gateway

The Gateway and the CableCard

The “gateway” – half cable modem, half set-top box – is slowly advancing into American living rooms, as part of the gigantic transition to video distribution based on Internet Protocol.

That’s jargon for “through the cable modem, to screens that connect that way,” instead of through the old fashioned juncture between the set-top box and the television.

Which raises this question: Will cable operators be required to keep buying boxes with a CableCard slot, and spending $50 per CableCard, as set-tops morph into gateways?

Answer: Yep. It’s a law that’s still on the books, and it goes like this: If you make a two-way, high definition box, you need a CableCard.

And then there’s the “even thoughs:” Even though every TV maker in the land stopped making TV sets with CableCard slots. Even though the FCC itself is anything but hot on CableCards.

Even though there are deployable alternatives – like the unheralded but significant work Comcast did to make its digital terminal adaptors (DTAs) capable of firing up in either major security mode (Cisco or Motorola), without CableCards.

On the “What the…” meter, this registers somewhere between ridiculous and nefarious: You’re ordered by law you to do something you already do (secure content) — but differently, and in a way that you costs a lot more.

You do it. None of your competitors have to do it. Just you.

Later, the industry segment that initiated the law in the first place (consumer electronics companies) stops supporting it. The enforcing agency (FCC) repeatedly backs away from it.

What will happen? Keep an eye on Charter, led by the guy (Tom Rutledge, CEO) who led Cablevision when it got its CableCard waiver, back in 2009. Its November 2012 request for an FCC waiver could be granted or denied any day now, and could set the tone for what happens with CableCards inside gateways.

Also watch for proponents of “AllVid” (Best Buy, Google, Sony, TiVo, and others) to re-emerge, proposing ways to do things that are already happening, in-market — as though they aren’t already happening.

That’s a short look at the very long, complicated and expensive history of cable and CableCards. More to come.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

 

 

 

 

Time Warner Cable ATG West Part 6: Home Networking with Louis Williamson

Louis Williamson, VP of Advanced Engineering for Time Warner Cable (and, as an aside, the guy who figured out how to move video over fiber optic cable in the mid-1980s) explains new technologies developed home networking capabilities. TWC’s new set top boxes and (code named) “Santa Monica” design converge products and information, so that viewers can link all content in the house, and access it from the TV, or the PC, or the handheld. Directed and produced by the fabulous David Knappe with equally fabulous Joe Bondulich on camera and lighting.

Video courtesy Multichannel News.