We created this blog to tell cable’s story. The cable industry has spent $130 billion on our network since the 1996 Telecommunications Act was passed. That investment of private capital has spurred fundamental change in how we work, play, communicate, and entertain ourselves.

Today a friend sent a link to a video that illustrates that point beautifully. It’s a spoof of the Fox series 24. Allegedly the ‘long lost’ original pilot made in 1994, the video clearly shows the changes in technology we’ve seen over the period of time that we were building our network. Take a look.

Popularity: 17% [?]

The cable industry has spent more than $100 billion since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to create the most extensive and robust broadband network found in America. This robust technology platform now passes more than 117 million households with high-speed Internet Service, serves 65 million households with video services, and provides telephone service to 15 million customers.

Digital Phone

Consumers now have access to more competition than ever thanks to cable. Digital telephone service provides consumers with a true alternative to standard telephone service. While some cable operators have offered traditional circuit-switched telephone service for years, most are now offering digital phone service. This service often comes as part of a “bundle” where multichannel video, high-speed Internet and voice services are offered as a package and billed in a single invoice, providing a better value and more simplicity for customers.Through the use of software, digital phone service provides all the functionality of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), while making possible new features not available through traditional telephone service, such as Web portals that allows customers to review their calling history or listen to voicemail messages online when away from home. Digital phone service is a revolutionary technology that has the potential to completely change how phone calls are made and how voice services are used.

(more…)

Popularity: 100% [?]

There are many ways that the cable industry has expanded consumer choice. You don’t have to be that old to remember a time when you had maybe a half-dozen TV viewing choices - maybe a few more, maybe less - and now you probably have hundreds. Not that long ago, it was the same situation with the telephone.

A couple years ago, NCTA created a video to explain cable’s impact on America. Take a look and skip ahead about two minutes in. That image of the phone industry as stodgy is amusing because it was so true. Rotary dials, touch-tone, mobile phones - the pace of these innovations was pretty slow.

But today, consumers are finally enjoying true facilities based competition in local phone service. Cable’s service is reliable plus it offers many of the standard features for a great price. Generally, you get unlimited calls anywhere in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. You get to keep your current home phones, wall jacks and phone number. Many operators include services like Call Waiting, Caller ID, Call Forwarding, Speed Dial, and so on. But you also see features like digital voicemail that can be accessed over the Internet from any location, and new features like Caller ID on the TV are beginning to be introduced in some communities.

(more…)

Popularity: 95% [?]

More than 15 million Americans have switched to cable’s digital voice service. One big reason that consumers are switching is the significant savings that can be found, especially if the service is included as part of a bundle that includes video and high-speed Internet.

In fact, in the past four years, consumers that have switched to cable phone service have already saved $23 billion. Evidence of that can be found in a study by Microeconomic Consulting & Research Associates, Inc. (MiCRA). The report, “Consumer Benefits from Cable-Telco Competition,” was first prepared in 2006 and then updated in November of 2007.

According to MiCRA, consumers and small businesses across the country have already saved $23.5 billion and may save a total of $111 billion on their phone bills over the next five years as a result of robust competition. MiCRA estimates that residential consumers could save an average of $144 or more each year, while small businesses could save 50-70% on their phone bills – although the projections conservatively assumed that small businesses would save about $240 each year.

(more…)

Popularity: 100% [?]

In 2007, J.D. Power and Associates’ annual rankings of telephone service provider customer satisfaction ranked cable companies #1 in customer satisfaction in all six US regions. More than 15 million customers currently enjoy cable’s phone service, and it’s no wonder cable companies are signing up millions of new customers every year.

Cable’s telephone service often comes as part of a “bundle” where multichannel video, high-speed Internet and voice services are offered as a package and billed in a single invoice, providing a better value and more simplicity for customers.

Cable’s digital phone service makes possible new features not available through traditional telephone service - such as Web portals that allows customers to review their calling history or listen to voicemail messages online when away from home. Digital phone service is a revolutionary technology that has the potential to completely change how phone calls are made and how voice services are used.

(more…)

Popularity: 93% [?]

It’s worth noting that cable’s phone business has grown in a fairly short period of time. The current competitive age can be traced back to the passage of the deregulatory 1996 Telecommunications Act. Following that, the cable industry invested more than $100 billion in private capital to upgrade its network infrastructure in order to provide broadband services.

But even before today’s IP-based phone service, some operators took the plunge into phone. Back in September of 1997, Cox Communications launched circuit-switched phone service in Orange County, California. Comcast (via its acquisition of AT&T Broadband) also has a base of circuit-switched customers that were generated following the acquisitions by AT&T of TCI and MediaOne in 1999.

(more…)

Popularity: 92% [?]

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.

Popularity: 38% [?]

