CED articles from June 2000

CED archives from June 2000

Diva hits the mark in L.A.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The film and TV capital of the world is about to add another arrow to its entertainment quiver. Charter Communications says k will launch Diva's commercial video-on-demand (VOD) service this summer to more than 1.2 million homes in the Los...

AT&T HITS up PanAmSat, then taps HP for ITV printing.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... As part of an expanded agreement, AT&T Broadband will tap PanAmSat's fleet of Galaxy satellites to expand the bandwidth of the MSO's Headend In The Sky (HITS) service by about 33 percent through the use of 36 MHz transponders. The HITS...

Concurrent notches new VOD deals.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Concurrent Computer Corp. landed consecutive video-on-demand (VOD) deals in April with two large MSOs. In the first deal, Cox Communications Inc. selected Concurrent's MediaHawk VOD equipment and related software for the MSO's initial...

Jovio tackles ad-supported time-shifting.(by launching a "Personal Video Agent")
June 1, 2000... Eyes affixed to the burgeoning time-shifting market, Jovio plans to launch a "Personal Video Agent" that sifts through and selects television programs that are based on a user's age, gender and income and educational level. In addition to...

ISP Channel nets new deals.(with Communications Services; Strategic Technologies; Sjoberg's Cable; Trans-Video; Brownwood Television)
June 1, 2000... ISP Channel has won exclusive cable modem service contracts representing a total of more than 34,000 homes passed with Communications Services of Point Magu, Calif.; Strategic Technologies of Doral, Fla.; Sjoberg's Cable of Thief River Falls,...

Road Runner gets lip service.(has contract with Lipstream)
June 1, 2000... Equipped with cable modems, speakers and microphones, Road Runner's more than 730,000 customers will soon be able to speak their mind, quite literally, in real-time. The high-speed provider gained that ability after striking a deal with...

BAS diagnoses HFC ailments.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Broadband Access Systems (BAS) has unveiled the Cuda Protocol Analyzer, a diagnostic companion to the Cuda 12000 IP Access Switch that identifies and cures HFC data plant afflictions. Available in the third quarter of 2000, BAS' Latest...

Barco, Mindport strike interop partnership.
June 1, 2000... Mindport Inc., MIH Limited's technology subsidiary, and Barco have forged a strategic partnership designed to ensure interoperability between their respective products. The two companies also have agreed to cooperate nonexclusively on a number...

S-A OEMs with Luminous.(Scientific-Atlanta has partnership with Luminous Networks)
June 1, 2000... Luminous Networks, a provider of carrier-class, Gigabit IP over Fiber optic access switches, has formed an OEM partnership with Scientific-Atlanta (S-A). S-A will marry its video technology with Luminous' family of products, Letting both...

Broadcom chip unlocks residential gateways.
June 1, 2000... Broadcom Inc. has Launched a dual receiver, residential gateway chip for advanced digital set-top boxes that will enable viewers to shop online or browse the Internet while they watch television. The chip supports both DOCSIS and DAVIC-based...

TV Guide to blaze VOD trail.(has partnership with Seachange International)
June 1, 2000... TV Guide Inc. has partnered with SeaChange International to develop a VOD-enabled version of the TV Guide Interactive (TVGI) electronic program guide, marking TVGI's first major VOD integration. TVGI, already deployed in more than 2.5...

Terayon faces lawsuits, but undaunted with deals.(Terayon Communications Systems Inc.)
June 1, 2000... At least seven law firms have filed class action lawsuits against Terayon Communications Systems Inc., alleging that the cable modem vendor "issued materially false and misleading information" concerning the certification of Terayon's S-CDMA...

High-speed cable subs rise to 2.7 million.(modem subscriptions)
June 1, 2000... Cable modem subscribers in the U.S. and Canada grew to 2.7 million, up 900,000, or 44 percent, since the end of 1999, reports research firm Kinetic Strategies Inc. (www.cabledatacomnews.com). Individually, Time Warner Cable led North...

Time Warner to deploy 500,000 Motorola cable modems.(Time Warner Cable)
June 1, 2000... Time Warner Cable says it will deploy approximately 500,000 Motorola DOCSIS cable modems over the next two years in "various systems." In addition to Motorola's SURFboard SB3100, which is based on the DOCSIS 1.1 specification, Time Warner...

