Michael's Insight

TiVo comes to the PC and other Tuesday article links

TiVo Goes PC [The Bauminator]

Have you ever wanted to have DVR capability on your PC? TiVo is announcing a partnership with Nero that will produce a software product that records TV bundled with a TV tuner card. The product is called NeroLiquidTV|TiVoPC, and will be hitting the market soon.

CableLabs is working on a similar product called the CablePC. According to this article, the CablePC may see its debut at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show.

More testing for the DTV transition and other Monday articles

FCC's Adelstein Wants More DTV Testing [Broadband Reports]

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has joined a growing chorus of policy makers calling for more DTV testing to iron out issues prior to the nationwide transition next February. While the FCC declared the Wilmington, NC test a success, several issues were revealed. Here's what Broadcasting and Cable said about Adelstein's announcement:

One reason why he [Adelstein] worries is that he feels that the soft test in Wilmington, N.C., Sept. 8 was misinterpreted as a success. He said projecting Wilmington’s 2,272 consumer calls seeking help in the first week to a national cutoff translates to 2.2 million such calls. “And that’s an optimistic scenario,” he added, because the Wilmington test had more manpower and in-market education than the national cutoff.

“While we can take small comfort in what went smoothly, we should fear what didn’t,” he said. “There is no plan remotely comparable for that kind of outreach nationwide … I think the FCC is continuing to underestimate the task ahead.”

Wilmington's test took place under the most perfect set of circumstances, and it's results should cause policy makers to work harder to make the transition as smooth as possible. Over the years, I have learned that the easiest mistake to make in management is to focus solely on the silver lining and to ignore the cloud it surrounds.  Kudos to Commissioner Adelstein for articulating his justifiable concern.  No one wants millions American households' televisions going dark next February.

Slingbox for high definition and other Friday links

Sling Places Hi-Def Bet [The Bauminator]

If you're a Slingbox user like I am (I watch our service in each of our districts, no matter where I am), the announcement that you can now place-shift your HD programming is great news. For those of you unfamiliar with the Slingbox, it's an Internet appliance that connects to your cable set-top box, sending your cable signal out to the Internet, allowing you to watch your TV channels wherever there is a high-speed Internet connection.

Now, with the new Slingbox PRO-HD, you can sling not only SD channels but your HD channels. One caveat if you're interested in this new product - you'll need a beefy upstream broadband connection at the Slingbox end (1.5 Mbps). Insight Broadband 20.0 provides this level of upstream speed.

White space testing and other Thursday links

Larry Page: Whitespace Tests Were Rigged [IP Democracy]

Advocates for unlicensed use of broadcast spectrum were on Capitol Hill yesterday to make their case. Google co-founder Larry Page - one of the chief advocates of such a plan - leveled the charge that the FCC's recent interference testing of so-called "white space" devices was "rigged."

While Page is entitled to his opinion, the fact is that the manufacturers of these devices have yet to show that they can reliably avoid interfering with broadcast television signals, cable television operations or wireless microphone systems (all of which operate in this spectrum). The main reason they can't avoid interference? Cable doesn't have any "white spaces" or unused frequency where the devices can operate without interfering with cable television viewers.

It's true that cable signals are enclosed in a coaxial cable, which should shield them from outside interference.  The problem is that many customers have wired their homes themselves and added splitters and other devices.  The wiring and the equipment that customers have installed themselves may or may not effectively shield their connections.  Millions of homes could be affected.

CableTechTalk has posted a good explanation of the issues involved with "white space" device interference here and here.

Retransmission consent and the digital transition

Do you recall news stories from around the country where certain local over-the-air broadcasters suddenly disappear from cable systems for days, weeks or even months? 

That happens when the local broadcaster chooses to negotiate for compensation in return for giving the cable operator the right to carry their signal and they can't reach an agreement.

Whether or not this system if fair to consumers is the subject of another post on another day.

