As a bit of a political junkie, I’m very excited to see the presidential debate tonight. I’ll be watching it on cable, as I watched the conventions on cable previously (Note my earlier post on the cable’s convention coverage).  You’ve got your choice of CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Fox Business, and BBC America.

But suppose you can’t see it tonight. Or maybe you want to watch it over again tomorrow. Well, good news for Comcast cable subscribers. The three presidential debates, and the vice presidential debate, will be available On Demand, the day after their original broadcast. C-SPAN, Comcast Media Center and TVN Entertainment are teaming up to make the debates available to viewers. [I stand corrected. Other cable operators are also carrying the debates on Video on Demand as well. Check your local system.]

Comcast has already made On Demand programming available from the Democratic and Republican conventions, major speeches from the candidates and Spanish language content.

You may recall an earlier post on C-SPAN’s Convention Hub, which provided online coverage of the two conventions. Now they’ve launched Debate Hub, a one-stop shop for embeddable video of the debates, coverage from the blogosphere and a variety of other tools for broadband subscribers.

Features include:

• Embeddable video of all debates in their entirety from the C-SPAN Video Library. Users can edit, share and post this video on their own websites.
• Interactive timelines that allow users to watch the debate or read the transcript question-by-question and candidate-by-candidate.
• Word trees that give visual representations of the language used by each candidate throughout the debates.
• Aggregated blog and Twitter coverage of the debates, enabling users to follow the latest online debate news and analysis.
• Debate Cam, providing live streaming video from multiple locations including the debate hall, media filing center, protest area and on-campus debate watch parties.

And while it has nothing to do with cable, I have to give a shout-out to Twitter’s new Election 2008 portal, which allows you see tweets flowing by in real time.

Earlier this week, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf said something that brightened my day.

…the real question for today’s broadband networks is not whether they need to be managed, but rather how.

We couldn’t agree more, since I’ve expressed that same sentiment once or twice or thrice. Network managers know that networks need to be managed. Cerf even explained why:

Network capacity (bits per second or data rate) is a limiting factor in all communications networks. Users cannot send traffic faster than the amount of network capacity available to them. But when users’ aggregate demand exceeds the available capacity of the network, network operators naturally seek to manage the traffic loads… The end result is the potential for traffic congestion, leading to service delays and even outages for consumers.

Cerf then goes on to discuss various methods, such as transmission rate caps, low latency prioritization and bandwidth constraints, but they’re all based on that phrase: “…not whether [networks] need to be managed, but rather how.” [Emphasis added.] I take great interest in these remarks, because I’ve been following his arguments over the last couple years.

For example, back on June 13 of 2006, he appeared on Public Radio’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show. You can find that episode online; if you skip ahead to about 23 minutes in, you can hear Cerf speak of net neutrality for a few minutes. At that time, he argued that innovation will be stifled and users will not be able to freely access content unless the Internet is kept “open and neutral.” He said that the government may need to provide protection. Two years later, it’s unclear what innovation was stifled.

By October of 2007, Cerf was speaking of other concerns, such as at his address at the WebbyConnect conference, which I attended. He said in his speech that “net neutrality” as a phrase has been distorted and that he would clarify what Google was asking for.

• It’s okay to charge for higher capacity.
• It’s okay to address denial of service attacks, viruses and so on.
• It’s okay to provide low latency services.
• As long as all of these practices are done in a non-discriminatory fashion.

Even at this point, Cerf was arguing that network management was necessary, but he had his opinion about what methods ought to be used.  That approach is much better than comments (like this one) that argue that the “management” argument is a scare tactic. There are those who would claim we should just build a bigger pipe. But then you read this quote from a Singapore ISP executive: “Even buying more bandwidth will not work since stuff like BitTorrent is designed to gobble whatever extra bandwidth we buy.”

Cerf specifically mentions that conversations with Comcast engineers have led him to a better understanding of the underlying motivation and rationale for that company’s network management decisions. As we often see, when people examine the capacity constraints we face and the unique challenges of running cable systems, it can contribute to the conversation.

