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Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals
Cable Show: Mediacom bows home automation service
June 11, 2013 9:41 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsMediacom Communications has joined the ranks of cable operators that are offering a home automation service to their subscribers. Mediacom, the eighth-largest cable operator in the nation, has joined Comporium Communications’ security, monitoring and automation (SMA) dealer program to deliver the home automation service across its footprint.
A win/win for Arris with Comcast
June 11, 2013 9:36 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsArris nabbed two customer wins with Comcast for its XGI gateway and the vendor’s E6000 Converged Edge Router (CER). The XGI was based on the Comcast Reference Design Kit (RDK), which Comcast developed to speed up the rate of innovation on set-top boxes and gateways.
From the Cable Show: TV Everywhere not a product but a process
June 10, 2013 6:34 pm | by Craig Kuhl, Contributing Editor | News | CommentsBuilding a viable business model for TV Everywhere is a tedious and complicated process, with authentication and measurement issues the leading prerequisites for achieving the ultimate goal of content ubiquity. That was the conventional wisdom shared by panelists during Monday’s Authenticate Me, Baby: Consumer Behavior in the TV Everywhere Era session.
From the Cable Show: "Disruptors" not so disruptive
June 10, 2013 6:25 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsExecutives from Vox Media, Jawbone, Twitter, and Roku were all quite enthusiastic about being complements to the cable industry, but they all wished that cable would innovate a little faster. Tom Rutledge meanwhile essentially admonished programmers to give it up already.
Live From the Show: Cable Show 2013 intro
June 10, 2013 1:06 pm | by Brian Santo | Videos | CommentsWe're in Washington D.C., for the 2013 NCTA Cable Show. Eight of 10 buildings surrounding the convention center are being constructed, reconstructed, or deconstructed -- even the Washington monument is wreathed in scaffolding. There's a metaphor in there somewhere...
Comcast to turn up millions of Wi-Fi hotspots in neighborhoods
June 10, 2013 11:08 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsUsing subscribers’ home gateways, Comcast plans on booting up millions of Wi-Fi access points for its customers through its neighborhood hotspot initiative. After trials last year in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Northern Virginia and the Washington, D.C. metro area, there are currently more than 100,000 hotspots enabled in customers’ neighborhoods.
Cable Show: Cox, Cisco team up on two CCAP trials
June 10, 2013 11:01 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsCox Communications and Cisco have taken the cable industry’s converged cable access platform (CCAP) for a test-drive in two trials. In addition to Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have also kicked the tires on CCAP, which will eventually combine edge QAMs and cable modem termination systems into one ultra-dense platform.
Cable Show: Cable WiFi Alliance tops 150,000 hotspots
June 10, 2013 10:55 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsRoughly one year after five of the top-six cable operators in the nation announced that they had formed a pact to share each other’s Wi-Fi hotspots, the Cable WiFi Alliance has topped 150,000 access points across the nation. All told, the 150,000 hotspots represent the largest Wi-Fi network in the nation.
TWC has more than 12k hotspots in Southern Cal
June 10, 2013 10:50 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsTwo years after announcing it was spending $15 million to build a Wi-Fi network in the Los Angeles area, Time Warner Cable announced it was up to 12,000 hotspots. Today the Wi-Fi network spans more than 300 miles of Southern California and features more than 12,000 hotspots.
Comcast’s Wi-Fi wish list: Hotspot 2.0, 160 MHZ spectrum
June 10, 2013 10:41 am | by Mike Robuck | Blogs | CommentsWhile Wi-Fi has cemented itself as the go-to strategy for enabling mobile broadband, there’s bigger and better technology on the horizon. Tom Nagel, Comcast’s senior vice president of business development, would like to add a couple of things to his Wi-Fi playlist.
Cable Show: Comcast launches Xfinity Home Control
June 10, 2013 10:33 am | by Mike Robuck | News | CommentsComcast announced today that it has launched Xfinity Home Control, which allows subscribers to remotely adjust thermostats or lighting without the professional security monitoring that is offered with other Xfinity Home services, which are now called Xfinity Home Secure. Among other features, Xfinity Home Control provides customers with the ability to get real-time text and email alerts when doors and windows open or close.
Cable Show: LG debuts line of ‘smart’ set-top boxes
June 10, 2013 10:28 am | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsLG Electronics has introduced a line of what it’s calling smart set-top boxes (STBs), a set of IP boxes that can be used to deliver live, linear TV programming as well as over-the-top (OTT) services. LG’s Google TV-based IPTV STB supports services including live TV, VOD, a Chrome web browser and access to the Google Play store.
Obama pushes plan for fast Internet in U.S. schools
June 7, 2013 1:44 pm | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsThe President is advocating for an initiative that calls on the FCC to use an existing program that funds Internet access in schools and libraries through a surcharge on telephone bills to meet the goal. He also directed the government to do a better job of using existing funds to get Internet connections and educational technology into classrooms, and into the hands of teachers who know how to use it.
SeaChange posts Q1 loss
June 7, 2013 1:27 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsSeaChange International reported first quarter fiscal 2014 revenue of $35.6 million, down $1 million from the similar quarter a year ago. The company posted an operating loss of $1.8 million, compared to a loss from operations for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 of $1.2 million.
Applied Broadband sells IPDR analysis tool
June 7, 2013 1:25 pm | by Brian Santo | News | CommentsGuavus has purchased Applied Broadband’s Pipeline product. Pipeline is used for collecting, analyzing and mediating IPDR (Internet Protocol Detailed Records) data, drawn from cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) to understand bandwidth consumption and network activity.
