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.
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.
source: cabletechtalk.com
Tru2way technology is being used to create a common software platform that will enable cable companies, consumer electronics companies, content developers, network programmers and others to extend interactivity to the TV set and other kinds of devices. The new Panasonic VIERA HDTVs are built with tru2way technology inside enabling consumers to access two-way digital cable programming, like video on demand, without a cable operator-supplied set-top box. Panasonic and Comcast have worked together to lead the development and deployment of tru2way technology and related products which are based upon specifications developed by CableLabs®, the industry’s research and development arm.
Comcast customers in the Chicago and Denver areas will be the first in the U.S. to have access to tru2way digital cable service with additional cities expected to go live in the coming months. The tru2way VIERA HDTVs will be available in the Chicago area at Abt Electronics in Glenview and at Circuit City locations and at Ultimate Electronics and Circuit City stores in the Denver area.
Let’s step back in time to January. I wrote about the launch of the tru2way
source: cabletechtalk.com
In January, I wrote about Brian Roberts’ CES keynote, in which he talked about wideband. In the spring, Comcast deployed DOCSIS 3.0 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. This week, Comcast deployed wideband service to residential homes and businesses in parts of New England, including the Boston Metropolitan region and Southern New Hampshire, as well as areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey. In addition to the new speed tiers, Comcast also is increasing speeds for most of its existing customers.
I walk though all this because many of the technology deployments we discuss on this blog are all part of a larger pattern. DOCSIS 3.0 uses channel bonding to join 6 MHz channels together to provide greater bandwidth. In order to free up channels to provide such services, cable operators have to manage their networks.That’s why you see analog channels moved to the digital tier, as I discussed again recently.
Comcast expects to reach more than 10 major markets and pass nearly 10 million homes and businesses in the next several months.
source: cabletechtalk.com
Less than a month ago, I wrote about Comcast’s deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 in New England and areas of Philadelphia and New Jersey, following up on the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. I mentioned that they expected to reach more than 10 major markets in the coming months.
Here we go: Comcast launches DOCSIS 3.0 in Oregon and Southwest Washington, including such communities as Aberdeen, Spokane, Beaverton, and Eugene. The Extreme 50 tier offers download speeds of up to 50 Mbps. Comcast will also double speeds for the majority of existing high-speed Internet customers at no additional cost.
The company has a web page which allows you to check if wideband is available in your area or to sign up for e-mail updates when it is rolled out to you.
source: cabletechtalk.com
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.
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.
source: cabletechtalk.com