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Cable Industry Needs to Spend Heavily on Upgrades
BlueCup writes "A report from the cable industry's research arm suggests that Cable-television operators require another round of multibillion-dollar network upgrades to keep up with rivals in the fast-growing high-speed Internet hookup business. The conclusions underscore the challenges posed by the rapid growth of broadband video from YouTube and Google, and the looming threat of a planned $20 billion rollout of high-capacity fiber lines by U.S. phone giant Verizon Communications Inc."
Remember when cablemodems were first rolled out? About one megabit speed, when everyone else was on 56k dialup, and we sat and watched and waited for the cable companies to roll out. ISDN was king, and DSL was something hard to get.
Now? Cablemodem access is pretty much everywhere, and download speeds are pretty decent in general. DSL and Cable both have offerings in the 4-6mbit range, and now there is something else to look forward to...
Fiber. Downtown San Francisco has some of that Verizon fiber available in limited areas, and the access download speeds get into the 60-100mbit range. Let me say that again, since I'm sure a lot of people are going to say "he said WHAT?"
100 megabits. downlink. speed.
Yes, there are still some non-sensical "can't host a server" issues. Yes, uplink speeds are artificially asymmetrical (~60mb down, about 1mbit up. Still an improvement over cablemodem service speeds.) It's part of an experimental rollout, and hard to get installed. So was DSL, once.
HDTV, phone, internet access, 'digital radio', and more on a single line, all for around $100/month, at least for now.
Cable companies have something to worry about. Definately.
"Don't worry about the problems you have in mathematics, I assure you mine are much greater." - Einstein c.1919
http://muniwireless.com/community/10238 /_ F.shtml
http://saveaccess.org/node/288
http://www.newnetworks.com/scandalquotes.htm
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/123400026707348
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/2021240
Of course the phone company told you it was good. They're the freak'n provider. What were you expecting "Oh, Mr. Johnson, that's really slow. We're providing some really crappy service aren't we?" they don't want to be held to any kind of standard for service, so they aren't going to agree with any notion there's a problem if you'll go with their answers.
And they'll be able to start charging everyone per TV for their services. Which is why they really want to get rid of analog cable. They're like Ma Bell in the 50's wanting to charge you per phone in your house regardless of how many actual phone lines you have. The only reason that was undone was the availablity of wiring for do-it-yourself extensions and the analog nature of the PSTN making it hard to track how many phones a person had.
Plus, the external converter has the added bonus of making it hard to do automated VCR recordings of shows while you're away from home (hello, DVR rental fee!).
Why does nobody recognise digital cable for what it is; an excuse to roll back fair use and home recording rights, and find another way to nickel and dime the consumer?
Until there's legislation passed removing the encryption from cable (so makers of stand alone DVR's and VCR's can integrate digital tuners in their products) or requiring cablecos to provide as many boxes as a customer needs free of charge this will continue.
They need satellites because, contrary to popular belief, television *broadcasts* from content providers aren't delivered by *magic*. They are sucked down to each local cable branch via satellite dishes. I worked on a buildup of a provider headend before and they had a small satellite farm there just for receiving multiple broadcasts which they planned on sending out via a new fiber network.
;)
Your local news stations also use satellites to deliver live television broadcasts from various places. For everything else, they use tubes.