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The Telecom Digest for December 15, 2013
Volume 32 : Issue 244 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
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Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 21:53:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: CPB Board hears troubling predictions
Message-ID: <a34e3c3b-b076-4a54-b886-38205477fa09@googlegroups.com>
By Dru Sefton, Current.org, December 10, 2013
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board members got an
| ominous preview Monday of the corporation's upcoming white
| paper about spectrum issues in public broadcasting.
|
| At a meeting at CPB's headquarters in Washington, D.C., Harry
| Hawkes of Booz & Co.'s media and technology practice told
| board members that if the FCC goes ahead with plans to clear
| 120 MHz of spectrum for use by mobile devices, 110 to 130
| pubcasting stations will need to shift due to repacking even
| if their operators don't participate in the auction.
|
| "That means that one-third of the system could have to change
| channels," noted Vincent Curren, CPB's c.o.o. "This will
| likely be more disruptive than the digital transition. This
| will be a major undertaking for our industry over the next
| several years."
Continued:
http://tinyurl.com/ncqpkll
The FCC should have thought of this before the DTV conversion. Back
then, they could have designed the allocations table that consolidated
all stations in each city-of-license into half (or fewer) the number
of analog channels.
Neal McLain
***** Moderator's Note *****
The real question is "What does a new DTV transmitter cost?", because
the answer to that question will tell us how much the PBS stations
will push back, and thus how long it will be before the added
bandwidth is available to mobile users.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 20:30:03 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: CPB Board hears troubling predictions
Message-ID: <l8if4b$2j2$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <a34e3c3b-b076-4a54-b886-38205477fa09@googlegroups.com>,
Bill Horne wrote:
>The real question is "What does a new DTV transmitter cost?",
Lots. But most stations won't have to buy a new transmitter; they'll
just have to have their existing transmitter retuned. And for many
pubcasters, broadcast transmission is an afterthought, the price they
pay for getting mandatory cable and satellite distribution, so they
don't invest in their facilities any more than they have to. (Such is
certainly the case for WGBH/WGBX here in Boston.) A much bigger
expense is likely to be antenna system replacement: even for stations
that are currently using a wideband antenna, repacking will almost
certainly require changes in directional patterns, and requiring many
currently omnidirectional stations to switch to directional antennas
(which will lead to increased operational costs if two or more
stations that now combine into a single aperture must now rent
separate apertures on a tower).
The stations that will lose the most will be the ones currently on UHF
who are forced to move to a VHF DTV channel, particularly if they end
up on low-band where the power limits are so low and QRM is so high
that they will be lucky to reach a small fraction of their
over-the-air audience (as the current low-V DTV stations have found).
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 23:26:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Cable guys: Cord-cutters live in the Bermuda Triangle with Bigfoot and E.T.
Message-ID: <9aba9c7d-fed8-4b2f-93ca-cd2917427623@googlegroups.com>
By Mark Sullivan, TechHive, Dec 4, 2013
| The cable cord-cutter has become a bit like the UFO. Lots of
| people, many in the tech community, want to believe this
| person is everywhere, while a whole lot of other people --
| many in and around the cable industry -- deny his existence
| altogether.
|
| But one class of cord-cutter -- the kind who cancels cable TV
| service but holds on to cable broadband service -- has finally
| begun showing up in the financial reports of cable companies,
| and in the speeches of their executives.
|
| Time Warner Cable's CFO Arthur Minson addressed the phenomenon
| at an investor conference in Barcelona last week, saying that
| his company is seeing an increased number of single-service
| broadband customers, as well as an increased number of
| customers who buy faster Internet service tiers. In other
| words, more and more cable customers are paying for Internet
| service, but eschewing Comcast's TV content and phone service.
| This development suggests a growing segment of cable customers
| want to download a lot of rich media--like video.
|
| Time Warner Cable, the second largest U.S. cable company, has
| roughly 5.5 million "single-play" customers, Minson said.
| About 3 million of those buy TV service alone, while about 2.5
| million buy broadband service only. He didn't say how quickly
| either group was growing or shrinking.
|
| But the overall subscriber group numbers suggest that the
| broadband-only group is growing while the TV-only group is
| shrinking. In its most recent quarterly report, TWC reported
| that it lost 6 percent of its video customers over the past
| year, but grew its broadband customer base by 1.7 percent.
| TWC says that it's counting on home broadband sales -- and
| upselling existing broadband customers to higher service
| tiers -- for its future growth.