ICTV unveils low-end headend.(Digital Lite)
June 1, 2000... Claiming it has built an affordable hardware solution for cable operators, thin-client architecture player ICTV has introduced Digital Lite, a low-cost, upgradeable headend solution for Internet e-mail and interactive television (ITV) content...

PacketCable completes 2K's first interop round.(CableLabs)
June 1, 2000... CableLabs says it has successfully completed the first round of PacketCable interoperability testing for 2000, and is well under way in its preparation for the compliance testing program that will be in operation by year-end. Seventeen vendors...

Lucent doubles fiber capacity.(Lucent Technologies)
June 1, 2000... Lucent Technologies has upgraded its flagship, 80-channel optical networking system with one that will quadruple the number of wavelengths the system can handle to 320, and double its overall capacity. Lucent's WaveStar OLS 800G, a dense...

Pace-NDS box to provide PVR functions.(Pace Micro Technology and NDS Group team up)
June 1, 2000... NDS Group has teamed with Pace Micro Technology to build a set-top box that employs NDS' Extended TV (XTV), a technology that combines meta data embedded inside a video stream with a set-top's focal storage. Armed with a 20 gigabyte hard drive,...

Harmonic, DiviCom get to the church on time.(C-Cube Microsystems Inc. division to become Harmonic's Convergence Systems Division)
June 1, 2000... Harmonic Inc. has dosed its acquisition of C-Cube Microsystems Inc.'s DiviCom division. Together, Harmonic and DiviCom, which now becomes Harmonic's Convergence Systems Division, will provide open-systems solutions to deliver video, voice and...

HSA puts up $100 million for IP phone.(High Speed Access Corp.; Internet Protocol)
June 1, 2000... High Speed Access Corp. (HSA), which has more than 7.5 million cable homes under contract, says it intends to deploy Internet Protocol (IP) telephone service over "selected" cable TV networks across the United States. To that end, HSA will...

Antec provisions with CEON.
June 1, 2000... Antec and CEON Corp. have reached a dear to integrate their products and create a bundled solution that they claim will expedite the deployment of new broadband services. Both of CEON's provisioning software products--NetExpress and It's...

WorldGate trumpets VOD strategy.(WorldGate Communications Inc. to have contract with Concurrent Computer Corp.; video-on-demand)
June 1, 2000... WorldGate Communications Inc. says it will collaborate with Concurrent Computer Corp., Diva, nCUBE Corp. and SeaChange International Inc. on the development of video-on-demand (VOD) solutions powered by Motorola's Line of legacy DCT-1000,1200...

MS0s add nearly 1.1 million digital subs in 1Q.
June 1, 2000... U.S. cable operators added just south of 1.1 million new digital video customers during the first quarter of 2000, a new quarterly record that has taken the industry's total digital rolls to just above 6 million, according to National Cable...

Bye-bye, GADline ... Hello Com21.
June 1, 2000... Hoping to accelerate its voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) strategy, Com21 has agreed to acquire Israel-based cable data equipment vendor GADline Ltd. for approximately 2.8 million shares of Com21 stock, worth roughly $94 million when the...

High Speed Surfing gets DOCSIS nod.
June 1, 2000... High Speed Surfing Inc. has become the 18th cable modem vendor to win CableLabs' coveted DOCSIS 1.0 seal of certification, giving the Fremont. Calif.-based company the go-ahead for retail distribution. According to industry sources. High Speed...

SCTE forms new subcommittee.(Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers forms Cable Applications Platform)
June 1, 2000... The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) has formed the Cable Applications Platform (CAP) subcommittee, a new standards development group chaired by Jean-Pol Zundel, Comcast Cable's chief software architect. CAP's mission is to...

Insight the first to deploy Commerce.TV.(Insight Communications Company L.P.)
June 1, 2000... Insight Communications, the eighth-largest cable operator in the U.S., says it has become the first MSO to deploy Commerce. TV, a service that uses targeted advertising to generate purchase opportunities for cable customers. Insight will offer...