Focus on digital transition readiness and other articles for Tuesday

Senate to Hear Update on Switch to Digital TV [New York Times]

The Senate Commerce Committee will conduct a hearing today regarding the federal government's readiness for the upcoming digital television transition. The committee will be reviewing the results of the recent Wilmington, NC digital conversion test, and asking questions about the government's digital converter box coupon program and the one-percent of homes that had issues with the digital transition in Wilmington.

This article raises questions about the difference between analog and digital television signals, and how over-the-air television viewers may need antenna upgrades to continue receiving TV signals after the digital transition. I'll be looking forward to seeing the Q&A from today's hearing.

Storm Aftermath -- Still Recovering, One Week Later

Believe it or not, we still have 30,000 customers in our service area who still are without electricity, phone or cable.  The damage by last Sunday's surprise hurricane-force windstorm has been shocking. 

Friday morning, power was finally restored at our Network Operations Center.  Two huge generators kept our network up and running for 5 days, nonstop.  Those generators ran the equipment but the building was largely without lights or air conditioning.  Even though the generators kept the systems powered, it still took people showing up to work, every day and every night, in sometimes sweltering heat, to monitor our storm-stressed network and keep it working as best we could.

Web 2.0 applications, email security and other articles for Friday

How Many Web Services Can One Person Use? [NYT Bits Blog]

A good question to ask, given the proliferation of social networking sites across the web. Every time a new way to spend time on the Internet is introduced, users have to decide whether they're going to make use of the new thing and what current use of time they're going to give up. It's a question that's on the minds of participants in the Web 2.0 Expo in New York as venture capitalists meet up with web 2.0 developers to talk turkey.

Between email, blogging, Facebook and YouTube, my plate is pretty full. As new web applications are developed, how do you decide to manage your time on the web?

Digital 4.0 -- Even better digital TV

We've talked a lot about upgrading our current digital offerings (Digital 3.2) on this blog.  As of today, we are sending out notices with our regular monthly bills announcing the launch of Digital 4.0!  I thought I'd let you know here first.

Digital 4.0 will feature an important expansion of the HD lineup to more than 50 HD channels – most with no additional cost to those already receiving HD. Additionally 4.0 will include the launch of 2 New Standard Digital Channels -- Fox Business News & Chiller -- more On Demand programs and a slew of other new features. Keep an eye out for the notice.   We're sure you’ll love what you see.

Murdoch believes in long term success of cable and other Thursday articles

Murdoch: I Was ‘Frightened’ of Cable Triple Play [Multichannel News]

Multichannel News reports that Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., unloaded his interest in DirecTV due to his fear that satellite television couldn't compete with cable's superior product. Murdoch is known worldwide for his shrewd investments in media companies.

Murdoch's explains his concern about satellite's ability to compete with cable, “I might have been wrong. I don’t think I’m wrong in the long term.”

Restoration of service continues and other Wednesday articles

Sorry I was so late today.  In meetings all morning.

Cable, phone service spotty in central Ohio [Columbus Dispatch]

Along with the widespread outages in the Louisville area, the Columbus Dispatch reports on outages in central Ohio. This article echos some of my comments from yesterday - that many dedicated people are working 24/7 to restore service, but that some problems won't be discovered until power is restored.  As of this morning, half the customers who were offline 24 hours earlier (primarily due to loss of power), were back on.  We are hopeful that most people will have power, phone, Internet and cable services restored today.

Storm Aftermath -- The Slow Recovery

Nearly a quarter million households in the greater Louisville area are still without power in the wake of Sunday afternoon's storm. This is the result of over 5,000 broken lines and nearly 300 snapped utility poles.  American Electric Power reported that over 300,000 were still without power in central Ohio and it might be six more days until everyone has power restored.  Duke Energy reported 500,000 still out of service in the Greater Cincinnati area, including our service area in Northern Kentucky.  Needless to say, this type of damage affects all utilities are impacted by the damage of this surprise severe weather.  We are too.

Our Network Operations Center (NOC) remains without power.  Those of you outside the Louisville market and those in Louisville who have power and Internet service remain online because of the back-up generators that have now been keeping us up and running for over 30 hours.

