Mike, thank you for taking time to compose your note.
mike_camden said:
I think that your statement is unfair to the OP. Over the past couple of months, I too have followed all of the posts on this board regarding SDV very closely. While the thread you previously referenced does provide a good description of SDV and much follow-up, the discussion is too scattered to succinctly address the questions posited by the OP (the same ones that I also have).
Where else on the Web is the subject treated as deeply, with the breadth of aspects covered, with laymans as well as accurate technical explanations provided, with multiple points of view described? It's a little intimidating for new folks to post, and it is best to be offer welcoming responses or none at all. Naturally many new posters are unaware if an issue such as this one has been discussed backwards and forwards for the last few years. It is also common for folks not to use search effectively or get frustrated by the dispersed nature of the information. But it is also easy to understand the frustration of some regulars to read yet another note that suggests no one has been paying attention to this issue, and that in particular Tivo management either stupid or trying to pull a fast one on consumers. It's like blaming the rape victim. There's considerable emotion there, and it is also proper to understand that many feel that consumers and Tivo are being victimized by cable companies.
mike_camden said:
I would caution anyone to get their hopes up too much about how a possible change to a Democrat administration would help the situation. ...I think the only thing that is going to level the playing field is if other companies such as MS, Sony, Intel, etc that also have a lot of cash and can play the political game at the same level as the cable companies...
I'm not sure what portion of the formula you feel is inadequate. At the rawest level, there are four parts. 1) political players that can achieve political advantage by playing to consumer issues 2) a deep level of consumer disgust over being chiselled by "walled garden" (including cell phones) approaches that the politician can tap into. 3) commercial interests that are mobilized and highly motivated to see an outcome that would be produced by an activist policy to redress the injustices. 4) likeliness of the political players coming to power.
Motive and opportunity. All the pieces are in place so I regard it as inevitable that MSO will be facing a significantly alterred regulatory environment if they don't settle things on their own terms while they still have the initiative. Internal institutional politics being what they are- they will likely just wait and see what materializes rather than attempt to anticipate and pre-empt.
You yourself mentioned 3. The November 2006 letter reveals a formidable array of companies. Actually, the current adminstration could still tap into this force as well. Possibly Chairman Martin is interested in taking real action. His words at CES were encoraging, but considering the sluggish pace towards a ruling on basic bidirectional, I don't see it. It's been 6 months since he made those remarks and what we are seeing is that discussion of the issue is being removed from meeting agendas, not added- and that is just the preliminary discussion phase they won't even enter into. My guess is that Martin will continue to decline to enforce the 1996 Telecom law. Still, extreme pessimists were proven wrong. The integration ban was not delayed yet another year, and waivers to major cable companies could have been but weren't issued.
mike_camden said:
How do we really know the channels "that nobody is going to watch" are the only ones which will end up on SDV? Sometimes I think wishful thinking seems to supercede an understanding of economics on this board.
Actually, it is precisely economics that drives this estimation. SDV rollout can be performed on a per channel basis, and channels can be reassigned in and out of SDV at the provider's discretion. Certainly, if the SDV node switches were free, they would make all channels switchable. But if getting a near instantaneous switch to a channel were an inexpensive proposition it would have been done long ago. In a city with a high number of users per node, you will have many channels that are always being watched. So, the SDV switch and head end support for it is wasted. Even in areas where there are low numbers of users, there is often a correlation between geographic location, socio-economic group and viewing patterns, so you still will have channels being watched continuously. And really, "coninuously" is really the wrong question. The key to look at is not the low load times, but what happens during prime time when you are trying to optimize the greatest number of revenue opportunities with the same size pipe. And look at what is happening on the network- the common channels at that time are being watched. Using an SDV switch on one of them delivers no benefit whatsoever. So why waste the money.
Since the percentage of analog cable households remains near 50%, the channels devoted to this segmnet cannot go to SDV until there is a significant outlay for digital boxes. Even for digital customers with boxes, while some SDV systems support the ability of legacy set top boxes to change channels via proprietary RF switching, other schemes require new set top boxes. So there is significant latency (as with most CableLabs plans) in the ramp up to SDV.
This is the cost side of the rationale for the phased implementation of SDV. They can add more as need requires, but there is a point of diminishing returns. It is anyone's guess where that point is, but even if the number is 50%, then it represents a significant number of channels that owners of third party boxes cannot access.
So it has nothing to do with wishful thinking. They aren't going to go to high percentages soon, but it is irrelevant anyway. The conclusion is the same- even if consumers are prevented from changing channels to one quarter or one half of the channels they used to recieve, they are going to be pissed off.
The ire needs to be focussed where the problem lays- the FCC.
Folks may wish to express their opinions to members of the Senate Commerce committee and/or their congressional representatives. It's time for the FCC to complete implementation of the 1996 Telecom law. More than enough time has been given to the cable industry. It's time to bust some heads.
Or are they concerned about third-party devices getting video content from sources other than through them (e.g., Unbox)?
