In the small, but growing, world of “time shifted” television, there are really only two technologies that count: Personal Video Recorder (PVR) service and Video-on-Demand (VOD). Now there may actually be a third.
Last week, Time Warner Cable announced that it was going to activate its network PVR (nPVR) service before the end of this year. Called “Start Over,” the service will allow digital cable TV subscribers to back up to the start of a program that is already in progress. This is accomplished by recording and storing the programming at a cable head-end, an architecture and storage model that’s very similar to VOD.
Just imagine missing the first thirty minutes of a favorite show, but then using your remote control to zip back to the beginning of the show – without pre-recording any of the programming. However, there is one dose of reality: cable subscribers using Start Over will not be able to fast-forward through commercials, something that will certainly be popular with Madison Avenue.
Time Warner Cable has chosen the town of Irmo, South Carolina as its nPVR test bed.
In addition to developing the technology of the Start Over system, Time Warner Cable has also had to obtain the programming rights for the service. For the initial launch, which reportedly will put the new service in front of about 10,000 customers, the operator will Start Over-enable programming from 60 networks.
The networks include cable nets such as CNBC, Bravo, SCI FI, TRIO, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, HBO, Fox News, and CNN, as well as local NBC and WB affiliates.
In terms of using the service, Time Warner says that an on-screen prompt will alert viewers if they are viewing a Start Over-enabled program. Pressing the “Select” button on the remote control will immediately restart the show.
While this announcement is the first of its kind, cable operators in the US (particularly Time Warner Cable and Cablevision) have been experimenting with nPVR services for several years, but getting permission from the TV broadcasters and movie studios to record and store their content has always been the deal killer. In this case though, Time Warner managed to bring in the content developers early on in the product development stage. Although this service currently looks like nothing more than a field trial, In-Stat believes that the nPVR model has solid potential in the years to come. We will cover the size of the market and the impact of nPVR services in our Multimedia Entertainment Equipment service.
Digital Loop Carriers (DLCs) have been around since the late 1970s. The first generation of DLCs were pure narrowband systems that terminated POTS and special services (e.g. ISDN, private lines, Centrex, payphones) in outside plant cabinets and aggregated the traffic to the CO to reduce the number of copper lines required to run all the way to the CO. The second generation of DLCs was introduced in the 1990s. These were called Next-Generation DLCs. These DLCs offered fiber backhaul to the CO (instead of DS-1 on copper), a GR-303 interface to the circuit switch in the CO that allowed for statistical concentration of voice traffic, and DSL line cards to extend the reach of DSL to more subscribers. These Next-Generation DLCs are now commonly called Broadband Loop Carriers (BLCs) because they terminate broadband DSL lines and provide integrated packet trunking of all traffic over fiber to the CO.
The new third generation of DLCs that has been introduced over the past couple of years and continues to be launched by more vendors, is called Multi-Service Access Nodes (MSANs) or Multi-Service Access Platforms or Gateways. MSANs support fiber access as well as the POTS and DSL copper access lines supported on earlier DLCs. These support Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTP) Passive Optical Network (PON) access architectures or active point-to-point gigabit Ethernet fiber access. MSAN usage for FTTP deployments is relatively small now but will be important over the long term as more service providers extend fiber all the way to the customer premise to provide the highest possible bandwidth access to support IPTV services and high-speed Internet access. Verizon is deploying Tellabs and Motorola MSANs to enable its FTTP rollouts, which will enable their new FiOS TV service.
MSANs also provide VoIP media gateway functionality (and H.248 interworking with softswitches) to enable service providers to efficiently migrate to VoIP network infrastructure from their traditional PSTN networks. MSANs are likely to be the longer-term trend for deployment rather than deploying dedicated remote DSLAMs because the service provider can provide POTS and DSL services on the same box, and provide remote VoIP media gateway functionality for all analog voice circuits with the same product. MSANs are also more flexible than dedicated FTTP equipment in that they support DSL and POTS as well as fiber access lines.
Wireless is impacting wireline usage, both for local and long distance service. While wireline service continues to account for the majority of residential phone use, it is being eroded by wireless voice services. According to In-Stat survey results, of those respondents that use wireless, 37 percent indicated that the use of their cell phone had decreased their local phone usage, and 44 percent indicated it had decreased their long distance usage. These results are similar to those found in the 2004 survey, where 34 percent of wireless users had decreased local usage and 43 percent of users had decreased long distance usage.
The decreasing use of wireline for voice calls is the key concern of most traditional telecom providers (for both local exchange carriers and long distance providers). In-Stat’s consumer research clearly shows that use of wireless phones has significantly decreased wireline phone usage for BOTH local and long distance services. However, In-Stat did find that most consumers are not interested in completely “cutting the cord” and thus replacing their landline altogether. Less than 20 percent of current wireless users plan to “cut the cord” in the next 12 months.
