June 2007

General

Verizon Under the Wire; Dodges CableCARD Deadline

June 30, 2007 : BY Motorola

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I put out feelers all last week about Verizon’s hope for a last-minute waiver before the July 1st CableCARD deadline… and came back empty-handed. But late yesterday the FCC made its long-awaited announcement: Verizon has been granted its waiver request and can continue shipping set-tops with integrated security.

It’s been interesting to watch the clock run down on Verizon. The company has been steadfast in its belief that a waiver was coming, but analysts were starting to show skepticism. The set-tops that Verizon uses for its FiOS TV deployments are Motorola boxes, but they’re different from the hardware Motorola sells to cable companies. With no order in for a “host” version of the Verizon set-tops, it’s unclear what the operator would have done if the FCC hadn’t handed out the 11th-hour reprieve.

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General

OCAP and CableCARD events

June 28, 2007 : BY Motorola

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Continuing with the week’s OCAP and CableCARD coverage, there are two events worth mentioning. Monday the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) ran an OCAP dog-and-pony show for the FCC. Not much new appears to have been announced, but a Broadcasting and Cable article mentions some of the OCAP features shown including video games and weather and traffic reports.

Meanwhile, there’s an FCC event taking place today starting at 4:00 pm in, of all places, Portland Maine. As of yesterday the event was going to include discussion of “compatibility between cable systems and consumer electronics equipment,” but oddly today it appears that agenda item has been deleted. The main focus is on localism and media ownership rules. If you’re interested, you can listen to the seven-hour (?!) audio webcast.

Finally, with the roll-call tallies in, it looks like attendance at NXTcomm was down this year, but SCTE Cable-Tec Expo attendance was up. Rock on cable engineers.

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General

Ten Things Only Industry Insiders Believe About CableCARD

June 27, 2007 : BY Motorola

Michael Vizard over at eWeek inspired me with his “10 Things They Believe in Silicon Valley but Nowhere Else.” Please note that the list below is my attempt at humor and does not in any way indicate the real opinions of Motorola, cable companies, industry reporters, or anyone else I’ve offended.

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10 Things Only Industry Insiders Believe About CableCARD

  1. CableCARD is a conspiracy that was started by TiVo (Humor, people, humor)
  2. CableCARD is a conspiracy that was created to keep Todd Spangler and Jeff Baumgartner in businessmcredit.jpg
  3. The seven-oh-seven deadline was originally six-six-six
  4. CableCARDs come with a line of credit and can be used at select local retail outlets instead of your Visa or Mastercard
  5. Two-way CableCARDs mean not only can you get video-on-demand and switched digital video, you can now send messages to Brian Roberts through your cable set-top
  6. Multi-stream CableCARDs generate multiple revenue streams per subscriber household and therefore greater ARPUmplayingcards.jpg
  7. CableCARDs were designed so the government can monitor our VoIP (er, I mean digital voice) phone calls
  8. The FCC is going to educate the public about CableCARDs by sponsoring the next World Poker Tour
  9. EBay is setting up special auctions for non-CableCARD set-tops that need to be sold after July 1st
  10. CableCARD 2.0 comes with social networking features that let you add VOD channels to your MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles

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General

Intel on Board with OCAP

June 26, 2007 : BY Motorola

Somehow I missed the news yesterday that Intel has signed a licensing agreement with CableLabs to support the Open Cable Application Platform (OCAP). What does this mean? Well, it means that CE companies and CableLabs are slowly resolving the issue of how to make two-way cable services available on CE devices.The July 1st CableCARD deadline is a mere five days away, and the hyper-focused attention of the media has generated serious discussion about how consumers are going to be able to access certain cable services from their retail CE devices. Specifically, most CE devices today are not certified to support two-way services, including video-on-demand (VOD) and switched digital video (SDV). And the major sticking point around getting certified has been OCAP.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about the CableCARD/OCAP debate. First, everyone wants the issue resolved. CE companies want to be able to offer more services. Cable operators want more people spending money on their services. And Motorola (which has nothing to do with how the issue actually gets settled) is in favor of anything that gets more people hooked on broadband networks.

Second, while OCAP has gotten something of a bad rap, consumers should be aware that the platform has a lot of potential to benefit mass audiences of cable TV. OCAP means more cable applications on the market faster. Whole-home DVR, Follow Me TV (whatever you want to call it), here we come.