Filling in the Gaps.
June 1, 2000... Cable MSOs battle labor and resource shortages, network complexities as they rush to add new services When it comes to deploying new services over a cable TV network, the lion's share of the work falls on the shoulders of regional...

Making the Big Push.(to broadband services)
June 1, 2000... To win the battle of bundled services, cable must knit a mix of heavy lifting and infrastructure innovation to reach broadband nirvana As the growing ranks of overbuilders construct and deploy fast, high-capacity networks, joining the...

Return path monsters.(DivX)
June 1, 2000... Batten down the hatches-a new breed of bandwidth hogs are on the horizon, and closing fast. By now, the world over has heard of Napster, an application that allows users to share high-quality MP3 audio files over the Internet. But because...

POWERING UP.
June 1, 2000... Flywheels, fuel cells, advanced batteries gain momentum Looking for alternatives to today's batteries for standby power? Options are coming. Recent breakthroughs in the development of flywheel energy systems, and the gradual...

KA-BOOOM!
June 1, 2000... Before the digital interface `spec' blows up in its face, the cable industry had best get involved in resolving two explosive issues the FCC has threatened to decide if no private industry solution is reached Depending on where you stand,...

Networking the World.
June 1, 2000... With hopes of capturing the hearts of consumers, exhibiting companies at Cable 2000 demo an abundance of home networking solutions. In what is becoming a hallmark of the National Show, the confab was dominated by announcements centered...

Pumping up network bandwidth.
June 1, 2000... Novel architecture solutions As a result of increasing bandwidth demands, cable TV providers have been compelled to find ways to increase the bandwidth of their already-installed fiber networks. WDM was an attractive solution [1] and is...

Doing more with less.
June 1, 2000... Effective use of return path monitoring to grow advanced services revenue faster than labor costs At this point in time, the argument has been presented many times regarding the value of return path monitoring to provide quality service....

Delivering SI in open cable networks.(service information)
June 1, 2000... The implications of new digital cable profiles This article describes the difference between new standards digital cable profiles and current practices for cable services. These differences are analyzed for both the Multiple System...

Ferreting out RF interference.
June 1, 2000... Computer-based studies provide visuals of potential problems As the number of digital TV broadcast transmitters grows substantially, the risk of increased cochannel or adjacent channel interference will rise commensurately as well....

DSL providers grab for cable's data bounty.
June 1, 2000... Experts predict DSL boom, but Canadian ILECs, CLECs worry The Canadian digital subscriber line (DSL) market is a paradox. On the one hand, market analysts are predicting a banner year for Canadian DSL. In fact, the Yankee Group's Canadian...

Reliability through simplicity.
June 1, 2000... Cable operators have long been stigmatized by a perception that their networks are inherently unreliable, yet, reliability has always been a major industry concern. Some of the very first SCTE conferences in the '70s focused on reliability...

Nurturing broadband start-ups.
June 1, 2000... Unique academic/business partnership brings new technology forward When semiconductor powerhouse Broadcom Corp. bought a tiny start-up company called Digital Furnace a few weeks ago for a nice, tidy $136 million, it underscored the...

V.O.D. is H.O.T.!
June 1, 2000... As you may know, CED magazine has a Consul, ting Engineers Committee. I am honored to chair that committee this year, We recently had our annual meeting to review the current critical topics, so that the CED staff can plan to cover them over...

`Smart' house takes on new meaning.
June 1, 2000... One of the great assets of broadband access to the home is that the connection is always "Live." Besides eliminating that annoying and time-consuming "dial-up" process, the interactive nature of a broadband connection allows the network service...

Girls just wanna have fun.
June 1, 2000... Study: young women view technology careers as `geeky' "I think it's kind of a waste of intelligence. Girls like the analytical side, more than just the basic electrical thing." --Fairfax, Va. junior high school girl and her thoughts on a...

business people.
June 1, 2000... Wink Communications has bolstered its executive ranks with two recent appointments. Chris Callero has been named chief operating officer, and Charlie McCullough has been promoted to senior vice president, engineering. As COO, Callero will...