Now that Cerf has confirmed that network management is a fact and a necessity, we can begin to have the broader dialogue about the network management that needs to take place. Cerf argues the “how” of network management is the important piece of the puzzle, but I would suggest the “who” is even more critical – as in, “Who decides what network management practices are reasonable?”

Cerf argues that government should. I think that is the wrong approach. I think it makes more sense for engineers and companies to make those decisions, not government bureaucrats. Those decisions should be based on what methods of network management might be most efficient and which ones would provide the best experience for the largest number of their customers. They should not be based on the dreams and schemes of politicians.

I recently heard one of these people describe network congestion as akin to a mail truck being full. This kind of talk makes my head hurt.

I shudder to think of the regulations that would be dreamed up by the US Department of Network Management.

Coverage of today’s meeting and some reaction to the decision…

• Richard Bennet of Broadband Politics: A sad day for the Internet
• Randolph J. May of the Free State Foundation: Hard Cases Make Bad Law: On Regulatory Bits and Torrents–Part II
• Barbara Esbin of The Progress & Freedom Foundation: Legally and Procedurally Suspect and Misguided as a Matter of Policy
• Scott Cleland of The Precursor Blog: Takeaways from FCC Decision on Reasonable Network Management
• Cynthia Brumfield at IP Democracy: FCC’s Copps: Apply Net Neutrality Principles to Wireless Carriers
• Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM: FCC Punts on Network Neutrality
• Matthew Lasar at Ars Technica: Reactions to FCC’s Comcast decision come fast and furious
• Drew Clark at Broadband Census: FCC Hammers Comcast For Deception and Unreasonable Internet Practices

UPDATE: Will Richmond at VideoNuze: The FCC’s Comcast Sanction: More Problems, Fewer Solutions Ahead

During an Opening Meeting this morning, the FCC issued an adjudication in the matter of “Formal Complaint of Free Press and Public Knowledge Against Comcast Corporation for Secretly Degrading Peer-to-Peer Applications.” The FCC said that Comcast’s “degrading” of certain Internet content was in violation of “federal policies” and were against the policy of reasonable network management.

In response, the NCTA  has released the following statement from Kyle McSlarrow, our President & CEO:

“One need look no further than today’s FCC decision for proof that engineering challenges on the Internet should be solved by engineers, not government officials. In second-guessing reasonable network management techniques (with no notice or guidelines in place) that benefit the overwhelming number of broadband subscribers in America, the FCC has inexplicably elevated the interests of a few bandwidth hogs over everyone else.”

As we further digest the decision, we will be following the reaction from others in the telecom policy sphere and will comment further and share what others are  saying.

This Friday, the FCC will hold an Open Meeting and the first agenda item is the complaint by Free Press and Public Knowledge against Comcast. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal today, the agency “will rule that the cable giant violated federal policy by deliberately preventing some customers from sharing videos online via file-sharing services like BitTorrent…”

As I wrote just last week, it’s critical that we can all agree with the principle that “some kind of network management is necessary to ensure a quality experience for our customers.” Once we get past that concept, we can discuss and debate what’s the best way to achieve the goal of a quality Internet experience, but we can hopefully also agree that the government is not the best body to make these decisions.

In this morning’s Washington Post, FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell poses the question: Who Should Solve This Internet Crisis? He outlines past network challenges and describes how “engineers, academics, software developers, Web infrastructure builders and others” came together to find solutions. He then answers his own question.

The Internet has flourished because it has operated under the principle that engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems.

P2P apps present particular challenges for network managers, as McDowell acknowledges, and just building bigger pipes doesn’t fix the problem. That’s not to say that this challenge (and others) can’t be addressed. McDowell points out that we need to avoid creating a bigger problem.

Our Internet economy is the strongest in the world. It got that way not by government fiat but because interested parties worked together toward a common goal. As a worldwide network of networks, the Internet is the ultimate “wiki” environment — one that we all share, build, pay for and shape. Millions endeavor each day to keep it open and free. Since its early days as a government creation, it has migrated away from government regulation.

If we choose regulation over collaboration, we will be setting a precedent by thrusting politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions.