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General

Countdown to CableCARD

June 25, 2007 : BY Motorola

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I’ve decided not to fight the inevitable CableCARD coverage rush leading up to next week’s July 1st deadline, and instead contribute to the melee.

But I’ll start the week with something nice and non-controversial.

Here’s a good list of the “host” set-tops (set-tops that support CableCARD) in Motorola’s product line:

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General

Tallying Bandwidth Expansion Techniques

June 22, 2007 : BY Motorola

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If you’re not going all Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH), you still have quite a few options for wringing more bandwidth out of your broadband network. I’m starting a tally of techniques. What have I missed?

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General

Going Green

June 21, 2007 : BY Motorola

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Since green electronics are all the rage, I had to post this quick note on the new Climate Counts Company Scorecard. Motorola scored at the upper end the spectrum in the electronics category – 60 out of a possible score of 100. To put that number in context, Apple scored a 2. Ouch.

One thing to note. It will be important in the years to come to measure environmental impact beyond the carbon imprint of devices. For example, think about the impact of the services that run on those devices. To deliver those services we’re creating a lot of energy, consuming an awful lot of power, and, no doubt, making a big impact on the environment.inconvenient-it-truth.jpg

Update: eWeek has a great slideshow up with stats on IT’s power/energy usage.

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General

NXTcomm Does Video

June 21, 2007 : BY Motorola

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Ed Zander presented one of the keynote speeches at NXTcomm yesterday and expounded on a theme that is literally ubiquitous at the moment: video everywhere. Where has this theme appeared recently? There’s a certain phone I won’t name coming out on June 29th that will allow access to YouTube. Verizon announced its one millionth FiOS customer yesterday and heavily promoted FiOS TV and the Home Media DVR service. And AT&T just announced a video sharing service to be launched on cell phones later this summer.

Xchange Magazine covered Ed Zander’s keynote and noted that the Motorola CEO has decided that video is the next killer app for mobility. Sure it is. But you could also say the reverse is true. Mobility is the next killer app for video.

Despite the fact that Motorola is known for its mobile devices, the executive leadership knew back in 2000 that video and mobility would one day go hand in hand; each the killer app for the other. As Zander put it in his keynote yesterday: “Television is where you get the content, and the mobile device is where you take it.” Everyone at NXTcomm certainly agrees.

P.S. The photos above aren’t actually from NXTcomm but another recent Motorola event. Official NXTcomm photos still to come.

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General

FiOS – One Million and Counting

June 20, 2007 : BY Motorola

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Verizon used the NXTcomm event today to announce the one millionth FiOS customer. And, to add a human touch (albeit a cheesy one), Verizon has embedded a video on its policy blog showing the family that put FiOS over that one-million milestone. (For those who don’t live in the area, that’s a Long Island accent you hear.)

Congrats to Verizon on the FiOS success. Now let’s talk a little bit about what made it possible.

First and foremost, there’s the optical network carrying Verizon’s broadband signals. If you haven’t followed the Passive Optical Network (PON) alphabet game, we’ve gone through APON, BPON and GPON, just to name a few. When Motorola started providing optical gear to Verizon in ’05, it was BPON. Part of a five-year contract, that announcement followed on the heels of an ’04 agreement for Motorola to provide video infrastructure and set-top equipment, and led to an ’06 agreement where Motorola was one of three vendors selected to provide GPON technology. (Need that in visual form? See above.)

For those who aren’t so much into the optical networking thing, Motorola has also acted as the engine behind one of Verizon’s coolest and most-coveted TV services: Home Media DVR. I’m always a little surprised by how relatively little coverage the service has gotten. In the Verizon video, the family talks about the advantages of not having to schedule time on one DVR in the living room. As the youngest family member says, “There’s a button (on the remote) and it even says DVR and it goes right to it. So it’s really easy.” (Okay, so she could have been reading from a script for all I know, but the service is cool.)

Again, congrats to Verizon on the FiOS milestone – one million and counting. And a pat on the back to all the engineers (including an awful lot of Motorola ones) who made it possible.

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General

More Motorola at NXTcomm

June 19, 2007 : BY Motorola

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There are a couple more Motorola announcements out of NXTcomm today: North American availability of Motorola’s IP DSLAM portfolio and the launch of Motorola’s GPON solution. More details to come, but note that the GPON solution is the one Verizon will be deploying in its FiOS network. Motorola has a relatively long history of providing optical networking equipment to Verizon and was of one of three technology providers selected for GPON roll-outs.

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