Cable Companies

This morning, we hosted the first event of a new briefing series called NCTA Connects,   which will regularly showcase national thought leaders discussing issues that are impacting the media and communications industries.

There is much talk today about a new law called the CALM Act – or the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. There are a few media stories about it, including the Los Angeles Times, NPR and CNN, and a press rerelease from Rep.

On Saturday, NCTA President & CEO Michael Powell was on C-SPAN’s  The Communicators discussing sports broadcasting, political ads, and how social media might impact the future of TV.

In participating in a major new Set-Top Box Energy Conservation Agreement, NCTA member companies today re-affirmed the industry’s strong commitment to continued improvement in the energy efficiency of the set-top boxes we provide to our customers.

While much of the United States focuses on the Presidential election this week, the global Internet engineering community will be in Atlanta tackling a host of issues that will echo throughout the world.

[View the story "Cable Lends Hand in Sandy Recovery Efforts" on Storify] Cable Lends Hand in Sandy Recovery Efforts Historic Storm Sandy hit the Mid-Atlantic through New England the week of October 29, 2012, leaving a path of destruction.

By now you’ve probably heard about the “DNSChanger” malware, which has been highlighted in the media over the last few days.  Basically, it’s a virus or “bot” that hijacks your computer’s DNS settings to redirect your legitimate traffic to fake sites in order to steal your personal information (such as user names, passwords and credit card numbers).

The House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology holds a hearing tomorrow to discuss “The Future of Video.”  NCTA President & CEO Michael Powell is among the eight witnesses that will testify at the hearing which also includes representatives from the satellite and broadcasting industries, online video providers, movie studios and public interest community.  You can read Powell’s testimony here.

The final day of the 2012 Cable Show kicked off this morning with the last general session. To get the session started, Piers Morgan sat down for a one on one interview with Conan O’Brien to discuss his move away from traditional television to an online media empire.

The second day of the 2012 Cable Show gets underway with the second general session. The session got off to a start with Verizon announcing a new content discovery service as part of a discussion of content delivery and consumption.

In the past few weeks, this blog has addressed the issue of encryption of cable’s basic programming tier. We’ve pointed out that such encryption would reduce the need for technicians to visit customers’ homes for installations and disconnections.

The government’s recent release of a national broadband map intensifies our collective focus on bringing broadband services to all consumers, and improving broadband adoption among those who already have some access.

During The Cable Show last week, one of my favorite panels was a discussion that industry analyst Leslie Ellis had with Chief Technology Officers from cable companies.

Have you ever had trouble with a company and said to yourself, “Even I could run it better!”  Well if that company was your cable or telephone company, now is your chance to prove it.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has overturned an FCC decision to impose a cap on cable companies – barring them from serving more than 30% of cable customers nationwide.