I meant to post this last week during SCTE, but never got to it.During The Cable Show in New Orleans, booth bait ran the gamut from “beds as TV screens” to girls in large martini glasses.The Philadelphia-based SCTE show was quite a bit tamer, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its own attractions.Motorola tuned one of the many HDTV screens in its booth to the Euro 2008 semifinals game between Spain and Russia.Even American engineers love a good soccer match.
It’s the eternal dilemma: Operators want consumers to use their broadband pipes, but not so much that they cause problems on the network.The solution?Target additional broadband capacity where operators can offer new high-bandwidth services and make more money.
I was thinking about this proposition this morning in between writing a paper on integrated CMTS and reading over at OneTrak about HBO’s ongoing strategy to make its content available online only through allied cable operators.(HBO introduced this approach back in January.)The beauty of targeting bandwidth for MSOs is that they can spend money where they’re most likely to get a financial return.For example, imagine that HBO and Comcast worked out a deal to offer online HBO content to subscribers not already getting it in a TV package for a small extra monthly fee.(an online approach to a la carte)Comcast would know that the only subscribers chewing up bandwidth with HBO shows would be ones contributing to their revenue stream.For that extra revenue, Comcast would probably be willing to spend money for more downstream capacity.
So then the question becomes, how does a cable operator target bandwidth?There are lots of broad-spectrum approaches, like analog reclamation and switched digital video, but targeting and then scaling bandwidth as needed is a slightly different proposition.One way to do this is by decoupling downstream data channels in a CMTS and adding physical cards with more downstream channels to a CMTS chassis as needed.In the scenario above, if more people wanted to pay for HBO content online, an operator could spend the money to make extra bandwidth available in small increments.Money goes out and money comes in.
On a separate note, HBO’s approach is fascinating from the content side of the business as well.Here everyone is trying to make money off free video on the Web, and HBO has decided it’s changing the rules for online video by working only through existing content delivery channels.Monetization is back in the hands of the service providers.
Important Clarification: I re-read this post and realized folks might think I’m advocating that operators prioritize online content by making more bandwidth available only for content they’re getting money from.I’m not.What I’m suggesting is that operators have a compelling financial reason to increase bandwidth where they know they can make money.However, that doesn’t mean that that same bandwidth couldn’t be used for other applications by other subscribers as well.That’s part of the business that operators are in.Ultimately if there’s not enough bandwidth to keep all subscribers reasonably happy, people will stop subscribing to both the baseline connection service and premium content services.
Following the Kagan “Getting Personal” conference last week, I had a chance to sit down quickly with Motorola’s Mark DePietro and Ray Bontempi to hear their thoughts.Above is a two-minute video I stitched together from that conversation.
Two notes: First, Mark refers to “See-Uh,” which is actually CEA, or the Consumer Electronics Association.Second, apologies for the squeaking noise in the background toward the end of the video.It’s a door opening in the hotel conference room we commandeered.
I missed the roundtable at SCTE yesterday with Motorola, Japanese cable operator JCom and Heavy Reading’s Alan Breznick, but I’m catching up on the presentation notes.JCom debuted its DOCSIS 3.0 service two months ago with a premium speed tier of 160 Mbps.According to the operator, 25% of new Internet subscribers since then have signed on for the 160-Mbps service.Amazing.Of course that might have something to do with the fact that the new speed tier is only five dollars more than JCom’s 30-Mbps offering.Quintuple the speed for five extra bucks a month.
I found another interesting nugget from one of the presentation decks as well.According to ABI Research, streaming video consumption in North America is not far behind consumption in the Asia-Pacific region today.(See chart below)That’s despite the massive difference in broadband speeds available.Over the next four years, however, ABI projects Asia’s consumption rate to take off, while the growth rate for North America is expected to be a much subtler slope.Read more »
Todd Spangler has the scoop this morning that Comcast has announced it will order up to six million digital terminal adapters (DTAs) in 2008 from Motorola, Pace and Thomson.The DTA move suggests Comcast has gotten serious about migrating to all-digital systems in the near term.That certainly jives with what Steve Burke was saying at yesterday’s SCTE panel session.
In case you’re wondering how a DTA works, there is no conditional access technology involved.All the DTA does is convert QAM signals broadcast in the clear to analog for analog subscribers.Analog subscribers can avoid making the jump to digital, but they’ll get limited channels, no program guide, and no two-way services.
The SCTE Cable-Tec Expo officially kicked off this morning with a general session including several high-profile speakers.Since the event is in Comcast’s hometown, both COO Steve Burke and CTO Tony Werner were on hand, as well as top execs from Cox, Charter, HBO, Showtime, Nortel and PBS.Burke laid out some of the changes in the cable industry, including the fact that 40% of cable revenues today come from sources other than video.He expects that number to go over 50% in the next few years.
Also of interest, Burke stated that cable’s top two initiatives right now are Canoe and Clearwire.In other words, advanced advertising and wireless broadband.
Cynthia Brumfield and Jeff Baumgartner also covered the session this morning.See Cynthia’s post on the rate of cable industry change, and Jeff’s post on cable’s WiMAX timeline.
On display in the booth at SCTE was the new GUI for the Motorola Digital Access Controller DAC6000.There are many more automation features in the software upgrade that was announced today and a new interface to go along with the feature updates.More pics from the photo file below.
Internally at Motorola there’s been a lot of discussion around the uptick in cable interest in passive optical networks (PON). There’s plenty of life left in HFC networks, but there are places where fiber-to-the-home, and specifically gigabit PON rollouts make sense.Compton Cable, based in Canada, is deploying GPON to address the commercial services market.It’s Motorola’s first cable customer to move forward with GPON.(See recent Motorola GPON shipments update)It won’t be the last.
It’s been a long day of sessions at Paul Kagan’s “Getting Personal” conference on interactive TV and targeted advertising.Here are three key messages I heard on how to move iTV and advanced advertising to the next level.
Operators need an effective management system, including a management interface, for both their content assets and their interactive applications and services.It must standardize across multiple delivery platforms.
The approach to iTV must move from a bottom-up activity to a top-down push.In other words, the operators need to be aggressive in their commitment.This isn’t grass-roots activity anymore.
EBIF is still exceedingly important.With all the talk of tru2way, EBIF is what will make iTV applications possible on legacy set-tops.
Motorola has a European study due out this week on consumer mindsets around femtocell service.With results from an online survey of 1,800 consumers across six European countries, the final report from the study tracks some obvious and some surprising conclusions.For example, more than three quarters of respondents had never heard of femtocells, which doesn’t come as much of a shock.However, when femtocell technology was explained, more than 40% said they would definitely or probably buy a femtocell-enabled service if offered in the next 12 months.
I spoke with Motorola’s Malcom Lathan last Friday for a quick review of some of the other findings from the femtocell survey.In the six-minute podcast below, Malcolm answers:
What makes femtocell service attractive to consumers
Which service providers consumers would like to see femtocell service from
