Digital television transition; Deep sea cable cuts Internet in 14 countries

Seasons Greetings!

It's holiday time and it's time for some downtime with the family. Although I'm not going anywhere exotic like I did last summer, I'm going to lighten the load until early January. Rather than post daily, I will post if something interesting happens or simply when I have something to say.

Have a great holiday season! And here's to a happy, healthy, New Year.

In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air [New York Times] 

This morning there are a couple of surveys out that indicate a vast majority of Americans are aware of the February 17th digital television transition, but show that some number of people are still confused about how they need to prepare for the transition. According to a Consumers Union survey in this NYT article, some 41 percent believe that they need digital converter boxes for every television in their house, regardless of whether its connected to cable (which is not true, by the way). 

This article also indicates that the federal government is encouraging over-the-air television viewers to request coupons for digital converter boxes by the end of this month to ensure there is enough time to receive the coupon and purchase a box before February 17th. If you've still got questions about the digital transition, I'd recommend you watch Insight's Digital Transition Town Hall, which will answer all your questions about the transition.

More People Prepared for DTV (Though Confusion Remains) [NewTeeVee] 

According to Nielsen's December DTV readiness survey, only 6.8 percent of U.S. households are completely unprepared for the digital transition. Ten percent are partially unready for the transition. This article estimates that translates to 7.8 million households that still need to prepare themselves for next February 17th.

Remember, if you're an Insight customer and all your televisions are connected to cable, then you can relax. You're already prepared for the digital transition.

Undersea Cables Cut; 14 Countries Lose Web -- Updated [Wired: Threat Level] 

Last Friday, much of the Middle East and South Asia were cut off from the Internet when several undersea telecommunications cables were severed. It's amazing that in this day and time when so much depends on reliable connections to a worldwide network that a misplaced ship's anchor can disrupt Internet service for 14 countries and over a billion people. As a result of the cut cables, quite a bit of Internet traffic on Friday was re-routed through the U.S. portion of the network.

Blogging Rights: Connecting With Customers Online [Multichannel News]

Multichannel News has an article today about this blog, and about how much I've enjoyed connecting with Insight's customers by blogging for the past seven and a half months. This blog has challenged some of the conventional wisdom of the cable industry, and it's given me a new way to communicate with our customers, thanks for your loyal readership. If you haven't yet had an opportunity to subscribe to my RSS feed, just click one of the RSS subscription links on the right sidebar. The RSS feed will allow you to receive each post, without having to surf over to the site to check on new posts.

Comments

[Jonathan]

Hi, I was wondering what your opinion is on the recent change of strategy by the RIAA. I read these two articles on ars technica:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081219-no-more-lawsuits-isps-to-work-with-riaa-cut-off-p2p-users.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081222-isp-to-riaa-outsourced-piracy-protection-isnt-free.html

Do you feel that this will cut down on the amount of file sharing and furthermore, what do you and Insight think about the RIAA putting ISP's in charge of patrolling the internet? Are ISP's simply like an electric company in that they provide the service and consumers decide what to do with it or is it the ISP's responsibility to monitor what consumers do with their service?

Your blog is great and thanks for being so open with your customers! Happy Holidays!

[Busby SEO Test]

Yeah.. Happy Holiday.. I just want to watch television ;)