Mike Cookish on DOCSIS 3.0 / Listen to podcast on CMTS qualification

After interviewing Chris Kohler about the modems that passed CableLabs Cert Wave 58, it seemed only fair to talk with Motorola’s Mike Cookish as well about the bronze DOCSIS 3.0 qualification of Motorola’s cable modem termination system (CMTS). The interview is about 16 minutes long and fairly technical, so for those of you not interested in listening to the whole thing, there are a few choice quotes below the audio link.

On DOCSIS 3.0 speeds:
“Our customer J:COM in Japan on April 25th just launched a 160-megabit service.”

On DOCSIS 3.0 in the US:
“My expectation is that by the end of 2008, the top major operators [in the US]… will be in some form of deployment stage for channel bonding in most parts of their network.”

On the need for both greater overall upstream capacity and peak upstream bandwidth capacity
“The reality is that when operators really want to begin to deploy full-scale, widely-available, production-ready upstream channel bonding they’re going to need two things: they’re going to need to increase the capacity of the number of upstreams for fiber node or neighborhood, and then number two, they’re naturally going to need the DOCSIS 3.0 upstream channel bonding solution.

So in Motorola’s case, we’re working on the upstream portion of our decoupled I-CMTS solution called the RX32 that will provide 32 upstream channels per single card as well as upstream channel bonding, and it’s the two of these that we believe will give the operator the optimum mix of increased average capacity as well as increased peak bandwidth for channel bonding.”

On making more downstream channels available for DOCSIS delivery, and specifically video on the Web:
“There’s a few operators that have implemented a one gigahertz extension beyond the typical 860 [megahertz] plant extension, and I’ve talked to many operators that are going to put DOCSIS 3.0 channels above the 860 megahertz range to get more downstream capacity. And I think there are other strategies being done by the video teams to relieve the amount of downstreams they need. And I think number one it’s analog reclamation. I think it’s switched digital [video] as another case.

But you know the other thing is, as a migration to IP video over DOCSIS happens… and as analog reclamation kicks in for various reasons, I think you’re going to see the video teams free up channels that will be provided to the DOCSIS teams or data teams that they will use for greater high-speed data, voice and IP video solutions, and especially when we talk about IP video in the future, you’re going to need a high number of DOCSIS channels to transport… many video channels to subscribers as that migration from an MPEG-based video to an IPTV-based video solution occurs.”

connectedhome2go.com

China Internet

• Surging domestic demand is spurring ChinaCache, a content-delivery network [CDN] service provider claiming a 75 percent market share, to double its capacity by year-end. To meet rising demand, ChinaCache has been doubling capacity every year for the last two years, reaching 500 megabytes. An industry analyst pointed out that the relatively high fees of CDN providers had hindered wider user adoption. But competition is heating up. Besides ChinaCache, a number of telecommunications carriers and data center operators have started to offer CDN services on the mainland.

• Movius Interactive Corp., a provider of messaging, collaboration and mobile media services, expects rising mainland sales to boost its Asia-Pacific revenue to about 30 percent of total sales within two years from the current 10 percent. The company sees great market demand for mobile instant messaging and video messaging services in China. Sales in the Americas accounted for about 55 percent of the company's total sales last year while sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa represented 35 percent of total sales. Revenue from traditional voice-mail and short-messaging solutions accounted for about 70 percent of the company’s sales while new applications accounted for the rest. Movius recently launched an interactive mobile advertising service that supports multichannel video mixing. According to researcher Frost & Sullivan, Movius held about 10 percent of the global market for voicemail and messaging services last year.

• European internet firm Babelgum, which operates a free-to-view global Web television network, plans to start broadcasting in the mainland next year with programs tailored to domestic requirements. According to the company, China is a very important market because of its massive internet penetration rate and it’s aiming to enter this market next year. The company will consider speaking with companies on possible strategic alliances to facilitate the Babelgum China platform.

