CED articles from May 2004

CED archives from May 2004

Seeing the forest.(in perspective)(Cable television broadcasting industry)
May 1, 2004... An interesting new book that's now hitting the store shelves closely examines the effect of choice and how having too many choices--in everything from ice cream to health-care plans and voice service plans--can lead to analysis paralysis. ...

Intellon makes cable power play.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Not only is Intellon Corp. banking on cable to pursue powerline networking technology, but some operators are banking on Intellon to make it happen. Comcast Corp., already a member of the HomePlug Alliance, remained bullish on the...

Orbital Arc chart adds.(Up front: latest news and insight)
May 1, 2004... Sharp-eyed readers informed us that the latest edition of the CEO Orbital Arc chart (see April 2004) neglected to include scrambling hotline phone numbers for Hallmark Channel (720-554-1900), Oxygen (800-824-1771) and Playboy Channel...

Ninth Circuit grants stay.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) got its wish on April 9 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted a request to stay a mandate that could determine how cable modem services are classified. In a...

Cox hires VeriSign for out of house CALEA support.(Up front: latest news and insight)( Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Cox Communications has hired VeriSign Inc. to handle Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) compliance for the MSO's IP-based telephony services. CALEA requires carriers to assist law enforcement agencies in lawfully...

Comcast to test drive VOD measurement system.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Comcast Cable and Rentrak Corp. will trial a system that anonymously measures and reports video-on-demand usage data. Comcast expects to begin testing the platform this month in Philadelphia. Rentrak's "VOD Essentials" platform will...

SCTE metes out Chapter Awards.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers bestowed its annual Chapter Awards upon three chapters and one Society member. The South Florida Chapter earned the Chapter Website award, the New England Chapter came away with Large...

PerfTech posts a broadband bulletin.(Up front: latest news and insight)(PerfTech Bulletin Services Ltd)
May 1, 2004... High-speed service providers suffer from a common problem whenever a new, damaging virus emerges and begins infecting PCs like wild fire: how to alert subscribers to its possible presence, and direct them to a proper fix, should customers fall...

Home Town Cable adds fiber to diet.(Up front: latest news and insight; OmniReach fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) platform to available in Port St. Lucie, Fla. )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Home Town Cable Plus has deployed ADC's OmniReach fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) platform to pipe voice, video and data services to residential and business customers in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The package includes local and long-distance voice,...

Shaw gets grip on set-top lifecycles.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Shaw Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Shaw Communications will get a better handle on its crop of digital set-tops after deploying a new management platform from Broadband Services Inc. (BSI) Shaw will deploy BSI's "CPEase" service to keep tabs on its entire digital, set-top...

Telution looks to voice for cable entry.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... After staking its claim in the CLEC and ILEC arena, OSS firm Telution Inc. has turned its attention to cable, hoping to catch on with a platform that helps operators handle the tricky task of order assurance and management for IP telephony...

Microtune has designs on 'Plug & Play'.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Microtune Inc. has released a "Plug & Play" reference design based on the company's 1-GHz silicon tuner, the MicroTuner MT2121. Microtune will market the design to CE manufacturers that plan on creating digital TVs that comply with the...

Time Warner does VOD indexing.(Up front: latest news and insight)(video on demand)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Time Warner Cable of Maine has agreed to test indexing software from Gotuit Media Corp. that is designed to index video-on-demand content into easily navigable segments. It marks the first announced cable trial for Gotuit. The pilot effort...

Net2Phone serves up SIP.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Session Initiation Protocol)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Net2Phone has complemented its PacketCable based IP telephony platform with a new offering based on SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), a technology that's quickly going mainstream thanks to the efforts of AT&T and startups such as Vonage. ...

Videotron raises broadband bar.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Videotron Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Although 3 Mbps has become the new de facto standard on cable and DSL downstream caps, Videotron is literally doing one better by increasing the cap of its flagship service from 3.1 Mbps to 4.1 Mbps. The Canadian MSO is also dilating its...

Time Warner revs up OCAP plans.(Up front: latest news and insight)(Open Cable Application Platform)
May 1, 2004... Time Warner Cable will use a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) from Esmertec to help the MSO develop an implementation of OCAP (Open Cable Application Platform). OCAP, a middleware platform specified by CableLabs, will populate digital set, tops,...

Adelphia opens up VOD with N2 Broadband.(Up front: latest news and insight)(platform support for video on demand )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Adelphia Communications will use N2 Broadband's "OpenStream" platform to support VOD deployments in "selected" markets. Adelphia has already announced or launched VOD in three markets: Bethel Park, Pa.; Cleveland, Ohio; and Los Angeles,...

Blonder tongue bows channels blocker.(Up front: latest news and insight; from Blonder Tongue Laboratories Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Timing is everything. Just days after the National Cable & Telecommunications Association announced in March that the nation's major MSOs would provide channel-blocking technology on request to customers who don't have set-tops, Blonder Tongue...

WorldGate predicts fall 'Ojo' launch.(Up front: latest news and insight)(WorldGate Communications Inc. broadband videophone)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... WorldGate Communications, which has abandoned interactive television for the world of video telephony, said it expects to release its "Ojo" broadband videophone by this August of September. In anticipation of that the company is currently...