For about a year now, NCTA has been shining a light on the DOCSIS 3.0 specification. Thanks to channel bonding, cable operators will be able to offer wideband service to consumers, with speeds exceeding 100 Mbps downstream. About a month ago, we noted the first deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 in the U.S.

A new article in CED Magazine (”DOCSIS 3.0 arrives“) takes a look at deployments by Videotron and Comcast.

After a year-long trial, [Canadian operator] Videotron is serving up two tiers of the wideband service with speeds of 30 Mbps and 50 Mbps. The slower “Ultimate Speed” costs $64.95 a month while the faster speed checks in at $79.95 a month.

Currently, Videotron’s Ultimate Speed services are available to 112,000 homes in Quebec, with the goal of offering the service to Videotron’s entire footprint of 933,000 homes by next year.

The article notes that, although Videotron didn’t need to do so, some operators may need to use Switched Digital Bandwidth to free up additional DOCSIS channels.

Comcast also picked a system where it wouldn’t need to clear room for more spectrum when it unveiled its first wideband deployment last month in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area with speeds of 50 Mbps on the downstream and 5 Mbps on the upstream.

The service is available to residential customers for $149.95 a month while small to medium-sized businesses can get the increased speeds for $199.95 a month.

Some operators are apparently planning on deployment in 2009.

NCTA has been drawing attention to the DOCSIS 3.0 specification for almost a year now. You may have seen the video of Comcast’s Brian Roberts demonstrating wideband at The Cable Show in Las Vegas last year.

Big news this week as Comcast launched wideband service in the Twin Cities on Thursday. It’s a new extreme high-speed Internet residential and business service featuring up to 50 Mbps download and up to 5 Mbps upload speeds. Comcast will be launching to about 500,000 homes in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. In addition to the new hi-speed tier, Comcast is also increasing upload speeds for its residential Performance and Performance Plus service tiers for no additional charge. For example, the 6 Mbps/384 Kbps Performance tier will increase to 6 Mbps/1 Mbps and the 8 Mbps/768 Kbps Performance Plus tier will go up to 8 Mbps/2 Mbps

As I posted previously, Brian Roberts mentioned DOCSIS 3.0 rollout during his CES address a few months ago. Plans are to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 to about 20% of Comcast’s markets by the end of the year.

There was coverage on Ars Technica, Engadget, Gizmodo, and the NY Times‘ Bits blog, but I was intrigued to see this post, which seemed to be from one of the first business customers to sign up for the service.

My experiences thus far have been amazing. When we first started to use it after the install, I broke into a huge grin as pages loaded instantly and I ran a 345MB update which hit my downloads folder and completed in what seemed like two minutes (it actually downloaded so quickly I forgot to watch it and time it). I’ve been achieving ~40mbps down and 3.4 to 4.1mbps upload speeds on average (which, of course, are dependent upon so many variables like internet traffic, server load and so on) so multi-use of our broadband connection has become more useful.

Nothing like first-hand reports.

Just to review a few fundamentals, DOCSIS stands for Data over Cable Service Interface Specifications. Cable operators right now use one 6 MHz channel slot to deliver high-speed data service. DOCSIS 3.0 describes a methodology for channel bonding, which allows you to combine 2, 3, 4 or more DOCSIS channels to increase the speed and throughput of the high-speed data service. The bonded channels do not have to be contiguous.

If you’re a cable customer, all you really care about is faster speeds. But the impact is broader, since DOCSIS 3.0 means better bandwidth utilization, improved video quality, enhanced security, better reporting to manage traffic, and enhanced tools to detect plant problems.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned cable’s own digital transition, and that shift of channels from analog to digital that frees up channels that can then be bonded to provide faster Internet access. In addition, it will allow cable operators to eventually provide video over DOCSIS services, also known as IPTV. For bandwidth efficiency, 3.0 allows operators to dedicate and isolate a video downstream to any and all users who want to watch it at the same time, in a simulation of the way linear TV works.

So, the full impact of of DOCSIS 3.0 is still to come.

The big news today is the deal announced between Comcast and BitTorrent. According to the article in the Wall Street Journal:

The companies are in talks to collaborate on ways to run BitTorrent’s technology more smoothly on Comcast’s broadband network, and allow Comcast to transport video files more effectively over its own network in the future, said Tony Warner, Comcast’s chief technology officer.