A pretty hilarious moment (for me anyway) occurred on today’s edition of the syndicated television program Martha. During the last segment of today’s show, host Martha Stewart had her guest Sheraton Kalouria, the president of broadcasting for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, demonstrate how to use Video on Demand.

(If you’re somehow unfamiliar with VOD, read more here.)

The hook appears to be that Martha Stewart On Demand is now available through Comcast and Cox. In the segment (summarized here), Kalouria took remote in hand and showed Martha how to navigate through the menus and find the content you want, available for free.

The Martha Stewart On-Demand channel features a wonderful selection of things the company is best known for: crafts, weddings, pets, and food. Under each section is a selection of content from our programs, including “The Martha Stewart Show,” “Martha Stewart Living,” “Petkeeping with Marc Morrone,” and “Everyday Food.”

This is part of a growing trend of cable operators beefing up their VOD libraries to give more content to their customers. It was pretty funny to see a big media mogul like Martha scrolling through on-screen menus, but it was probably a great learning experience for her viewers to be exposed to the VOD platform.

Popularity: 20% [?]

There are a few interesting nuggets to mull over from last week’s show. It really did feel like the first time that cable played a major role at CES. Heck, we’re not the only ones in that position; just as Comcast’s Brian Roberts was the first cable executive to address CES, General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner was the first auto exec to do so. It’s great that we’re in the game, but it begs the question of what we do next.

Will Richmond had a post about how content players and consumer electronics companies will deal with their intertwined future:

…both industries recognize that we are moving into what I would call the “experience era” for video. That’s to say, success with consumers is going to rest more on these industries’ ability to deliver superior experiences which integrate content and technology in new and compelling ways. Rather than oohing and ahhing about their new TV’s picture quality or how hilarious a certain episode was, going forward consumers will increasingly cite “how cool” something is.

“How cool” are code words for “how compelling is the experience”. The new currency of video hipness will require that when I invite friends to my house and want to show off, I need to have more than just a honking-big screen or a digital collection of old programs - those will be commonplace. Instead, the experiences are what will matter. Things like seamlessly accessing broadband content on my TV, interacting with it — along with other viewers — from my couch, and moving it around my house for playback anywhere, in a snap. Delivering these types of experiences (and more) is the new competitive bar that content and technology firms should be aiming for.

Cable is currently offering choice, value and convenience, by which I mean lots of viewing options, hi-speed data access, hi-def pictures, time-shifting options, attractive bundling options, and so on. I guess for some people what once seemed extraordinary can become commonplace.  But there is even more in the works. While I won’t go into detail here, cable does have some “cool” new things coming up that should prove to be pretty compelling.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Here are just a couple of headlines from around the net to get you through the day.

Oprah returns to cable (as an owner, that is) under a new deal inked with Discovery. The Discovery Health Channel will be rebranded as the Oprah Winfrey Network and carry “lifestyles-targeted programming.” Said David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery Communications, “There is no stronger voice than Oprah Winfrey in engaging, motivating and connecting people to live healthier lives. Oprah has inspired me personally, and through this new venture, Oprah’s talent and drive will have a dedicated multimedia platform to empower, engage and connect with people on-air and on-line”. Oprah previously held an interest in Oxygen before the sale to NBC. Look for the new net in 2009.

An appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a suit brought by EchoStar and DirecTV to overturn a tax levied in North Carolina.  The suit argued that gross receipts (paid by both cable and satellite providers in NC) were unconstitutional and unfair to satellite providers.  The court ruled that federal courts cannot enjoin states from imposing such taxes.

If you’re using that cable broadband connection to stream video, it’s a big day for you.  First, Netflix has lifted the time constraints on its video streaming service freeing customers to watch without limits.  This move comes on the same day that MacWorld saw Apple’s Steve Jobs announce video rentals through iTunes.  Under Apple’s plan, renters would pay $3.99 for recent releases, have 30 days in which to start watching and have to complete the program within 24 hours.

Speaking of MacWorld, if you’re looking to upgrade the old computer, Apple has a simple message - thin is in.  The MacBook Air weighs in at 3 pounds and is thin enough to fit in a manila envelope.  The new machine is just a hair over 3/4 of an inch at its thickest spot, and comes standard with Bluetooth and 802.11n wireless connectivity, a built in web cam, USB and a video port that supports DVI, VGA, and S-Video.  It sports 2GB of RAM and either an 80GB drive or a 64GB Solid State Drive with no moving parts. The keyboard is full size and backlit.  The MacBook Air has an external CD/DVD drive (which never proved really popular when they were in vogue with laptops 7 or 8 years ago, but wireless is more prevalent now).  The touchpad also feature iPhone like controls that let you zoom, rotate and navigate by gesture.

Finally, a hat tip to Broadcasting & Cable for the Simpsons parody of American Idol embedded below.

Popularity: 25% [?]