Posted on February 8, 2010 by Mari Silbey
There are several possible reasons for upgrading to an FTTH network, but they boil down to this: increasing data speeds and improving video services. That said, operators do not have to tackle both issues at the same time. An FTTH solution with an RF return path allows operators to increase data speeds while still maintaining existing RF equipment for video delivery.
Late last week, Motorola announced that Medicine Park is deploying Motorola’s GPON solution with fully-integrated RF return path. It’s another rural win for the Access Networks business, and Medicine Park will be using the FTTH network for faster Internet speeds while continuing to deliver video via RF set-tops.
From the press release:
“Motorola has an unparalleled track record in FTTH networks with customers large and small around the world,” says Edward Hilliary, Jr. of Medicine Park. “We chose to work with Motorola because of its technology and its real-world deployment experience. We’ve also been impressed with the way Motorola develops evolving technologies, making sure that the network upgrades we make today can support the demands and innovation of tomorrow.”
Filed under: Fiber, Internet, Motorola News, TV | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 4, 2010 by Mari Silbey
The Over-the-Top Video Conference (OTTcon) took place this week, and while I couldn’t make the trip out to San Jose, I did get a copy of Motorola’s presentation at the event. Director of Business Development Craig Bender spoke, and his talk addressed both the challenges and opportunities in incorporating OTT video with traditional cable- and telco-provided services. The prospect is daunting when you consider issues of content management and legacy technology, but it’s less so if you go in with a phased approach. The first phase for operators today is to upgrade existing VOD services.
Here are five recommendations for improving VOD in the short term and preparing for the integration of traditional VOD systems with OTT video.
- Add Live Capture
Think “Start Over” type functionality. The idea is to create short turnaround times for making live TV into on-demand content.
- Add Branded Extras
Bios, behind-the-scenes clips, outtakes, etc. These are the types of assets consumers expect based on their online experiences.
- Use Targeting for Higher CPMs
We’ve talked about advanced advertising for a long time. Implementation will improve revenue.
- Provide In-Channel VOD
Right now operators are still separating the live TV and VOD channel guides. Integration is key to fixing the user navigation experience.
- Add Bookmarking, Recommendation, and Community Features
Again, this is critical to improving user navigation. In a world of infinite content, consumers need a few guideposts.
Filed under: Cable, Internet, TV, Telecom, VOD | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 3, 2010 by Mari Silbey
This always happens during the week of earnings reports. We get the best information nuggets on what companies are doing and plan to do in the near future. To sum up, here are a few highlights from Motorola customers Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.
Comcast, er, Xfinity
Verizon
FiOS: After investing gajillions in fiber-to-the-home buildouts, Verizon is apparently slowing down on the wireline front for a while. Perhaps it’s earned the rest?- Internet symmetry: Meanwhile the FiOS service keeps growing. Verizon is back with another symmetrical data offering. At the highest tier, FiOS Internet subscribers can now sign on for 35 Mbps service downstream and upstream.
- TV improvements: Internet isn’t the only service getting an upgrade. VZ exec Joe Ambeault details the TV improvements in the Verizon at Home blog, including prettier widgets and faster response times.
AT&T
U-verse is up: AT&T had a strong fourth quarter with U-verse, and as a result it’s topped the two million subscriber mark. The telco had 2.1 million U-verse TV subscribers at the end of 2009.- Revenue is up: More subscribers means more revenue. AT&T also tripled its revenue from U-verse services – video, voice, and data – in 2009.
- Broadband is up: AT&T tallies total broadband connections at 17.3 million, up 171,000 in Q4. That includes business and consumer wireline subscribers and wireless customers with 3G cards.
Filed under: AT&T, Bandwidth, Comcast, Internet, TV, Verizon | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 2, 2010 by Mari Silbey
Motorola released the European results today of its Media Engagement study, and it appears that globalization has worked its wonders across at least two continents. The findings in Europe are remarkably similar to the findings in North America. Media habits are changing, and it’s not just a phenomenon of the “Millennial” generation.
The big themes from the research include anytime, anywhere access to content, content customization, and constant connectivity. Interestingly, North Americans report being twice as frustrated and stressed as their European counterparts when not connected, but that seems to be the biggest difference between the two populations. Here are some of the highlights from the European study:
- 62% of Europeans watch television on at least a weekly basis.