Continued:
http://tinyurl.com/nbo3qp4
Well, I'm one of those broadband-only customers who "cut the cord" on
cable TV. But it's not because I want to "download a lot of rich
media-like video" -- it's because I switched to satellite so I can
access programming that the local cable company doesn't carry
(e.g. MSNBC, C-Span, RFD-TV, Rural TV, SiriusXM). Although I
occasionally watch YouTube videos, I have never downloaded any media.
As I drive around town and nearby rural areas, I see satellite
antennas on a substantial proportion of the houses. I'd guess over
50% homes have dishes.
I also note that a lot of these homes are connected to the cable TV
network. Maybe these are old abandoned connections formerly used for
TV. But I suspect that a lot of them are broadband customers.
The article continues:
| Still, while the stats in the SEC filings strongly suggest
| that the numbers of broadband-only customers are growing
| rapidly, they don't prove it. That's because a high number of
| cable customers still buy some combination of TV, broadband,
| and phone service from the cable company. So a good chunk of
| the 86,000 new broadband accounts added by Charter, for
| example, may have also bought voice or TV.
Maybe they don't prove it. But the fact remains that I see lots of
houses with satellite dishes and cable drops. They sure look like
broadband-only customers to me.
And I'm speaking as a former cable guy who did exactly the same thing
myself: switched to satellite for video but kept my connection to the
cable company for broadband.
Neal McLain
***** Moderator's Note *****
ISTM that the real question is "How many cable subscribers have
phone service through cable providers?", because IMHO that's a
better indicator of the cable operators' future.
If those who "cut the cord" on cable TV offerings are choosing VoIP
phone service instead of the cable operators' dial tone, or are
retaining existing POTS dial tone, then cable companies will have to
look forward to a future where all their money will come from 'ping
and pipe' offerings.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 20:41:15 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Cable guys: Cord-cutters live in the Bermuda Triangle with Bigfoot and E.T.
Message-ID: <l8ifpb$2tr$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <9aba9c7d-fed8-4b2f-93ca-cd2917427623@googlegroups.com>,
Bill Horne writes:
>ISTM that the real question is "How many cable subscribers have
>/phone/ service through cable providers?", because IMHO that's a
>better indicator of the cable operators' future.
>
>If those who "cut the cord" on cable TV offerings are choosing VoIP
>phone service instead of the cable operators' dial tone, or are
>retaining existing POTS dial tone,
All of the "cord-cutters" I know don't have a landline, and have never
had one since they moved out of their parents' houses. They get their
television through Netflix and Hulu, and their telephone service from
the cellular oligopoly. They think I'm ridiculously old-fashioned for
continuing to pay Verizon $30 a month, plus ever-increasing fees and
taxes, for a landline that is only ever used by phone-spammers. Why
don't you just port it to Google Voice, they ask. In point of fact,
even the ones who still have video service from the cableco don't have
landlines. It's only the ones over 40 who still have anything like a
"home phone".
I don't like keeping all my eggs in one basket, so I have video
service from Comcast and (business) data service from RCN. Yes, it is
more expensive (by quite a bit), but it's worth it to me. Not so much
for many other people.
-GAWollman
---
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
***** Moderator's Note *****
Guilty. Home phones are doing and/or have gone through the Negroponte
switch, as you point out.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 14:46:48 +0000 (UTC)
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Challenge-Response Now Available On CallCentric
Message-ID: <l8ci8o$lpa$1@leila.iecc.com>
> [ Callcentric's new press N if you're a human ]
>Yeah... my immediate reaction upon reading the announcement was "I hope
>that's not all there is to it...".
No, Callcentric has fairly elaborate call treatments. Rather than
guessing, you can read about them here:
http://www.callcentric.com/features/call_treatments
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail.
http://jl.ly
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 12:15:04 -0500
From: Pete Cresswell <PeteCress@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Challenge-Response Now Available On CallCentric
Message-ID: <b54pa9183eemrr37j7kvskhjgqih83v6kh@4ax.com>
Per John Levine:
>
>No, Callcentric has fairly elaborate call treatments. Rather than
>guessing, you can read about them here:
>
>
>http://www.callcentric.com/features/call_treatments
>
Reading that, I come away thinking they have the whitelist part, but not
the auto-add-to-whitelist or 3-strikes-and-you're-out.
Having said that, they have me seriously considering porting my POTS
number to CallCentric and discontinuing my Verizon service altogether.
As it is, I have all non-800/non911 outgoing routed to CallCentric -
with CallCentric spoofing my Verizon number.... but have all incoming on
Verizon and all outgoing 800/911 on Verizon.
I'd guess it will take wider deployment of challenge-response features
and a year or two before telemarketers adapt and start calling the same
number over-and-over - issuing a different digit in response to the
challenge with each call until they get a connection.
--
Pete Cresswell
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