In a nice piece of timing, NCTA pretty much argued for exactly this approach on Thursday of last week, during a media briefing to address the topic of broadband network management. CNET’s Anne Broache provided coverage:

Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said he’s “amused” that in all the coverage of the Comcast-BitTorrent spat, no one’s talking about the cable industry’s role in getting high-speed Internet service to millions of American households and, by extension, enabling online applications and services to take off.

“One of the ironies is that most of these applications depended on cable’s rollout of residential broadband and our ongoing efforts to optimize the network to deliver the experience our customers expect,” McSlarrow said…

Kyle argued we should encourage experimentation in the issue of network management and then the marketplace and the Internet community can judge which solutions work best. You can hear the whole briefing by downloading this MP3.

Ken Ferree, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation and former head of the Cable Services Bureau at the FCC, had this reaction to the call:

…Mr. McSlarrow added color and line to a vision of the future that is hazy shades of gray for most of us. As he pointed out, the broadband market is yet in its infancy. It is the offspring of diverse experimentation, and it shall grow only through more, and varied, experimentation. Like Walt Whitman putting the chuff of one hand on our hip and gesturing with the other to the vast unknown landscapes before us, Mr. McSlarrow rightly cautioned against taking our ease with what we know today – today’s technologies, today’s protocols, today’s data sharing applications, today’s networks or services.

For tomorrow will turn upon technologies, networks, applications, and protocols that, in 2008, are nothing more than mysterious phantoms of ideas. And the speed of innovation is, if anything, increasing. We may well, in very short order, and assuming the government doesn’t freeze technology into place with misguided regulations or unnecessary limits on innovative new business models, all interact with technologies in ways that would seem completely foreign now.

And therein lives the magic of ingenious engineering, creative marketing, and courageous entrepreneurship. The vast, unknowable landscape of tomorrow can only be discovered by leaving the market free to explore where it will. “Here are bisquits to eat and here is milk to drink, but as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.”

For more information, you can read Declan McCullagh’s Q&A with Comcast’s Joe Waz about the BitTorrent deal.

I’ve been to CES a few times over the last five years. On my first few trips, it did seem a little odd to notice cable’s absence. Comcast Chairman & CEO Brian Roberts described a very similar experience in his keynote this morning, talking about walking the show floor a few years ago with Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt. As Roberts put it, “Cable was almost invisible.”

Following that experience, the cable industry reached out to the consumer electronics industry. He said that they heard complaints that cable was a regional business that operated in silos, that cable set-top boxes are closed and proprietary, and that, in general, cable made it too tough to innovate and to create products and services that could be sold in the retail environment. This morning’s address seemed a valuable pay-off to those efforts, with Roberts describing cable as a real partner to consumer electronics and retail.

He went on to describe the latest stage of his company’s development: Comcast 3.0. As part of the new Comcast, he said they were committing to a series of issues:

• Having the best fiber optic networks and IP infrastructure
• Delivering superior experience in hi-def and interactive
• Providing new levels of excellence in customer service
• Being a leader in innovation by providing “products and services that are converged, plug-and-play, user-friendly, and most important, easily open for third-party innovation.”

Many in the cable industry have debated over whether content is king or distribution. Roberts said that today the answer is clear: The consumer is king. The best way to serve consumers is by offering a wide array of choice.

He went on to profile such new services as wideband, Fancast, Project Infinity, the AnyPlay portable DVR, and the SmartZone communications center. You can read about the details elsewhere, but the important feature was that Comcast was preparing to offer more video that could be consumed in a more flexible fashion, more bandwidth and more features on its communications services. In a word: more.

On May 8th of last year, during NCTA’s annual Cable Show (also held in Las Vegas), Roberts demoed a DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem capable of delivering 160 Mbps using its “channel bonding” technology. You can see a video of that demo here and, as a sign of how far we’ve come over the last decade, you can also see Roberts demo a high-speed cable modem in 1996. Look at how fast the photos download! Check out the White House website!

