Archive for February, 2013

When I sit in front of my computer, it’s a wonder I get anything accomplished.  There are seemingly millions of hours of TV shows, movies, music, and cat videos, all of them staggeringly easy to find, download, and share.

By Neal Goldberg, NCTA and Doug Johnson, CEA The unprecedented, voluntary Set-Top Box Energy Conservation Agreement that NCTA and CEA announced last December was just the first step in the multichannel video industry’s effort to implement significant commitments that will lead to annual savings of $1.5 billion for American consumers.

They say you learn something new every day. Well, we at NCTA want to help keep that adage true, so we’re teaching you about  Urbanicity! A city’s urbanicity is a numeric indicator of how dense its population is both inside and outside of urban areas.

On February 18th USA Today published an article written by Michael Wolff called “Cable is Taking the Fast Train to Oblivion.” The article forecasts a future of the cable TV industry that almost directly opposes reality.

The FCC today released their annual “Measuring Broadband America” report which tests consumer broadband performance in the U.S.  The report’s findings underscore that the U.S. enjoys a healthy, growing, and competitive broadband marketplace.

Yes we know – broadband and bathtubs have very little in common. But coincidentally what they do share is a very similar access percentage, which makes for a good #broaddata.

Canalys reported last week that over 1/3 of all PCs delivered in 2012 were Tablet computers. Of those, about half were Apple tablets – either an iPad or an iPad mini.

According to a report released today by The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) the United States has “made rapid progress in broadband deployment, performance, and price as well as adoption.” The report offers a comprehensive view of both wired and wireless networks based on: Deployment (the geographic reach of broadband networks) Adoption (the number of users who subscribe) Performance (speed, latency, reliability) Price (per unit of usage and speed tier) Overall, the report paints a picture of healthy broadband competition in speed, prices, offerings, and access in the United States as compared to other nations.

It’s been said that we live in a golden age of television. With high-quality programs like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, we’ve reached a point in which the quality and production value of TV has reached a level that was once held exclusively by big budget Hollywood films.

Can you believe The Cable Show 2013 is only four months away?  The show comes to Washington, DC, June 10-12th and there are a million reasons you should be there.  Here are just a few.

Answer: A lot. This week’s #broaddata is a look at how much Americans utilize Wi-Fi as a means to download, upload, and exchange information. We use it even more than wireline connections.

A few years ago, there was a major focus on Internet safety education, as if protecting kids from online predators and pornography were all that was needed for children to safely and effectively surf the Web.  Today, much more attention is being paid to other areas of digital citizenship, for example responsible, ethical behavior and digital literacy.

The FCC held a summit yesterday on broadband adoption, lessons learned over the past few years and best practices that can continue helping to close the digital divide among communities that remain unconnected.

This week’s #BroadData is a look at how long it took for various technological advances to make their way into American homes. It took between 1876 and 1945 to get 50% of Americans a telephone line.