Wallowing in GUI.(memory lane)(Graphical User Interface)(Video-on-demand)
May 1, 2004... Video-on-demand is off and... crawling. Nobody's happy about that. But at least now we have a culprit--it's the interface, stupid. On-screen interactive guides tacitly have been fingered as the impediment that stands between a fabulous video...

HD education.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... I just finished reading Jeff Krauss' article in the February issue ("My HD experience," p. 58). I laughed about how it must have been frustrating waiting for the cable guy's headend to provision the box correctly, as I have been there/done that...

A sneak peek at cable's battle plan for the future: a clandestine project spearheaded by Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable provides a glimpse of how the industry might embark on an all-digital migration and create a common platform for a range of new IP-based services.(internet protocols)(Comcast Cable Communications Inc.)(Cox Communications Inc.)
May 1, 2004... One doesn't wage a war of innovation without weighing all of the strategies and tactics available. Based on the resources in hand, is it better to fight a war of attrition or annihilation? Is it possible to flank the enemy without getting...

Game planning for bigger, better VOD: suppliers and MSOs gear up for upgrades, and following some early deployments, suit up for VOD's second half.(video on demand)
May 1, 2004... Video-on-demand has moved from a technical pickup game to a full-court press, and with that shift, cable companies are now making upgrades with bigger, stronger delivery systems, hoping they will rack up points with subscribers. All in...

The big [virtual] sit-down: six of cable's top technical minds join CEB's annual CTO roundtable.(In Depth)(Panel Discussion)
May 1, 2004... The cable industry is being pelted from all sides by competition ranging from traditional foes like DBS to new SIP bared IP voice service providers like Vonage and AT&T Corp. To stay ahead of the curve, operators are testing and deploying new...

Reconfigurable optical networks for VOD: creating an efficient, flexible distribution network.(Fiber line: fiber optic technology)(video on demand)
May 1, 2004... The term "convergence" is used in the cable television industry to describe the deployment and management of multiple signals in different formats over a single network. Cable TV traffic consists of a bi-directional mixture of analog video...

Giving DSL a jolt: DSL providers bump up bitrates, aim to topple cable.(Networking: advanced networking technology)(digital subscriber line)
May 1, 2004... In the U.S. broadband market, the battle between cable and telco players up to now has been a study of speed versus price, with MSOs fielding higher-bandwidth services, and the Bell siblings concentrating on lower-bitrate offerings at lower...

Taking a creative approach to voice: strategy combines wireless connectivity with unified messaging.(Broadband: business and news perspective)
May 1, 2004... It is an exciting time for the cable TV industry, as MSOs in the U.S. increase their product portfolio and offer voice services to a growing number of customers. While marketing the service may seem very straightforward, MSOs who take a...

Boosting broadband.(In the loop)
May 1, 2004... There comes a time when demand for many innovative products and services hits a wall. At that point, to reach the rest of the potential customer base, a new case needs to be made on price or value to create further demand. Some signs...

Delivering the triple play: getting to dial tone starts with a back-office checkup.(Broadband: business and news perspective)
May 1, 2004... In an era of industry consolidation and aggressive competition, MSOs are waging a constant battle to incrementally increase revenue per customer and build loyalty among their subscriber base. The latest salvo comes in the form of voice...

The JetBlue of digital TV? USDTV aims to become the discount, no-frills carrier of digital TV.(Broadband: business and news perspective)(U.S. Digital Television Inc. )(Interview)
May 1, 2004... U.S. Digital Television Inc. and low-cost airlines have two things in common: They both travel above ground and promise to provide the most value for the buck. USDTV is using datacasting technology and leased digital broadcast spectrum to...

Network management system.(New products: product reviews)(Optinel Systems introduces PLEXiS Crystal)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... ELKRIDGE, Md. -- Optinel Systems has unveiled its improved network management system, PLEXiS Crystal, a tool that simplifies the management of advanced transport networks. The Crystal package allows users to oversee and control the PLEXiS...

Analog telephony adapter.(New products: product reviews)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... SAN JOSE/TORONTO -- Arcturus Networks Inc. has announced the availability of SIPjack, a small and full-featured Analog Telephony Adapter (ATA). By using a SIPjack, any residential broadband connection can become a phone line. SIPjack includes...

Boom truck prewash wipe canisters.(Tool Maintenance)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... STILLWATER, Minn. -- American Polywater has introduced the B-D72 Boom Prewash Wipe Canister to its Live Line Tool Maintenance product line. The canister is a 72-count self-dispensing and resealable plastic unit. The towels feature a textured...

2004 NCTA-the national show May 2-5, 2004.(National Cable and Telecommunications Association)(Directory)
May 1, 2004... @Road 2123 1394 Trade Association 2809 8x8, Inc. 2260 A&E Television Networks 1933 ABC Cable Networks Group ...

VoIP and law enforcement.(capital currents)
May 1, 2004... Law enforcement agencies have now realized that voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology creates big problems for them, both legal and technical. First, it isn't clear that they have the legal authority to employ wiretaps on VoIP calls....

North American VOD deployments.(video on demand)
May 1, 2004... North Americans VOD deployments Service operator Market Launch date Adelphia Bethel Park, Pa. April 2002 Cleveland/Euclid/ Sept. 2001 ...