Comcast going the way of Video over IP

[goaliebob99]

Looks like Comcast is going the way of uverse, only difference is Comcast actually has the bandwidth to support it and there shouldn't be any restrictions.

Comcast has a IPTV project in the works called Excalibur.

Light Reading Cable - Video - Comcast Forges 'Excalibur' for IPTV - Telecom News Analysis

Comcast is going to change the way America looks at television. Sound exciting? Then be a part of our next big thing. Our customers want access to entertainment from every source and we are going to bring it to them! Whether it is their TV, PC, smartphone, or the next cool device, we are building a next-generation platform that will serve them all and provide a seamless experience. It is the converged world we have all been waiting for.

The relatively few advantages that uverse FTTN had over the cableco juggernauts are being slowly but steadily eroded.

 

[Mongo53]

Don't get too excited, I'm leaving COMCAST for Satellite over how poorly (or shrewdly) they've handled their digital transition.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act required the Cable Companies to develop and use Cable Card technology, NOT only for the open market but in their equipment as well. Its 14 years later, and the Cable Co's are so inept they still haven't been able to get the technology off the ground. Companies this inept go out of business in a free market, but COMCAST post record profits and buys NBC. If that isn't enough evidence that the Cable Co's aren't operating in a free market, if you get the equipment out a pool, without any choice, NOT the configuration you want (which in a free market you get to buy exactly what you want), they'll tell you to play games of bringing the equipment back to the office every week and try to trade it in for a model configured like you want.

I suspect COMCAST will deploy IPTV like their digital transition, exploit it , make it proprietary, to drive out competition, expand their monopoly and provide their customers with less service at the same price, but all the benefit that of all those sales pitches talk about will be available, just have to pay COMCAST 20% to 50% more than their already overpriced service.

14 years and dozens of technologies already developed and implemented by other industries, that would be perfectly valid solutions, and the cable co's just can't seem to get any of them to work, except the technologies that expand their monopoly past providing service. No wonder the FCC is furious.

 

[riffjim4069]

Mongo, I agree with everything you're saying...however, satellite was way more expensive than my bundled Verizon FiOS TV service, and the picture quality cannot compare - it is night an day difference between FiOS HD and satellite HD-Lite. Hopefully, the FCC's recent initiative will be implemented and cable/satellite/telco provider required to provide customers with a gateway device, based on open-standards, by 2012 in which customer will be able to use their own consumer electronic devices inside their own home without all the BS and fees.

 

[Mongo53]

I hope your right, but considering the experience of CableCard, I'm skeptical.

Unless the FCC plays hard ball and starts fining the Cable Co's big bucks OR gets real innovative, like hand over development of the Household Gateway to the Consumer Electronics Industry, NOT the Cable Co's, like they did with Cable Card.

Probably the best solution is deregulation, it might requiring breaking up the Cable Co's like they did with the Ma Bell's; separate the actual cable network and service providing, require local governments to allow fiber optic as well as cable strung on their utilities. Introduce true competition on a level playing field and you'll see all these problems go away.

Satellite has incredible barriers to competition compared to cable, its NOT fair to argue they produce competition in the Cable Industry. If you think about it, one company has a cable running directly to your house, the others have to launch satellites in space and beam a signal from space to your house, and then have to come up with all sorts of solutions to the incompatibilities with the technologies, Cable Co's should be utterly embarrassed they lose any market share to satellite.

I'm currently shopping around, and there can always be hidden fees I don't see in the literature, but it really looks like Dish Network will provide me better service at lower cost then COMCAST. Even after COMCAST jacks up the fee for Cable Modem, since I have no alternative, when I cancel my TV. And even after the 1st year introductory rate, the total will be a little less for Satellite and Cable Modem, then Cable and Cable Modem and I'll get more service than COMCAST.