* Comcast bows ‘price-for-life’ in some Western systems
By Mike Robuck

Comcast has announced a “price-for-life” program for new and current customers in some areas of its Western footprint.

The Comcast price-for-life service offers 12 Mbps of download speed to its video subscribers, with the company’s PowerBoost technology, for $42.95 per month. The program does not require a long-term contract or require customers to pay early termination fees.

A spokeswoman for Comcast said that the price-for-life program started this week and includes Comcast systems in parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado (including Denver) and Washington State where Comcast is facing high-speed Internet competition from other providers.

* RGB Networks, Castis team up to increase bandwidth efficiency 
By Mike Robuck

RGB Networks has hooked up with Castis for an integrated video-on-demand (VOD) offering that is designed to help cable operators deliver up to 50 percent more on-demand content.

The combined offering pairs RGB’s Dynamic Bandwidth Manager (DBM) with Castis’ Castanets VOD programming. The end result is more bandwidth efficiency that can be used by cable operators to offer more VOD, high-definition (HD) content or other services.

“As the popularity of VOD increases and the demand for HD VOD continues to grow rapidly,  operators require a cost-effective way to deliver more on-demand content within their existing network infrastructure,” said Seung-Hak Kim, CEO of Castis. “Our joint solution with RGB will allow operators to easily deliver more high-bandwidth services to their customers while avoiding costly upgrades and preserving the ‘trick-play’ feature that VOD users have come to expect.”

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