Earlier this morning I attended the keynote address given by Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast. Paul did as well, and I suspect he’ll post himself, but it’s probably good to get two different perspectives. Engadget covered the proceedings as well.

Roberts began with a trip down memory lane. He told of a walk through the CES show floor he took with Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner. They were surprised to see the proliferation of devices that leverage cable’s platform, yet cable had virtually no presence at the event.

Cable, through CableLabs, began to reach out to the consumer electronics industry. As cable modems became available at retail, cable broadband took off.

Today we’re announcing the age of the closed proprietary set-top box is behind us.

Today Cable is employing a similar approach to TV and this week Panasonic and Comcast announced <tru2way>, the open standard for cable. This year <tru2way> will be rolled out to cable systems across the country and consumers will be able to purchase televisions with <tru2way> that plug directly into the cable network with no set-top box, no extra wires, and access to cable’s interactive services. <tru2way> offers an open platform for development with open APIs and a Java based system.

<tru2way> will be supported on MS Media Center PCs as well with all cable content, including program guide and OnDemand, accessible through the Media Center system.

AnyPlay

Roberts introduced Panasonic’s Toshihiro Sakamoto to introduce AnyPlay - a new set-top box with removable DVD and DVR capability. AnyPlay is a take and go device that connects to a docking station when working as the set-top box, but can be lifted out and taken as a portable media player for watching media at home or on the road. The device is about the size of a portable DVD player, but has DVR functionality embedded as well.

Roberts recognized his father, Richard Roberts who originally founded Comcast in 1963 as a 1,200 subscriber system in Tupelo Mississippi, offering 5 channels (twice as many as were available over the air).

The original premise then, as now, is “choice sells”.

Comcast began offering On Demand video services with 250 viewing choices. That increased to 1500 in a year. Now more than 10,000 viewing options are available every month. Comcast is now the largest provider of OnDemand in the world. 90% of their content is free. Customers using OnDemand have accounted for 6,000,000,000 views since launch - twice the number of iTunes downloads and six times more than NetFlix.

What’s more is OnDemand is only available to 15 of 25 million Comcast homes, but they have plans to roll out to everyone.

Beyond that, however, Comcast announced plans to provide 1,000 HD choices in every HD home by the end of 2008 (versus 150 for DirectTV). 2008 also begins rollout of a new system architecture, with 6000 movies on demand, 3000 in HD.

As they continue to grow Comcast is launching Project Infinity. Project Infinity is expected to scale well beyond 10,000 OnDemand options “to provide every piece of video content that a producer wants to put on TV – every movie, any TV show, any conceivable kind of video… it’s a content hungry consumers dream. You’ll never want to get off the couch.”

Comcast is also changing the communications experience. As the 4th largest phone company in America, Comcast serves more then 4 million customers. They’re rolling out new features like caller ID to the TV and integrated messaging on the web through a new feature called SmartZone.

SmartZone - introduced, via video, by Dennis Miller - integrated e-mail and voicemail in one inbox and integrates with another Comcast service called Fancast - a video and entertainment portal.

Ryan Seacrest joined Roberts on stage to introduce Fancast.

Fancast is not just another entertainment site. It’s a personal experience site with 3,000 hours of streaming videos, 10,000 movie trailers, and 11 million pages of entertainment. It provides personal recommendations based on your entertainment consumption (like Amazon). and it allows you to remotely control your DVR to record programs you’re looking at online.

Roberts used the discussion of Fancast to demonstrate cable’s new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem standard with speeds in excess of 160 Mbps planned for rollout this year. Seacrest and Roberts downloaded a 2 hour HD movie in 4 minutes during the presentation - a download that would have taken 6 hours via DSL and 7 days on dialup.

After a couple of questions from audience members, Roberts introduced HBO’s Flight of the Conchords for a performance.

The presentation was well received by the audience including much applause for the new Comcast services, wideband cable modems and <tru2way>. We’ll try to get video of the event and put it online for you.

Update: Comcast has the video (minus the performance by Flight of the Conchords) here. And you can get a copy of the prepared text here.

2nd Update: New version of the video available, which includes Flight of the Conchords.