Last week we exhibited at The Cable Show in Los Angeles, CA. This event provides a forum for all the Cable MSOs to gather to discuss content/programming, TV networks and much of the infrastructure to deliver next generation video.

Alongside the very Hollywood-esque show is CableNet. This always well-attended “product demo-focused” pavilion of the show, organized by CableLabs, provides insight into timely key themes such as interactive TV, video on demand, and broadband over cable. It gives operators the chance to see a broad range of product demonstrations within a very focused area.

Sandvine took the opportunity to demonstrate its latest product in our Network Business Intelligence Portfolio.  Network Data Analytics is focused on providing an executive level dashboard view of how subscribers are using their broadband service. It aims to answer questions like “How do my DOCSIS 3 subscribers use their service compared to the DOCSIS 2 subscribers?” or “Where will I get the best return on my CAPEX budget?”. It was great to see the many cable operators who  dropped by to explore. They were quite intrigued by the flexibility of the product and how it could potentially help them to enhance their businesses and their customers quality of experience. After all, providing better broadband is the end goal.

In addition to a wide range of operators, we were pleased to host FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, when he dropped by to see some of the trends that Sandvine is currently reporting on.

Were you at the show? Please share your better broadband observations and experiences.

Thursday’s panel at CTIA captured the key common theme of this year’s show – how to continue the innovation of the U.S. mobile telecommunications industry with the help, not the hindrance, of regulators.  The panel represented a novel mix of entertainment, with 3D advocate James Cameron, social networking, epitomized by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, and the “U.S. government CTO” Aneesh Chopra.  Mr. Chopra sidestepped the audience-popular remarks posed by the CNBC moderator which questioned the effectiveness of regulations on connectivity growth.  He preferred to leave the hard answers to the FCC, stating that his role is to leverage the existing infrastructure for utmost benefit. Read the rest of this entry »

On September 21, 2009, The US Federal Communications Commission chairman, Julius Genachowski, gave a speech in which he outlined two new principles to augment the “Four Freedoms” originally articulated in 2004 by then chairman Michael Powell. The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination — stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications. An implicit assumption is present in this principle (and in the speech as a whole) that discrimination is a bad thing.
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One of the themes in the Berkman Report is that of the role of government investment in broadband. This post, from Ars Technica, shows how public money can be used as a threat or as an investment floor. In this case, a municipality chose to start building fiber to the home. The local telecom wasn’t too happy about this, dragged their feet, took it to court, but ultimately got some trucks and trenchers together and got to work. Now the consumers have a choice of 2 distinct fibers. That is probably too much cost, and its likely that an open-access policy would have helped… open-access on the municipal fiber.

Now, why might a municipality be able to invest, and a telecom company cannot? The municipality might have a different weighting on factors such as return on investment. Faced with the prospect of 0.01% interest, the local government might feel infrastructure has a better payback. The telecoms company might instead be looking for a 24 month return on capital. The municipality may also be able to weight intangible factors like increase in property tax due to higher income people settling there.