• China's rapidly growing population of Internet users may have surpassed the U.S. last month to become the world's largest Internet user base. According to official estimates by government research group China Internet Network Information Center [CINIC] that are released every six months, the number of Internet users grew at an average of 6.1 million users per month in 2007. According to CINIC, the country's total internet population grew 53 percent to reach 210 million last year from 137 million in 2006. Internet usage in rural areas grew particularly fast, contributing 40 percent of the 73 million new internet users last year. In its own research, BDA China Ltd., a Beijing-based technology consulting firm, estimates that China has as many as 228.5 million Internet users, compared with 217.1 million in the U.S.

• BDA estimates that China's online advertising market reached US$1.3 billion in revenue in 2007, while U.S. Internet ad spending was expected to reach US$21.4 billion in the same period, according to research company eMarketer Inc. Though the two numbers aren't directly comparable, analysts agree the disparity of ratios of user numbers to advertising dollars is vast. BDA says the Internet makes up only about 5 percent of advertising spending in China compared with 10 percent in the U.S. But if China's economy continues to grow and China's young Internet users increasingly choose the Internet over traditional forms of entertainment, China is bound to catch up. BDA adds that advertising grows with the growth of the economy and media. In the next five years, BDA estimates that the number of Internet users in China will grow at a compounded annual rate of 18.5 percent, while the U.S. will grow at only 2.2 percent. By 2012, that would give China 590 million Internet users.

seekingalpha.com

Americans Expect Movies at the “Click Of A Mouse”

As the PC moves from a work device to a “life hub,” more Americans are using them to watch movies and expect that it’s a matter of time before all movies become available “at the click of a mouse.”

Among the highlights of a new research study conducted in May 2007:
The PC is increasingly being used as a DVD player for movies or TV shows in many homes— 47% of American PC users watched a DVD on their computers, up from 29% in October 2006. 15% of online Americans downloaded a full-length movie from the Internet “in the last month,” from any source (including peer-to-peer sites), up from 11% in October 2006. Paid downloads in the last month (movies or TV shows) were up from 5% of online Americans in October 2006 to 8% in May 2007.

Full-length movies are found in 40% of all video-capable digital media players such as a video iPod and 27% have movie trailers stored on their devices. 66% agree with the statement “one day all movies will be available to download at the click of a mouse,” 19% are neutral and only 15% disagree. Agreement is strongest among those 30-49 (73%).

Despite the expectation of a digital universe of movies in the not too distant future, a majority of consumers do not yet have much awareness of or experience with current online movie options.
The Big Three (iTunes, Walmart, Amazon UnBox) - among itunes.com visitors, 74% know that the site off ers movies for download but only 30% have ever visited this section of the site. Among amazon.com and walmart.com visitors, only 10% and 8%, respectively, “ever” visited the movie download sections of these sites at some point in the past.

Others - of the dozen or so other licensed online movie destinations covered in the research, movielink.com was visited by 9% at some point in the past, followed by the newly-launched bittorent.com (8%), Starz’ Vongo.com (5%) and cinemanow.com (5%). The dark horse in terms of potential online movie success is Netfl ix which ranks as the #2 source for physical DVD rentals in the study, next to Blockbuster. One-in-three Netflix members uses the Netflix online Instant Viewing feature (streaming video).

WHAT IT MEANS
The online video revolution and the quick migration of TV content to the Internet in the past year is beginning to shape consumer expectations for movies.
Depending on their particular location, American consumers are defaulting to the appropriate screen available—whether a plasma TV at home, a PC at the office or a video iPod while on the go. But there is one common theme regardless of screen size: and that theme is a desire for instant access.

The increasing demand for instant access to movies is an opportunity for the movie business. And while consumers expect a discount from regular DVD prices, the research suggests that they are willing to pay for movies online as long as attractive current titles are made available with consumer-friendly interoperability and content portability features.

Th e results are based on a survey of 1,230 American consumers in May 2007 and a similar survey of 1,600 in the fall of 2006.

For more information, go to www.srgnet.com