2way, watch this CNBC interview with CableLabs’ President & CEO Dick Green that took place at our recent annual event The Cable Show.

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(cross-posted at The Cable Show Blog) 

Part of the business of cable here at the Show is a discussion of ways to better serve, and better reach, customers.  The Association of Cable Communicators, an organization of communications and public affairs professionals, this morning hosted Publicity Play: Making an Impact in a Fragmented Media Age - a look at how cable operators and programmers are managing their brand, their promotions, and their customer service through blogs, social networks, and other new media.

Peter Kiley from C-Span moderated the panel which included Chelsye Burrows of Starz Entertainment, Ellen East of Time Warner, Annie Howell of the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green, Jennifer Khoury of Comcast, and Ellen Kroner of Rainbow Media. 

After brief introductions of the panelists and their company, the conversation turned to ways the companies are using digital media to do their jobs.  Ellen East shared an effort by Time Warner to have staff travel to the front lines and work customer service.  They blogged about the experience so co-workers could understand the challenges faced by both customers and the front line staff.  The blog proved very popular within the company and helped bring the corporate personnel closer to the people interacting with customers every day.

Jennifer Khoury talked about the Comcast Cares program and their use of Twitter and other platforms to monitor customer complaints wherever they popped up and to be proactive about solving them.

While these efforts help improve customer service, cable operators and programmers are also finding more challenges with new media in the marketing of their products, services and programming.  Chelsye Burrows discussed efforts to promote new Starz programming including Hollywood Residential and Head Case.  Extensive outreach was done with blogs covering TV and promotional content was created for the web to engage online audiences.

Similarly, When launching a new music on demand channel, Time Warner in Austin announced the launch events via Facebook and evite events in addition to traditional marketing channels.  They surveyed attendees and found that 46% came from one of the two online efforts - a huge success.  East expressed her belief that online channels were “the way to reach younger audiences”.

Conversation then turned to a discussion of traditional public relations and media relations, and the challenges presented by new media. 

Comcast’s Khoury believes the web has permanently altered the roll of communications personnel.  The media world has changed., she says.  Digital media is forcing changes in customer service, marketing, communications, reporting, deadlines, etc.  It is often a daunting task, she believes, but suggests “you try to work within the new structure and give people what they need.”

One of the most interesting highlights of the discussion was Annie Howell’s discussion of Planet Green’s new electronic press kit.  Not only has Planet Green stopped creating paper press materials and driven them all online, the press sites are developed using green design standards.  The colors are chosen for their lower wattage consumption and the sites use minimal images to draw less power.

The panel bounced back and forth between corporate branding, identity management and promotion of content with some discussion of the blurring line between corporate communications and marketing, but the predominant theme could be summed up by Bob Dylan - The times they are a-changin’.

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Paul and I will be covering the Cable Show in New Orleans for the next few days. We invite you to check back for our coverage of new products, services, and technologies that will be changing the way you work, play and entertain yourself on the cable platform.

If you’re a Twitter user (or a Twit, for short), we’ll be using the hashtag #cs08. Track #cs08 on Twitter and follow the action.

If you’re in New Orleans for the Show, send us a note and let us know. You can also follow @CableShow for our updates throughout.

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We’re all down in New Orleans right now for NCTA’s annual conference The Cable Show. One of the things that we and the press do during this time is assess where the cable industry is right now.

• Interview with NCTA President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow, with a focus on public policy
• AP story on the growth of cable and new services
• Optimism of the cable industry on the eve of the Show

You can follow activities at the Show on The Cable Show blog.

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As mentioned previously, each week on the front page of NCTA’s website, we highlight a relevant statistic. This week’s is worth taking note of.

With the five largest cable operators having reported results for the first quarter of 2008, there are now 16.2 million customers receiving phone service from the cable industry…

…and counting.

This is incredible growth if you look back over the past decade.

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Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner recently launched a new blog discussing his company’s take on telecom policy. In the time the blog has been up, he has tackled issues from cable investment in wireless technology to customer service, and from a la carte to network management.

Yesterday’s post, titled Confessions of a Network Manager (Part I) takes a look at the consumer friendly reasons for network management practices. It’s a good read, and like much of his writing is a candid look at why operators manage their networks, why that’s good for you, and even a frank discussion of why companies would not want to talk openly about specific practices.

Network management is not your enemy — it is your friend, even if you’re a P2P enthusiast. Without network management, everyone’s online experience would melt down to a completely useless exercise. It would reduce the Internet to a chaotic free-for-all as if you built a 10-lane superhighway and didn’t have any traffic laws in place to keep the traffic moving.

The fact is, network management is absolutely necessary throughout the Internet, from the ISP’s all the way through to backbone providers. It happens everywhere on the Internet. And it’s a good thing that it does.

Bandwidth, throughout the Internet, is a shared asset. Accordingly, we all have to learn to live with one other as good neighbors. You don’t go to Joe’s Barbecue, an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, and proceed to eat all the food. The goodies are affordable because they are offered under law of averages and a shared economic model. If my brother-in-law, Norman, and a few of his buddies showed up every night, Joe would either have to raise the price for everyone or start charging by the pound.