Hurricane Ike outage live blogging and other Monday updates

Updates: Hurricane Ike [Suddenlink FYI]

My thoughts have been with the victims of Hurricane Ike in Texas and Louisana - and the thousands in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana who lost power or had property damage in yesterday's remnants of Ike. I noticed that Suddenlink, a cable operator that serves much of the area affected by Ike in Texas and Louisiana was live blogging their service outages and restoration of service.

Suddenlink deserves commendation for updating customers on their efforts to restore service in very trying conditions - flooding, electrical outages and wireless outages that affected their personnel's ability to communicate.

In Kentucky and Indiana, our crews are working round-the-clock to restore service to all areas as quickly as possible after the remnants of Hurricane Ike moved through and surprised everyone.  LE&G reported that nearly 300,000 customers were without power for some time since yesterday's unexpected near-hurricane force winds. 

Straight talk on the digital transition and other Friday articles

Once more - there are two transitions… [Cable Tech Talk]

Just in case there's any confusion, Cable Tech Talk clears the air about the difference between the digital television transmission (which involves over-the-air TV signals) and digital cable. Apparently some writers and bloggers have gotten the two issues mixed up, and are advising cable customers that they may not make it through television's digital transition next February without additional equipment. 

In fact, just yesterday, I received an email from a customer who was inquiring about more HD channels.  (Happy to have told him that news about more HD channels on Insight is on the way soon)  But he specifically made reference to what will happen to his HD lineup when all channels go digital in February. 

White space interference issues and other Thursday links

Cable Worried About 'White Space' Tech [Light Reading's Cable Digital News]

The NCTA has weighted in on the proposal being floated by Google to allow unlicensed use of the broadcast television spectrum in the "white spaces" between the frequencies used by broadcasters. The NCTA's letter, sent to the FCC, warns that the adoption of Google's "white space" proposal would interfere with broadcast signals, interfere with cable headends and interfere with fixed-line use.

Google proposes to offer broadband wireless Internet access using so-called "white space" devices, which are designed to avoid interfering with the licensed uses of the same spectrum - namely broadcasting television. But, there's a problem. The FCC's testing of these "white space" devices has so far shown that they are unable to avoid interfering with television signals.

NCTA's letter reads:

"Television receivers, both analog and digital, are simply incapable, as the FCC's tests have shown, of shielding the TV picture from such interference," the NCTA claims, noting that degradation problems are more pronounced in apartments and other multi-dwelling units where people share common walls.

Cable systems, the NCTA points out, "have no 'white spaces,' " because they deliver services on all the channels in the broadcast TV band.

"The lack of vacant channels on cable poses unique risks of interference to television viewing on any channel where high-powered TV band devices operate nearby." Wherever interference occurs, "broadcast programming will be wiped out for the entire community served by that cable system," the letter warns.

So, while Google's proposal for wireless broadband sounds like a fantastic idea, the execution is likely to cause a bunch of headaches for TV viewers.

 

Results from Wilmington and other news stories for Wednesday

Wilmington Transition Issues: Programming Converter Boxes [Multichannel News]

I wrote yesterday about the digital television transition test in Wilmington, NC and the numerous calls received by broadcast stations and DTV hotline from viewers who lost their picture with the transition. Turns out that most of the callers were aware that the transition was occurring early in Wilmington and even had digital converter boxes connected, but didn't have the converter boxes properly programmed.

My post yesterday encouraged the FCC to focus on a successful and seamless digital television transition. The findings from the Wilmington test reveal that over 97 percent of television viewers were aware of the transition, but that there were still problems due to converter boxes needing to be programmed or antennas to be properly aligned. So, we're doing a pretty good job on awareness of the DTV transition, but there are still are many even more complex issues that need to be addressed to assure the transition occurs as smoothly as possible.

What should the FCC focus on for the rest of this year?

America begins the Digital Television Transition

Wilmington, North Carolina entered the digital age yesterday when it became the first television market in the US to pull the plug on analog broadcasting.  In a ceremony yesterday at high noon, Mayor Bill Saffo and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin flipped a big cardboard switch signifying the end of the type of television broadcasting that has been in place since television broadcasting began 80 years ago.

