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Monday, October 21, 2002 |
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• TComLabs slates IPCablecom interop event • Cable outlines common operating initiative • Time Warner buys Terayon's DOCSIS 2.0-based modems • MidStream taps cable vets for tech board • Old is new with ReplayTV 5000 series • CE industry surprised at Panasonic's DTV-Cable Deal • Consumer Groups:
TComLabs slates IPCablecom interop event
The European version of packet telephony over cable TV networks will get its first tryout during the first IPCablecom interoperability event, slated to occur Jan. 6-10, 2003 at the tComLabs facility in Ghent, Belgium. This inaugural event will focus on IPCablecom, Europe's version of the PacketCable specification. In its first version, it standardizes the voice-over-IP services of a single-zone network belonging to one operator and the interfaces to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) network. Deviations between the European and U.S. version are related to the differences in the traditional telecommunication systems that are used in Europe and the U.S. These are mainly related to the use of V5.2 and the differences in SS7 implementation. Another area of difference is the POTS interface and supported CLASS-features. "The objectives of the interoperability event are to determine what the state-of-the-art of the IPCablecom products is, to give an opportunity for the product developers to test their products with regards to interoperability and to accelerate the introduction of IPCablecom compliant products on the cable market," said Luc Martens, CEO of tComLabs, in a press release. The interoperability event will focus testing on the access equipment of the IPCablecom system and the interfaces to the PSTN network. To help manufacturers achieve interoperability for the security interfaces, a separate lab will focus on the security aspects. This event is the first of what is anticipated to be a series of interoperability events, said tComLabs officials.
Cable outlines common operating standards
In response to pressure being applied by Wall Street and as part of an effort to regain investor confidence in the cable sector, almost a dozen MSOs pledged support of new voluntary guidelines for consistent operating statistics. The guidelines, established with the support of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), are outlined as follows:
Eleven publicly traded MSOs pledged to support and adhere to the new guidelines no later than the first quarter of 2003. They are: AT&T Broadband, Time Warner Cable, Comcast Cable Communications, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, Adelphia Communications, Cablevision Systems Corp., Mediacom Communications, Insight Communications, CableOne and General Communications Inc. "This is a positive development for our industry and our investors, who we believe will gain a clearer picture of our companies through these actions," said Michael Willner, Insight CEO and NCTA chairman.
Time Warner buys Terayon's DOCSIS
Known in years past as the division within Time Warner Cable that launched the "Full Service Network" trial for once-green interactive services, the MSO's Central Florida division announced Monday the addition of DOCSIS 2.0-based cable modems from Terayon Communication Systems to its high-speed Internet mix. Specifically, TWC will add Terayon's TJ 615 modems, which are DOCSIS 1.1-certified, but are outfitted for the DOCSIS 2.0 specification, which boasts a broader upstream path and greater noise resistance. In addition to TWC, three other MSOs -- Adelphia Communications, Cox Communications and Comcast Cable Communications - have purchased Terayon's DOCSIS 2.0-based modems. The Central Florida Division is one of Time Warner's largest, passing more than 1.1 million homes and serving more than 710,000 basic subscribers in nine Florida counties. Cable operators are just starting to adopt cable modem technologies based on the DOCSIS 2.0 specification; the timing coincides with the start of CableLabs' certification wave 24, just underway last week. In the latest cert wave, a handful of cable modem makers, including Motorola Broadband, Scientific-Atlanta, Texas Instruments, Xrosstech and Terayon, submitted cable modem models for official DOCSIS 2.0 certification testing. Terayon submitted its TJ 715 model in the first DOCSIS 2.0 certification wave, though Time Warner opted for the DOCSIS 1.1-certified TJ 615 for its Central Florida subscribers. Both models, however, are based on Imedia Semiconductor chipsets. Imedia is Terayon's wholly owned semiconductor spin-off company.
Cisco Systems Inc. and ADC Telecommunications both announced cable deals for their respective cable modem termination system (CMTS) products Monday. Cisco said Charter Communications Inc. has selected the vendor's DOCSIS 1.1-qualified uBR10012 CMTS in anticipation that the MSO will serve more than 1 million cable subscribers by year-end 2002. The MSO has already deployed the Cisco chassis in six states: Tennessee, South Carolina, Michigan, California, Wisconsin and Missouri. The uBR10012 is Cisco's flagship CMTS, complementing series such as the uBR7100 and uBR7200. Meanwhile, Cox Communications announced the purchase and installation of more than 20 of ADC's Cuda 1000 compact CMTSs on the MSO's Kansas network, which serves several rural areas. Targeted to small operators, small regions of large cable networks and environments such as multi-dwelling units and universities, ADC's DOCSIS-based Cuda 1000 is the smaller brother of the company's carrier-class, DOCSIS 1.1-qualified Cuda 12000 CMTS. Cox also has deployed the Cuda 12000 in several regions, including Northern Virginia; Santa Barbara, Calif.; Greater Oklahoma and Greater Kansas. According to recent figures from Gartner Dataquest, Cisco and ADC ended the first half of 2002 as the top two providers of CMTS gear in both revenue and market share. Cisco led with CMTS revenue of $104.3 million and 57 percent of the market, followed by ADC with $34.6 million and 19 percent, respectively.