I guess, to some extent, we created this debate ourselves. Many of us, myself included, didn’t really want to talk about how we managed our networks to keep the traffic flowing smoothly. We simply did it. Frankly, I believed that if we were totally transparent about it, certain people would figure out ways to defeat the rules of the road, making our management practices harder and more intrusive than we were wanting them to be.

Much of his writing is similarly inviting and personal. If you’re not reading it, you should take a look.

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It’s been expected for a while that a city might serve as a test case for the coming Digital Television Transition (scheduled for Feb. 17 next year). It’s now been announced that Wilmington, NC will be that test market.

From this morning’s L.A. Times:

The Federal Communications Commission plans to announce today that broadcasters in the coastal city of about 96,000 — the nation’s 135th-largest media market — will turn off their analog signals permanently on Sept. 8. That is about five months before the government-mandated switch-over in the rest of the country Feb. 18.

“We think it’s going to be a good thing for the community and it will pave the way for the rest of the country,” said Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo.

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps had proposed a test market so officials could work out technical glitches and outreach problems with the digital transition, which will render older TVs that use antennas useless unless they’re outfitted with special signal converter boxes.

“It’s just nonsensical to think you can go into a transition like this and pull the lever one time for the entire country and not expect to have real consumer confusion,” Copps said Wednesday. “Even Broadway plays open on the road and you get the kinks out.”

The FCC confirmed the announcement today.

We issued a statement this afternoon from our President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow:

NCTA has previously indicated our support for the concept of a test market, and the cable industry has been working closely with broadcasters and other stakeholders to ensure that the February 2009 transition is seamless for television viewers. We applaud Commissioner Copps for proposing the concept of a market trial, and we look forward to working closely with the FCC so that local cable operators are able to help make the Wilmington test pilot – and the full February 2009 broadcast transition – a good experience for consumers.

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Today, NCTA President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing on “H.R. 5353, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008.” Two weeks ago, he testified before the Senate Committee.

He spoke of his time at an Internet start-up in the late Nineties, in a dial-up world. From his position, he said he was cheering on the cable industry to roll out broadband. He mentioned “open access,” the previous version of the network neutrality debate, which bears striking similarities to the current discussion. Over the last 14 years, as cable modems have taken off and increased the available bandwidth and over that time, McSlarrow noted, cable’s broadband service has never been regulated.

 

 Kyle McSlarrow Testimony on "H.R. 5353, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet will hold a hearing tomorrow, May 6, at 9:30 a.m to cover “H.R. 5353, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008.” Witnesses will discuss the proposed legislation, which would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services, including network neutrality. The bill was introduced by Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and Chip Pickering (R-MS).

NCTA’s Kyle McSlarrow will testify as will Mitch Bainwol of RIAA, Walter McCormick of US Telecom, and several others. Look for Kyle to make many of the same points he made in testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on April 22, and in his post on network management here.

The efforts of broadband network providers to build larger and faster networks have helped ensure the success of countless numbers of new Internet businesses and applications. Despite concerns about alleged limited access to broadband, use of Internet video on demand has grown at the most dramatic rate. In February 2008, nearly 135 million U.S. Internet users spent an average of 204 minutes viewing 10.1 billion online videos. YouTube represented 34% of those online videos, or nearly 3.5 billion.

For years, net neutrality proponents have argued that without government intervention, broadband providers would stifle competing services and content providers; Internet development and usage would stagnate; and consumers would be unable to use their broadband connections to download video or access other emerging applications. In fact, cable’s investment in broadband has driven innovation and investment in new content and applications at the edge — the exact opposite of what was predicted by advocates of net regulation. …

Far from being “neutral,” a network that is not managed simply allows those who want to demand all the bandwidth for themselves to do so unchecked. …

Under the guise of preventing discrimination, “net neutrality” proponents would have the government determine which network management techniques are permissible. Putting every network management strategy up for debate before regulators would severely hamper the ability of network providers to ensure high-quality and reliable Internet access for their subscribers. Depriving network operators of certain bandwidth management tools only makes the network less efficient for everyone. Adept network optimization techniques are fundamental to creating and preserving the stable “ecosystem” for online service providers that ensures an optimal customer experience.

Misplaced concerns over legitimate and reasonable network management practices do not justify the enactment of open-ended regulation of the Internet, particularly where the costs of such regulation are foreseeable and substantial. Given the growth of broadband competition and the breathtaking pace of technological change, government intervention is unwarranted. As the Federal Trade Commission has warned, regulation of Internet access at this stage of market development could have “potentially adverse and unintended effects,” including reduced product and service innovation.

Congress should resist calls to interfere with broadband providers’ freedom to manage their respective networks in order to satisfy the evolving needs of American consumers. The disaster scenarios voiced by network neutrality proponents for many years have never happened. In fact, the opposite has happened — the Internet is booming without regulation. There is quite simply no problem requiring a government solution.

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