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Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals
Scaling OTT architectures for a multi-device world
July 3, 2012 4:25 pm | by Harish Reddy, principal, and Andrew Lynch, consultant, of IBB Consulting | CommentsOTT video is now mainstream. The challenge lurking behind this phenomenon is that consumption is moving toward a highly fragmented set of devices, and no single solution exists to solve the operational and technical complexities of delivering video to a diverse landscape of devices.
Bad debt: Predicting and preventing risk
July 3, 2012 3:33 pm | by Chad Dunavant, vice president of product management at CSG International | CommentsCSPs have the technological means to identify subscribers who might represent bad debt risks, categorize the nature of the risk and implement policies to respond accordingly – all in advance of a problem developing.
In Perspective - Game on
July 3, 2012 12:33 pm | by Brian Santo | CommentsGame consoles have been serving double duty as over-the-top boxes for years, but what about a game console as an official cable set-top?
Memory Lane - Rooms with views
July 3, 2012 12:04 pm | by Stewart Schley, media and technology writer | CommentsSioux Falls, S.D., seems an unlikely spawning ground for a highly disruptive television technology. But much of what the world now knows about VOD viewing habits, buy rates and economics germinated there.
Open Mic - Make HFC network improvements a reality
July 3, 2012 11:40 am | by Kellie Chong, director of product line at RFMD | CommentsHigh-data-rate and dense content-delivery-capable wireline networks are faced with insurmountable requirements as demands for higher data rates and more digital content increase.
Engineering-Wise - By the people, for the people
July 3, 2012 11:20 am | by Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of the SCTE | CommentsWhile DOCSIS 3.0, the transition to IP networks and multi-platform content delivery capture the imagination, it is the members of the cable workforce who make a difference to the industry and its customers.
Capital Currents - Digital Television 3.0
July 2, 2012 8:39 pm | by Jeffrey Krauss, president of Telecommunications and Technology Policy | CommentsThe television service we have might be called Digital Television 1.0, but the ATSC is in the final stage of designing the features of Digital Television 2.0. What about 3.0?
Upfront - July 2012
July 2, 2012 8:22 pm | by CED Magazine | CommentsEurope’s big cable show, Anga, saw 440 exhibitors, 16,000 trade visitors and 1,600 congress delegates, and the show increased its foreign visitors from 43 percent last year to 50 percent this year.
Breakdown in Beantown
June 6, 2012 1:19 am | by Brian Santo and Mike Robuck | CommentsThe cable industry is responding to consumer demands and countering the competition with a heavy arsenal of services and features. At The Cable Show, there were numerous examples of how the cable industry is rapidly evolving to improve the consumers experience while adding cash to the bottom line.
Under construction: The multi-screen video business model
June 6, 2012 12:57 am | by Craig Kuhl, Contributing Editor | CommentsThe evolution of a working business model for multi-screen and content is accelerating. Different companies coming from different angles have got many of the moving parts together, but those parts aren’t yet perfectly aligned.
SIP trunking: Meeting the opportunities and challenges
June 6, 2012 12:23 am | by Hamid Qayyum, vice president of MSO sales at Metaswitch | CommentsAfter proving out the technology, and an economic downturn in 2010, businesses are purchasing IP telephony like never before. The business benefits from decreased costs, more efficient networks and increased productivity have driven demand to what has now become a robust market with mainstream technology.
Leveraging Big Data to improve subscriber service management
June 6, 2012 12:06 am | by Stephen Collins, vice president of product marketing and business development at Active Broadband Networks | CommentsBroadband companies are already working with enormous volumes of data. Moving forward, those volumes are only going to increase, and to deal with it all, service providers are going to need to gain a more thorough understanding of how to handle “Big Data.”
In Perspective - Interior decorators
June 5, 2012 5:57 pm | by Brian Santo | CommentsCable operators may soon end up doing double duty for their subscribers, acting not only as their service providers, but also as their perpetual interior decorators – sort of like Elgin from the old "Murphy Brown" show.
Memory Lane - Nightmare on DVR Street
June 5, 2012 5:46 pm | by Stewart Schley, media and technology writer | CommentsFrom the evil Dr. Caligari of the silent film era to the freaky Ghostface of the modern “Scream” film series, Hollywood has produced an impressive lineup of scary characters over a 90-year run of horror movie-making. But no fictitious villain ever elevated Hollywood’s chill meter as high as a real-life industry entrant that made its premiere 13 years ago at CES.
Ciciora's Corner - Fast history: Part II
June 5, 2012 5:32 pm | by Walt S. Ciciora, expert on cable and consumer electronics issues | CommentsThe book “High Definition Television: The Creation, Development and Implementation of HDTV Technology” by Philip J. Cianci is an excellent book on the fascinating history of HDTV.