Broadband innovators step to the plate.
June 1, 2000... RiverDelta addresses open access, OnePath forges fiber to the home Broadband equipment start-up RiverDelta Networks Inc. has launched the Broadband Services Router (BSR) 64000, a carrier-class, Internet Protocol (IP) switch router that can...

BUSINESS BRIEFS.
June 1, 2000... Millennium Digital buys Antec gear DULUTH, Ga.-Millennium Digital Media will incorporate Antec's new 1550 nm ITU Return Laser Transmitter into its 870 MHz Maryland upgrade project. The node-based product allows operators to combine and...

new products.
June 1, 2000... PRODUCT REVIEWS Power-blocking, locking terminators POMPANO BEACH, Fla.-Viewsonics Inc. has introduced a new line of power-blocking, locking terminators, designed specifically for telephony applications that use power-passing tap...

Another flavor of must-carry.
June 1, 2000... You are all familiar with the must-carry dispute between broadcasters and cable operators--broadcasters want cable operators to carry their digital signals in their entirety. And cable operators don't want to. But here's a new flavor of...

Gentle Giant.
June 1, 2000... One of cable's most remarkable spokesmen, Bill Bresnan led several of the industry's biggest MSOs, then struck out on his own THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN Cablevision had just gotten some very bad news. Three years of hard work...

Maverick.
June 1, 2000... Chuck Dolan has charted his own course, building one of cable's most innovative companies CHUCK DOLAN WAS REALLY IN A JAM. HE HAD A franchise to wire the southern half of Manhattan island, but at $100,000 per mile, the cost of pulling...

The Customer's Man.
June 1, 2000... Alan Gerry built one of cable's largest MSOs by staying tuned to the needs of his 1.3 million subscribers IN 1956, A 28-YEAR-OLD TELEVISION REPAIRMAN persuaded seven businessmen in his small Catskills community to invest $2,500-to-$3,000...

Information's Crusader.
June 1, 2000... Brian Lamb saw an opportunity in cable's channel capacity, and founded a unique public affairs outlet I'LL ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU WANT, EXCEPT for the ones about me." Brian Lamb is trying, yet again, to deflect attention from...

Gentleman In the Lead.
June 1, 2000... The company Ralph Roberts built has offered a model of stability through the fast, turbulent decades that have filled cable's history TENSION HAD REACHED AN ALL-TIME HIGH IN the executive conference room of Comcast Corp., where principals...

Prophet of Basic Cable.
June 1, 2000... While building successful MSOs, Bob Rosencrans nurtured development of some of cable's most important networks HIS COLLEAGUES CALL HIM THE FASTEST PENCIL in the East. He can sketch an entire business plan on one sheet from a legal pad in...

Heading For the Homestretch.
June 1, 2000... The Cable Center begins its final sprint to a 2001 opening THE NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION CENTER and Museum will hold a "topping-out" ceremony on May 16, as the last piece of steel is secured on the four-story museum, library, conference...

Barco Library Goes Digital.(includes related article)
June 1, 2000... While seeking new collections, cable's premiere library is digitizing programs and materials CABLE PROGRAMMERS, OPERATORS AND EQUIPMENT manufacturers with memorabilia to share might consider donating it to The National Cable Center's Barco...

Magness Institute Takes Shape.
June 1, 2000... A new director is coordinating activities with universities around the world WITH FUNDRAISING FOR THE NATIONAL, CABLE Television Center and Museum's capital campaign winding down, activities at the Bob Magness Institute are ramping up...

High-Speed Ubiquity.
June 1, 2000... Hunger for bandwidth will be nearly insatiable In 1895 the co-inventor of the motion-picture camera, Auguste Lumiere, was asked about the future of his invention. He replied, "It is a scientific curiosity, and apart from that it has no...

Everything On Demand.
June 1, 2000... No matter what you want, no matter when you want it... Given the current rate of fantastic technological developments in telecommunications, 2025 is virtually eons of evolution away. By that time, the cable industry will bear no...

Lifelong Learning.
June 1, 2000... 2025: Farewell to the last analog professor June 2025 will long be known as the month that witnesses one of the great milestones in 21st century education. An audience of more than 750,000 will converge on Woodstock, N.Y.-not for a rock...

