WASHINGTON D.C. – When governments talk about reclamation, they generally are talking about land – either dumping vast quantities of earth into an ocean or other body of water in order to expand their land mass where none previously existed, or restoring certain regions to their natural state after they were clogged with pollution or some industry had used it up.
When cable engineers and their bosses talk about reclamation – but it’s about expanding their bandwidth – and how they can find new bandwidth where it was once all used up.
In what was dubbed the CTO session yesterday, North American technological leaders (including Rogers Communications chief strategy officer Mike Lee) outlined the various ways they are limiting analog cable’s impact on their networks – to make room for new services.
On one hand, analog is a competitive advantage, especially in this economic climate, because cable can still offer an easy, cheap line-up of TV channels where all customers need is a coax cable and somewhere to plug in their sets.
On the other hand, direct broadcast satellite down here is offering stiff competition in the form of 150 high definition channels to consumers – who are still buying new those TVs in droves, despite the economy.
Simply, cable – especially here in the States – needs more bandwidth, without cutting loose low-ARPU customers. In Canada, with far fewer HD channels available and with the DTH companies generally not going to market as hard as Dish Network and DirecTV down here, the competitive pressure is nowhere near as great.
At Comcast, said CTO Tony Werner, their primary option has been to digitize everything. They’re not there yet, but are in the midst of distributing a small, inexpensive digital to analog (DTA) converter to all customers who haven’t yet switched to digital cable. Launched early last year, the company is now past 70% penetration in “a number of systems” but have not yet shut off analog in any systems, save a test market or two.
The little box, which is generally tucked behind customers TVs “is to re-create the analog experience for consumers who don’t want a set top box,” said Werner. That means no advanced services like the EPG or VOD – but still the fast-surfing of analog television. The converter works well, but the main tripping point for consumers was programming their new universal remotes the company sends out, too, noted Werner.
At Time Warner Cable – and Rogers Cable – switched digital video has been deployed as a reclaiming technology. SDV is a uni-cast technology which means that the prior cable model of sending all TV signals to the TV – or in digital’s case, the set top box, is altered so that only the channel being viewed is sent to the receiver.
All channels paid for are still available to customers, of course, but instead of all of the services clogging up the pipe, just the one being viewed at that time is sent through, freeing up much bandwidth.
Both Rogers’ Lee and TWC’s CTO Mike LaJoie reported their deployments were working well. “The result we’re seeing is quite positive,” said LaJoie. “We’re doing 16 QAMs, 24 in some places, and within that bank, we can now carry all analog channels, all digital and all HD.”
Cablevision’s CTO Jim Blackley added that his company has some all-digital areas now, using a variety of technologies “and we have more unused spectrum there than used spectrum.”
Rogers’ Lee said the bandwidth his company has found will let it soon offer more than 50 HD services and expand the list of multicultural channels available to customers, especially important in a place like Toronto where many have turned to the web or illegal satellite systems to get programming from their native countries.
“Our 860 (MHz) plant plus switched gives us a lot of legs,” noted Lee. (Ed note: Most U.S. MSOs have built their systems to 750 MHz).
– Greg O’Brien
