Michael's Insight

The digital transition, as clear as it gets

I sat down with WHAS TV reporter Andy Treinen on Wednesday to talk about the digital television transition that will be happening next year on February 17th.

Andy put together an excellent story that helped to clarify what consumers need to know to successfully transition from the current analog television transmission to digital. His story also mentioned Insight's transition of HBO, HBO2 and Showtime.

Blogosphere Enjoys the Battle of the Policy Wonks

Lots of coverage about the Tauke / McSlarrow debate last week.

Let's understand exactly what happened here.  Briefly, the FCC found that Verizon was violating a critical provision in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that prohibited phone companies from using their 100-year-old monopoly power to stifle competition in the long run.

How could Verizon do that? 

Attention all blog readers! You must see this!!

I think this may be a first in the Blogosphere.  It's a front row seat to a debate between two top level telecommunications policy leaders. It was so good and so timely, I couldn't wait until Monday.

In this corner (wearing the white hat) ;-) is Kyle McSlarrow, President and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.  And in that corner (wearing the black hat) is Tom Tauke, Executive Vice President - Public Affairs, Policy and Communications for Verizon. 

I posted a link to the debate below but first, a brief explanation. 

Blogging and customer care

A few colleagues have asked me if writing this blog has exposed me to an onslaught of customer complaints.   They also wonder, if I have received some, how do I handle them. 

I'm pleased to report that, although there have been a few individual service-related comments posted, it has really only been a handful.

To begin this discussion, I thought I should highlight the recently-added message on the left side of this blog's main page regarding comments:

Bloggers say set-top boxes likely to be around for a while

With the news that Sony has agreed to include the cable industry's Tru2Way platform in new televisions coming to market, some news outlets and blogs predicted the "death of the cable box." Not so fast, say IP Democracy and The Bauminator.

Cynthia Brumfield at IP Democracy lists four reasons why she thinks that cable set-top boxes won't disappear overnight.

One blogger reacts to my a-la-carte post

Blogs covering The Cable Show

As the final day of The Cable Show winds down, I wanted to point your attention to a couple of blogs that are covering the events and exhibitors here in New Orleans. EngadgetHD has a great photographic tour of the convention floor's various exhibitors. EngadgetHD also has a series of individual product-based articles about the exhibitors here.

Over at IP Democracy you can read about U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez's comments on net neutrality (supportive of "reasonable network management") and a panel discussion that was held by three former FCC members acting as proxies for the presidential candidates on the issue of broadband policy.

And the Blogs, They Are a Changin' (The World!)

Two years ago, we had to migrate our broadband service in a very short time.  We ran into some real service issues when we were forced to rush the process.  Customers were temporarily experiencing access, speed and email problems.

We decided to confront the problem head-on.  Of course, all of our dedicated people who had any technical expertise worked day and night to fix the problems.  But we also did other things.  We taped some 30-second spots explaining the problems, telling customers what we were doing about it and, of course, apologizing.  We recorded outbound telephone messages and sent emails and letters.  We also increased our inbound call handling capacity as quickly as we could.

And we went on the blogs. 

Why the #*@# Am I Doing This?

It's conventional wisdom.  When it comes to communicating with the public, most companies take the safest path.  They usually play their cards pretty close to their chest.  I'm joining the blogsosphere to challenge that "wisdom."

So, I have created this blog and will use a part of my day to write about what is going on in the world of cable.  I hope to discuss the things that we at Insight Communications and others in the cable industry deal with in bringing you your cable, Internet and phone services.