Cablevision Breaks the Speed Barrier and More

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Cablevision is going renegade. Unlike many other operators, the company has come out against bandwidth caps. And now to add to that rebel stance, Cablevision is introducing a new speed tier at $99.95 per month with 101 Mbps downstream. That’s higher than anything else offered in the US, and marks the first time we’ve seen someone break the 100 Mbps barrier on this continent. It’s remarkable that only 18 months ago we were looking at 20 Mbps as a record speed tier. It’s a wonder what competition (and DOCSIS 3.0 technology) will do.

Cablevision has also made headlines by offering free Wi-Fi access to subscribers at certain hotspots in its footprint. As many have pointed out, the MSO is going all out to counteract Verizon, which has come on strong in the NYC area. What’s interesting is how innovative Cablevision is willing to be. Remember, Cablevision is also the cable company fighting for Network DVR. It may not be one of the largest players on the scene, but Cablevision continues to do interesting things.

Full press release after the jump.

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Comcast teams up with Sony Style at Philly HQ

In a trip over to Comcast’s Flash Drive building a while back, I noticed the “coming soon” sign on a space designed for a new Sony Style store. I thought it a bit curious to have an unrelated CE store housed in Comcast’s headquarters so I took a quick photo. Turns out Comcast and Sony … Read more

Infonetics Analyst Jeff Heynen on Home Networks, Bandwidth Caps, & More

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The analyst firm Infonetics came out with a report this week on the Broadband CPE market. CPE stands for customer premises equipment and refers to the home devices attached to a broadband network – everything from modems, to set-tops, and lately new gadgets like femtocells and a variety of home management controllers. Jeff Heynen, author of the report, sees short-term, recession-driven declines in the market, but also projects longer-term growth. I interviewed Jeff for a more detailed account of what types of gadgets he things we’ll see from cable and telco providers over the next several years. Here’s what he had to say.

Interview with Jeff Heynen, Directing Analyst, Infonetics Research

Q. One of the things you mention in your report is that you think we’ll see growth in broadband connections from 2010 to 2013 to support “converged” services – “voice, video, and high-speed Internet now, and home monitoring and automation services later.” What kinds of products do you think will support these services? Will we see more devices like the Verizon Hub and the AT&T HomeManager? They don’t seem to be getting much traction now.

A. Those two products are very early concepts for how home communications systems might work. The traction for those products is bad for any number of reasons, including macroeconomic conditions, their price points, and a general confusion among subscribers as to their utility. I really think both providers missed out on integrating some femtocell capabilities in those devices, rather than introducing separate femtocell gateways with yet another recurring fee. Why not combine the two, increase mobile reception in the home, while providing a low-cost, high-featured VoIP line to increase ARPU on a fixed broadband connection?

In the short-term, we really see growth in digital home gateways, which combine a modem, gateway, IAD (EMTA), and some type of home networking function (MoCA, HPNA, G.hn, etc.). Operators will be able to monitor these devices and their performance remotely and effectively move their sphere of influence into the home to ensure the stable performance of all their services, especially video.

Q. With potential growth in home monitoring and automation services, do you think we’ll see more supporting products (like cameras and home controllers) come to market through retail, through service providers, or through a hybrid retail-product-bundled-with-service model?

A. I think the hybrid approach, where operators distribute their own systems, but also have their own areas within retail stores, selling bundled packages is the likeliest scenario.

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DTV Coupon Exchange

Retrevo aims to solve the DTV transition converter coupon dilemma with a new exchange program on their site.

A Sneak-Peek Pic from FrameChannel

Sneak-peek screenshot of new FrameChannel UI due in February

Chances are reasonably high that you’ve never heard of FrameChannel. Wireless photo frames are still new in consumer adoption terms, and the idea of a content provider for these frames is a bit counter-intuitive. (Aren’t you just supposed to put your own pics on them?) Nonetheless, FrameChannel is expanding rapidly. At CES, FrameChannel was represented in about twenty different booths, and over the holiday season, ten different companies sold digital frames with access to FrameChannel content. Since its founding two years ago, parent company FrameMedia has inked deals with 30-40 providers including Reuters, Getty Images, People.com, WeatherBug, and at least one financial news aggregator. Want RSS feeds of your own photos from one the many online photo sites? You can get that with FrameChannel too.

FrameMedia has a good head start in what promises to be an interesting new media space. Think of a customized online portal, and then picture it on a frame in your living room. Microsoft’s interested, and has its own beta FrameIt service (more on that later). There’s also reason for other large aggregators like Yahoo and Google to get in on the game. But, for right now, FrameChannel appears to be ahead of everyone. And FrameMedia has a plan for it to stay that way.

In talking to COO and co-founder Jon Feingold last week, the key to FrameChannel’s future success is both distribution and the ability to deliver content intelligently. For example, if you’re tagged in a photo on Facebook, or there’s a live game happening with one of your favorite sports teams, FrameMedia’s goal is to have FrameChannel deliver that data when it’s important to you, i.e. in the moment, but probably not so much in a week, or two, or three. FrameMedia is also laser focused on integrating with as many photo sharing sites and social networks as possible. The company wants to make sure you can access your content no matter where it’s stored, in addition to the best of everything else on the Web.

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Evolution of the Verizon Hub

Tech specs are still fuzzy, but what we do know is that this is a POTS-based cordless phone system with a touchscreen for Internet access and integration with Verizon wireless phone services. It’s meant to act as a digital photo frame, note board, family calendar, and widget station all at once.

The Evolution of HP TouchSmart

Most of what we encounter at CES is shiny, new tech. So it was a nice change a pace to learn a bit more about the evolution of the HP TouchSmart experience at CntrStg yesterday… with a hand crafted prototype. One of the original conceptions of TouchSmart was a touchscreen coffee table, dubbed Misto. And … Read more

Kodak in the Living Room

I stopped by the Kodak booth to check out their Wi-Fi photo frames (also getting FrameChannel content), but spent most of my time playing with the Kodak Theatre HD Player. It was launched last fall, but only online and in select Best Buy stores. It’s basically just another media extender – YouTube, Internet radio stations, … Read more