- 69% of Europeans are frustrated by having to search through so many content options to find the programming they want.
- Europeans are accessing content through a number of different mediums. In the UK, 52% are streaming Internet video, 34% are watching television on demand, and 29% are downloading video from the Internet at least once a week.
- 61% of Europeans expect to able to access content on the go, with that number rocketing to 75% among Spanish consumers.
- Technology influencers are found across the generations in Europe, with 39% of influencers falling in the Gen Xer category, and 33% coming from the Baby Boomer cohort.
Sweden is an interesting outlier in the European study. Swedish respondents said they would rather watch streaming Internet video (48%) compared to live television (28%). Live TV dominated as the viewing preference everywhere else.
Filed under: Internet, Motorola News, TV | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 1, 2010 by Mari Silbey
Here’s an interesting take from Multichannel News on DOCSIS 3.0 growth. According to the pub’s research division, cable operators are now offering DOCSIS 3.0-enabled service to “more than 52 million U.S. consumers and businesses.” And yet it doesn’t appear that adoption rates are very high. Multichannel News references Time Warner Cable as an example, stating that TWC signed up just 2,000 D3 subscribers in New York City during the first quarter of service availability.
There are two points of interest in the Multichannel News findings. First, as analyst Mike Paxton explains, cable companies are building out infrastructure to support higher Internet speeds than most people need at this point. That puts them in a stronger position than some of their competitors and lets the cable operators support continued service growth.
Second, DOCSIS 3.0 offers advantages beyond just higher peak downstream speeds. While cable operators may not have much of an audience yet for premium 50-Mbps tiers, they do have an interest in lowering the cost of providing bandwidth to all of their subscribers. And as Motorola’s Brian O’Neill explained a couple weeks ago, Motorola’s D3 hardware helps them do just that.
Bottom line: There aren’t a lot of subscribers taking advantage of DOCSIS 3.0 speeds yet, but cable operators are building for the future and, in some cases, lowering operating costs by migrating to the latest DOCSIS standard now.
Filed under: DOCSIS 3.0 | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 28, 2010 by Mari Silbey
People have long predicted the death of the set-top, and yet it’s alive and kicking. As part of today’s quarterly earnings presentation, Motorola announced that it has shipped 100 million digital set-tops to date. That’s Motorola all by itself. And half of that 100 million have shipped since October of 2006. Set-tops are only one part of the Motorola Home and Networks Mobility business, but the milestone is being widely celebrated throughout the organization. Not only does it represent a bunch of boxes sold; it also reflects a remarkable amount of engineering talent and innovation over the last several decades.
Here is a timeline of key events in Motorola’s television history dating from 1947 through the present day. I’ve listed a few of the highlights below, and you can click on the image for a larger view of the timeline itself.
Highlights:
- 1957: Jerrold Electronics, later part of General Instrument and Motorola, supplied equipment for the first experimental pay-TV. The Telemovies service offered movies to subscribers through cable television in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
- 1979: Jerrold Electronics, later part of General Instrument and Motorola, introduced multi-level scrambling and descrambling. The technology secured the video signals sent from a pay-TV network by scrambling them.
- 1992: General Instrument, later part of Motorola, made history on March 23rd with the world’s first all-digital broadcast of a high-definition television program. The broadcast transmitted a digital HD signal from a Washington D.C. public television station, WETA, to HDTV monitors in the US capital.
- 1999: General Instrument, later part of Motorola, achieved first volume commercial deployment of video-on-demand.
- 2003: Motorola introduced the DCT6208 set-top including HDTV receiver, broadband modem, and digital video recorder.
- 2006: In October, Motorola celebrated the shipment of its fifty millionth digital set-top.
- 2009: Motorola finished out the year by delivering a record number of digital and IP set-tops.
Filed under: CE, DVR, HDTV, Motorola News, TV, VOD | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 28, 2010 by Mari Silbey
It’s time for another update on quarterly shipment numbers. To review data from previous quarters, click on the Category tab to the left and select Quarterly Shipment Numbers. Here are some of the highlights from Q4, with the full breakdown of numbers after the jump.