MidStream taps cable vets for tech board
Video-on-demand start-up MidStream Technologies has formed a new technical advisory board comprised of several cable industry veterans. The disclosed members are:
MidStream said it expects to leverage the knowledge of its new advisory board members "during all phases of the company's growth." Bellevue, Wash.-based MidStream, maker of next-generation VOD servers with native Gigabit Ethernet support, raised $26 million in a third round of funding. That gave the company an aggregate $48 million, enough for a fully-funded business plan, MidStream President and CEO Ed Huguez told CED in an August interview. To date, MidStream has not announced any commercial deployments, but the company is involved in a variety of trials with undisclosed operators, and has secured a commitment from a top 10 U.S. MSO.
Old is new with ReplayTV 5000 series
Hard-drive video recorders were supposed to revolutionize the way we watch TV, remember? But since the initial hype for digital video recorders (DVRs) began to wane, and the early adopters gobbled up all of the first iterations of DVR boxes, device makers in the space have struggled to create solid business models that will profitably bring the technology into more of the mainstream. No DVR company has confronted those struggles more than SONICblue, maker of the ReplayTV brand of DVR devices. Today, the company announced further price reductions in their "new" line of digital video recorders, the 5000 series, in an attempt to bring box prices more in line with customer expectations for the technology. The ReplayTV 5000 series consists of four models: the 5040, 5080, 5160 and 5320, with 40, 80, 160 and 320 hours of recording capacity per model, respectively. Along the same progression, the new aggressive pricing has after-rebate price points of $249.99, $349.99, $449.99 and $899.99. Price tags for ReplayTV boxes should not be affixed with anything permanent, however, if the past is any indication. Similar 4000 series models were price-slashed in August through ReplayTV retailers like Best Buy, Circuit City, The Wiz, Tweeter and Amazon. While price reduction certainly is the impetus behind the release of the 5000 series, the new boxes also add a USB connector for easier connection of multiple ReplayTV boxes in a home network, according to SONICblue spokesperson Amanda Sanyal. So far, ReplayTV has been lurking in TiVo's shadow, as it struggles to define and maintain its own strategic model. Whereas TiVo has partnered with various operator channels, including AT&T Broadband and EchoStar Communications, ReplayTV has maintained a predominantly retail approach to sales. In fact, only in recent months, ReplayTV has begun charging a monthly or one-time service activation fee, something that has been a part of the TiVo strategy from its inception. The recent aggressive pricing for new ReplayTV devices is a likely indicator that price-conscious consumers aren't scooping up ReplayTV boxes at retail as the company had hoped. Whether the new price points are more in line with customer expectations is an important question still to be answered by the marketplace.
CE industry surprised at Panasonic's DTV-Cable Deal
Consumer electronics executives reacted with shock and dismay to Panasonic's signing of the POD-HOST Interface Licensing Agreement (PHILA) last week, but said it wouldn't affect negotiations with cable industry on interoperability standards. Proposed standards are expected to be submitted to FCC in early Nov., a source said. "I don't think it will have any impact on the cable negotiations and we still expect to put an agreement in front of the FCC," source said: "The agreement will be vastly different than what Panasonic has agreed to as a company." CEA Video Div. has been negotiating with the cable industry on interoperability standards for three months. The PHILA agreement will allow Panasonic to manufacture and market TVs that can directly receive high-definition (HD) and other digital programming via cable, first of which could be available as soon as next fall in 36" and larger sizes. Developed by CableLabs, POD-Host Interface provides standardized secure communications link between POD (point of development) module and host DTV. Panasonic Chief Technical Officer Paul Liao told us the decision to sign PHILA licensing agreement with CableLabs shouldn't "derail" CEA-cable industry negotiations and would "support it by showing that the CE industry is not just posturing and in our case ... we've done what is necessary to get our products to market." Panasonic, he said, is "strongly in support of broad agreement" between cable and CE industries. PHILA licenses will be "defined company by company," Liao said. Other CE companies are said to have had discussions with CableLabs, with Panasonic just first to reach agreement. Panasonic's agreement is for unidirectional device so "most of the tough issues don't really apply," he said. For example, issues involving encoding rules and selectable output controls (SOC) don't apply to unidirectional products, "so we haven't changed our position and there is no difference within Panasonic," Liao said. SOC emerged earlier this year as battleground between
CE and cable. It's proposed feature of set-top boxes that would
allow cable operators to remotely disable ability of box to feed
content to various devices and allow for only low- resolution
transmissions. Cable has said SOC is needed for it to remain competitive
with other distributors, while CE industry has countered that
it betrays "assurances recently given to the Congress and
to the consumers." While CableLabs has posted a version of
the PHILA licensing agreement on its Web site, terms of the Panasonic
pact are contained in a confidential sideletter that will be available
to other companies on a nondisclosure basis, Liao said. The timing
of Panasonic's agreement with CableLabs "wasn't driven by
any particular issue," Liao said.
