As Time Warner cable this week begins their trial of tiered Internet pricing in Beaumont Texas, the blogs are aflutter over the various caps Time Warner has proposed.  Time Warner’s plans start with caps at 5 gigabytes and go up to 40 gigabytes. Going over the cap will cost $1 per gigabyte.  Time Warner is also bringing transparency to usage by giving customers a gauge that will allow them to monitor their bandwidth consumption the way cell providers allow you to track your minutes.

Despite all this complaints about Time Warner’s trial and claims its caps are way too low have been ringing around the Internet.

Exactly how much bandwidth do you consume?  It’s hard to say as the number various from user to user.  However, Plus.net put together a nice little graphic showing you what a single Gigabyte gives you - including 4 hours per day of web browsing, 10 song downloads per week, e-mail, Internet radio usage, etc.

What does all that equal?  Well, NCTA member BendBroadband operated with a tiered structure and found that 91% of their customers consumed less than 10GB per month.  BendBroadband found that 99.5% of their users consume less than 100GB per month and now uses that as their cap.

Somewhere above the 91% consuming 10GB per month, and the .5% consuming more than 100GB lies the heaviest Internet users.  Estimates in various studies suggest that 5-10% of Internet users consume half or more of all bandwidth.  Much of that traffic - though specific estimates vary greatly - consists of P2P (peer to peer) connections exchanging files.   A study by SafeNet, Inc. suggests the overwhelming majority of P2P traffic may also be illegal content:

But 90 percent of P2P downloads are still of illegally copied content, according to David Hahn, vice president of product management at SafeNet Inc., which tracks the networks.

Hahn said 12 million to 15 million people are file-sharing across the world at any one time, mainly on the BitTorrent and eDonkey networks. The attraction of file-sharing is not just that it’s free - there’s also content available that can’t be had by legal means, like TV shows that haven’t aired in Europe.

Absent an exact figure of P2P usage, and whether or not you accept SafeNet’s 90% estimate, one thing is undeniable - a small percentage of Internet users are placing a burden on other users.  That is one reason a number of P2P applications providers are working to identify ways to make P2P a better and more efficient means of distributing content.  We believe that is a worthwhile pursuit, which is why NCTA and various cable companies are participating in a “P2P Best Practices” effort led by the Distributed Computing Industry Association.

In many of the articles written about the Time Warner experiment, detractors point to the number of movies than can be downloaded as a specific reason the cap is too low.  An average movie downloaded legally from iTunes is around 1-1.5 GB.  A 40GB cap would allow you to download more than 30 movies per month (or one a day) if that’s all you did.  Most people, however, don’t consume one movie per day, let alone 30 per month.

Mark Cuban, one of the founders of Broadcast.com and a web pioneer, points out the folly of this argument in a post on his blog yesterday.

Its been amusing to read all the blog posts with the math telling all of us just how many standard def or high def movies tiered subscribers will be limited to. You can have 2 or 3 of your favorite SD TV shows per day, or X number of HD movies per month. Say what? 

I have news for all of you that want to dedicate their internet connections to downloading movies. There is a new and exciting development. Its called an Application Specific Integrated Video Service (ASIVS). What is an ASIVS ? Its a computer dedicated specifically to downloading and playing both standard definition and high definition video. You connect it to a network that is dedicated to delivering GIGABITS PER SECOND of high quality video with ZERO buffering. It’s amazing, it always works and connects right to your standard def or High Definition TV, easily. Most of the systems I have seen have a pretty good programming guide and scheduling system and they will let you download AS MUCH VIDEO AS YOU WANT, limited only by the size of its hard drive!!

If you haven’t heard of the ASIVS, its because most people call it a DVR.

If downloading TV shows is so important to you, add a DVR to your cable or satellite service for 5 bucks a month and download all you want. If you want to watch those shows on your laptop, connect the composite video out in your DVR to the composite in on your laptop. Same with movies.

Can’t download movies illegally, tough.

The internet is a great resource for unlimited quantities of video. Downloading video is an internet given right. Using the internet to fill up your PC turned DVR at the expense of the performance of every user around you is not.

Mark’s right on the money with this.  Using the Internet to download video is your right and prerogative.   Using your Internet connection to consume all the available bandwidth and degrade your neighbor’s Internet experience simply isn’t.

As for Time Warner’s caps, are they too low?  Time Warner will soon find out.  They have described this as a test and will determine whether the model works and whether the caps are sufficient.  Unlike many of their critics online, Time Warner is unwilling to pronounce something a failure before even giving it a chance to prove itself.

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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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