Cable and satellite customers were not impacted by the switchover on televisions that are hooked up to them.  However, in addition to non-customers, cable and satellite customers who have analog TV's in the household that are hooked up to an antenna need a digital converter to continue to work.  According to the Wall Street Journal, over one hundred people called various broadcast stations and hot lines to find out what happened to their televisions when the switch was flipped.

Need another reason to stop downloading copyrighted content on p2p networks? Read this.

Fake MediaDefender Emails Scam BitTorrent Users [Broadband Reports]

If you needed another reason to kick the habit of downloading copyrighted material illegally from a p2p network, here's one. Emails which claim to be from anti-piracy group Media Defender are being sent out to users across the Internet. These emails contain a warning designed to strike fear in p2p users, who then are requested to open an attachment that is supposed to detail tracking of their illegal file sharing.

The attachment is, of course, malware. Opening the attachment infects the user's computer.

This scam uses a sly social engineering ploy to prey on p2p users who are afraid of getting caught by the authorities for sharing copyrighted content.

As always, avoid opening emails that come from unknown recipients or that you are unsure of.

Comcast files appeal on network management and other Friday stories

Comcast Appeals F.C.C. Sanction [NYT Bits Blog]

Cable operator Comcast has opted to file an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals regarding the sanction imposed by the FCC in the network management dispute last month. Comcast is challenging the FCC's authority to sanction their network management techniques in the absence of a specific rule on the subject. Comcast's statement on the lawsuit:

We filed this appeal in order to protect our legal rights and to challenge the basis on which the Commission found that Comcast violated federal policy in the absence of pre-existing legally enforceable standards or rules. We continue to recognize that the Commission has jurisdiction over Internet service providers and may regulate them in appropriate circumstances and in accordance with appropriate procedures. However, we are compelled to appeal because we strongly believe that, in this particular case, the Commission’s action was legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record.

The central issue in this debate over network management, of course, is whether ISP networks should be managed by qualified engineers or the the government.

NFL Kickoff and other articles for Thursday

NFL TV Distribution Maps [The 506.com]

The National Football League kicks off tonight (GO GIANTS!!) and this weekend I ran across this helpful resource that maps which games are being carried by the broadcast networks in every market across the U.S. So, now there'll be no confusion about whether your local station is carrying the Colts or the Bengals in the early game slot. The entire season's television schedule is available week by week. Look for me in the mezzanine tonight.

More on Comcast's usage cap and other Wednesday stories

Reader David Crowell commented on my Friday post about cable operator Comcast's announcement of a 250 GB monthly download cap, mentioning two good suggestions.

Bravo to Comcast.  250 GB is fair.  It would be difficult to hit that amount without using a P2P application. 

My main concern is that they aren't tracking upstream and downstream separately.  It might be better to give a 500 GB downstream and 20 GB upstream.  I believe the biggest issue is the upstream traffic.

Another concern, is that these limits should increase over time.  As network capacity increases, and HD content becomes prevalent, raising the caps seems to be the right thing to do.

Service restored in Southern Indiana after dove hunting incident and other Tuesday links

Insight cable, Internet, phone back on in most areas Tri-State Media

Insight's service was interrupted yesterday in Gibson County and portions of Dubois County, Indiana yesterday due to dove hunters shooting at doves perched on fiber optic lines in that area. The lines deliver Insight's cable, Internet and phone service and the birdshot fired at them severed the connection.

We immediately deployed repair personnel to the damaged line, and they were able to restore service by 6pm yesterday evening. It took much longer than originally expected because the hunters decided to shoot our cable in more than one place.  According to the Princeton Clairon:

Repair personnel were forced to splice together fiber optic lines the size of a human hair, Minnis said. That in itself took a lot of man hours as service came and went throughout the afternoon.

We believe we have the guilty parties and have filed damage charges against them for their totally irresponsible behavior.  But I especially want to thank the many Insight people who mobilized during the holiday weekend to make sure that this interruption in service was as brief as possible.