Q4 2009 Shipment Numbers
Home and Networks Mobility highlights:
- Shipped 3.4 million digital entertainment devices, reaching milestone of shipping 100 millionth digital entertainment device
- Achieved 1 millionth fiber-to-the-home optical network terminal shipment
- Won contract to power the world’s first WiMAX-based electric utility smart metering for SP AusNet; shipped 10,000th WiMAX Access Point Base Site
- Selected to provide indoor TD-LTE broadband coverage at World Expo 2010 in Shanghai
- Announced intent to acquire BitBand Technologies Ltd., a company that specializes in video on demand for IPTV, and in January, acquired SecureMedia, Inc., a developer of software-based digital rights management and security systems for IP video
Read more »
Filed under: Quarterly Shipment Numbers | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 26, 2010 by Mari Silbey
The latest broadband stimulus awards were announced yesterday, with $310 million doled out by the Department of Agriculture for both “middle-mile” and “last-mile” projects. In the initial reports I read, it sounded like the last-mile allocations were being distributed widely among different types of broadband access technologies. The bullet points highlighted in most news stories mention new projects based on fiber-to-the-home, DSL, and WiMAX networking. However, a closer reading of the funding announcement paints a different picture.
Out of $310 million, just under $4 million has been dedicated to building out DSL networks in Alabama, and a scant $375,630 has been handed out for a WiMAX installation in Iowa. All of the other last-mile funds are being granted to projects relying on fiber-to-the-home deployments.
It’s an interesting statement on greenfield broadband in the US. If this round of funding (or Motorola’s recent ONT-shipment milestone) is any indication, fiber is a hands-down winner.
Filed under: Fiber, Internet, Networks | Leave a Comment »
Posted on January 25, 2010 by Mari Silbey
The boys over at EngadgetHD just ran a podcast interview with Motorola VP Bob Wilson on the subject of 3D. You can listen to the full 40-minute conversation for all of the details, but I thought I’d pick up on one of the discussion threads here. Will 3D finally push the TV industry from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4?
The answer is a nuanced one. In the early days of 3D (six months from now!) providers will deliver side-by-side images in 1080p at likely frame rates of 24 frames per second. This isn’t considered true-resolution 3D, but the demos are still promising. (The EngadgetHD hosts reported that DirectTV’s CES 3D demos were surprisingly good.) And critically, side-by-side video for 3D TV at 1080p 24 can be delivered using existing MPEG-2 equipment.
However, as providers move to true-resolution 3D, MPEG-4 is the only feasible way to handle delivery. As market forces take hold, and consumers start to demand higher-quality 3D video, there will be huge incentive to make the switch from MPEG-2. Bob Wilson believes 3D will ultimately be the catalyst for MPEG-4. The rate of the transition will depend on consumer behavior.
Speaking of timing, it looks like the first 3D TV content will hit homes in about six months. And true-resolution 3D is only two to three years out.
And speaking of the EngadgetHD guys, take a look at this exchange I had with editor/host Ben Drawbaugh about a year ago. He’s a 3D convert, and willing to tell you exactly why.
Filed under: 3D TV, Networks | Leave a Comment »
Posted on January 21, 2010 by Mari Silbey
After speculating on a VOD tipping point last summer, I happened on two reports this week suggesting the moment has arrived. First, the Kaiser Family Foundation ran a study that concluded that children between the ages of eight and 18 are spending less time watching “regularly-scheduled TV” than they were five years ago. However, overall TV consumption in that age group has gone up. With an average of four hours and 29 minutes spent watching TV every day, young people split the time 56% to 41% between live TV, and TV that is time-shifted, online, mobile, or watched on DVD. That’s worth repeating: 41% of the television content this age group watches is not live TV on a TV set.
The second report comes from Magnus Global. The research firm finds that VOD growth continues to outstrip DVR growth in the US. In looking ahead to 2015, Magnus Global predicts that VOD will reach nearly 66 million US households, while DVR households are only forecast to hit 53 million by the same date. Unfortunately, coverage of the Magnus Global report (I have not found a direct link) does not differentiate between household access and actual usage, but the implied conclusion seems to be that growth in VOD viewing will continue to outpace growth in DVR viewing. The convenience of cloud TV is winning out.
Filed under: DVR, TV, VOD | Leave a Comment »