Consumer Groups:
As clock ticks nearer to 180-day mark on proposed merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast, coalition of consumer groups is challenging FCC's standard in determining subscriber numbers. "Recent disclosures of questionable subscriber counts and even outright fraud by multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) demonstrates that the Commission cannot reasonably rely on 'generally accepted industry data,'" said Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Consumers Union (CU), Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and Media Access Project in filing last week at FCC. Groups were referring to revelations that Adelphia had fudged its subscriber counts, that Charter counted cable modem customers as subscribers of basic video service even if they didn't actually get TV service, and that DirecTV had counted people who were interested in service but hadn't actually signed contract. FCC spokeswoman declined comment. NCTA spokesman said group wouldn't comment until it reviewed filing. Consumer groups said FCC should use "more reliable" standard of "homes passed" or collect total subscriber data itself. Alternatively, they said, it could require MVPDs to regularly file subscriber counts with Commission under penalty of sanctions for falsifying information. "Given the size of recent mergers, even the difference of a few hundred thousand subscribers can make the difference between a merger that violates the ownership cap and one that does not," groups said, referring to 30 percent horizontal ownership cap which has been struck down by courts. Commission must have accurate information, groups said, rather than depend on "third parties beholden to those with the incentive to manipulate the data." Groups said Commission should put companies "on notice" that it would consider "deliberate overcounts" provided to private entities or SEC or other govt. agencies "evidence of bad character" that would jeopardize companies' licenses. Groups were particularly concerned about potential of AT&T Comcast, MAP Assoc. Dir. Harold Feld said in interview. He said merger was "really over" subscriber limit, although companies' combined 22 million subscribers didn't represent 30 percent of MPVD market. "The only way you can get a sense of their market power is through 'homes passed,'" Feld said. Comcast spokesman declined to comment on how FCC evaluated subscriber counts. Groups' filing came just as cable industry executives were set to unveil new set of accounting standards that they hoped would ease jitters on Wall St. about entire sector of cable stocks. Top executives of major MSOs, including Charter CEO Carl Vogel and Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner, were to meet in N.Y.C. Oct. 21 to reveal their plan to analysts. But that wouldn't necessarily appease consumer groups, which appeared to be more concerned with FCC methodology. In particular, they criticized what they called the "flimsiness" of Commission's rules on insulating companies' separate interests, saying FCC had no "ability to discover violations." Groups filed their comments in several proceedings pending before FCC, including AT&T Comcast merger, in which Commission was examining companies' plans to insulate AT&T's interest in Time Warner Entertainment (TWE) from rest of company until it could sell that interest. "Absent safeguards, the public can be certain that the Commission's rules will be violated," groups wrote: "Only a structural separation that removes the ability of partners and officers to influence the actions of the licensee by making the interest attributable can protect the public from practical ongoing violations of the Commission's ownership limits." Comments came after companies did, in fact, agree to certain structural changes in their trust proposal for TWE. Recent FCC filings show that, among other changes, companies revised their proposal so designated trustee "shall not consult" with combined AT&T Comcast on voting matters, director appointments or approval rights when cable assets were sold by TWE. Before, AT&T Comcast would have maintained some rights in those matters. Revised trust agreement also won't permit any communications related to management or operation of TWE except as required by tax, securities and other laws. Before, some communications between trustee and AT&T Comcast were allowed. Changes came after several consultations and questions from FCC staff. Clock runs out on FCC review of proposed merger Nov. 5, although several industry and govt. sources have said they expect Commission's decision before then.
• Hadar joins Native Networks Native Networks, a provider of Metro Ethernet technology for optical access networks, has appointed Rami Hadar as its new CEO. Native Networks' products enable carriers to offer differentiated Metro Ethernet services with increased flexibility and efficiency over existing SDH/Sonet or greenfield infrastructure rollouts. Prior to joining Native Networks, Hadar was co-founder of Ensemble Communications, which developed wireless broadband access gear. Prior to that, Hadar was the co-founder and CEO of CTP Systems in Israel. In 1995 CTP was acquired by DSP Communication, which was eventually acquired by Intel. Before the acquisition CTP spun off its cable modem group, which after two years was acquired by Terayon Communication Systems. • iVAST nails marketing alliance MPEG-4 software company iVAST will partner with ITOCHU Techno-Science Corporation (CTC) to distribute iVAST's MPEG-4 Platform digital media products to its worldwide customer base, beginning November 1. CTC provides products and services to enhance enterprise network systems in a wide variety of industries, including telecommunications, finance, manufacturing, transportation, medical and other service industries. Under terms of this deal, CTC will distribute iVAST's complete suite of tools for the creation, delivery and playback of interactive MPEG-4 digital media, including encoding and authoring suites, media servers and software, and an MPEG-4 player. The two companies will also integrate software into CTC's Universal Media Delivery Suite of database delivery solutions. • Report: EchoStar, Hughes prepare merger Hail Mary EchoStar Communications and Hughes Electronics Corp. are expected today to make concessions on their proposed merger plan, the Wall Street Journal Web site reported Monday. The report added that concessions could cover both satellite spectrum and distribution arrangements, and are slated to go to the Justice Department. On Oct. 10, the Federal Communications Commission rejected the merger as anti-competitive.
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