Marketplace Productivity.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Internet's extended reach into society will dramatically benefit humankind Predicting what life will be like 25 years from now is a daunting task. Comprehending the speed at which we've seen change occur just within the past five years...

Gigabit To The Home.
June 1, 2000... Cable systems with massive capacity will provide a fast connection to the world's resources To look ahead, first look back an equal interval to appreciate the magnitude of changes that can be realistically anticipated. In 1975,...

T-commerce Evolution.
June 1, 2000... Human preference: The dominant factor in the growth of broadband People love television. In addition to providing choice, it has revolutionized the world and how we communicate. The next generation of television--broadband digital...

From ITV To Sensory TV.
June 1, 2000... Interactive TV morphs into full-body experience By late 2016, investigators had confirmed that the widespread body piercing and tattoo fads that began in the 1990s were part of the medical-industrial complex conspiracy, with wide but covert...

Delivering Access Anywhere.
June 1, 2000... Wired, wireless worlds set to converge Cable operators are faced with a daunting challenge. Ubiquitous access to rich multimedia information is in our future. The convergence of media, broadband and the Internet is the key. As...

The Internet Economy.
June 1, 2000... Changing the way we work, Live, play and Learn, the Internet will have tremendous power Cisco predicts that the Internet will change the way we work, live, play and learn. Just four years ago, this was considered a bold statement, but...

Cable Will Be Free.
June 1, 2000... Advertising will foot the bill for video and data Cable will be free. This will evolve out of the power of the medium and competition. Cable has two media types: data and video. Data services will deliver media that is more rich and...

A Pedestrian Revolution.
June 1, 2000... Ubiquity of high-speed access and the death of software By the year 2025, when I am hopefully a grandfather, the availability of high-speed connections to the home will be ubiquitous in the developed countries of the world. Consumers will...

Consumer Empowerment.
June 1, 2000... Broadband consumer devices will transform communications, entertainment Just as cable programming changed consumers' television experience, so will broadband access, but with significantly more impact. The technological shift that is...

Disembodied Intelligence.
June 1, 2000... Operators must create an environment where bots can thrive Imagine if your cable system was able to anticipate and respond to every customer's wish, as soon as the customer wanted it. It doesn't require CSRs, or even a phone call. It would...

Predictable Behavior It Ain't.
June 1, 2000... Prognostication is an inexact science, at best. Nits Bohr, Nobel Laureate in Physics, put it best when he observed: "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Most of us have a difficult time keeping up with...

ANTEC INNOVATION ENABLES CUSTOMERS TO MEET INCREASED BANDWIDTH NEEDS.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Competition for potentially staggering revenues has set the stage for worldwide rebuilds, newbuilds and upgrades within the cable television industry. The emerging infrastructure means deeper penetration of fiber into neighborhoods, resulting...

ANTEC'S LASER LINK[R] FAMILY POISED TO HELP OPERATORS DEPLOY TWO-WAY BROADBAND NETWORKS.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Interactive services and the demand for more bandwidth are driving fiber deeper into neighborhoods and businesses as cable operators and multi-service providers compete for what is expected to be impressive revenues from a host of new services....

CORNERSTONE[R] SUPER ACCESS PLATFORM EXPANDS CABLE OPERATORS' NETWORKS.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... In the intensely competitive world of interactive services, speed and reliability count. High-speed Internet access, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, and advanced services over two-way broadband networks require a dramatic increase in data...

MORE BANDWIDTH TRANSLATES TO MORE POWER.
June 1, 2000... The introduction of telephony, Internet and digital TV services is driving the need for reliable and uninterruptible network powering solutions. These new broadband services, along with the addition of lifeline services, make high-quality,...

FIBER MANAGEMENT CRITICAL TO OPERATORS.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The domestic and international demand for fiber is growing. This rising demand for fiber is a result of the need to rebuild and upgrade thousands of networks, and is creating a surge in the management and maintenance of fiber assets. The...

USING LOOPBACK TECHNIQUES TO EVALUATE RETURN PERFORMANCE.
June 1, 2000... How to effectively characterize a DWDM block converted return path, using a minimal amount of test equipment. The number of return bands requiring independent transport from a hub back to the headend can be staggering. A hub may serve 50 or...