[opendtv] News: Time Warner Cable Is Switching Up
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 07:14:44 -0400
Time Warner Cable Is Switching Up
June 2, 2005 12:00am
Source: Multichannel News
Time Warner Cable says it plans to roll out switched broadcast video
technology in several markets this year, and eyes a potential 2006
national rollout that would allow it to reclaim up to half of its
digital channel capacity between hub locations and consumer homes
using switched technology.
The MSO believes it could place half its digital channel lineup -
plus video-on-demand streams - on switched broadcast video (SBV),
saving gobs of bandwidth to expand its video-on-demand, HDTV
programming and other new services.
At the same time, the MSO is committed to rolling out digital
simulcast to half its digital-subscriber base this year.
By definition, digital simulcast increases the amount of spectrum
Time Warner Cable needs to set aside for video, but switched
broadcast video allows it to reclaim all of that bandwidth, and more,
for future applications.
'MORE EFFICIENCY'
"What we need to do is move to switching technology, and get a lot
more efficiency out of existing bandwidth," said Time Warner cable
senior vice president of strategy and development Kevin Leddy.
Like other operators, Time Warner Cable has deployed Gigabit Ethernet
transport from the headend to its hub locations, providing plenty of
capacity for thousands of channels. The traditional bottleneck is
between the hubs, where the quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)
units sit, and the home.
Time Warner Cable is looking to set aside 16 QAMs, or about 160
"channels," for switched broadcast video at those hub locations.
The MSO would install video switches in those hubs, which typically
pass 20,000 homes. About 1,000 switches would cover the entire cable
footprint.
Time Warner Cable also would split service groups from today's 2,000
homes passed to about 500 homes. A typical node of 500 homes passed
would encompass 150 digital subscribers.
Based on viewing habits gleaned from Austin, Texas, and Honolulu,
Time Warner believes that any batch of 150 digital customers chooses
from a maximum of just 20 unique channels at any given time. Thus,
the company would dedicate two QAMs (20 channels) for
switched-broadcast video in each service group.
"This is about creating a sustainable digital network," Leddy said.
"The history of cable has been chapter after chapter of system
upgrades," said Leddy, who's been researching switched-broadcast
video for years. "That's not the right approach anymore.
"We ought to get to a model where we can offer any new channel or
service that requires bandwidth within the 750 MHz [systems] that
we've built across the country. We need to get to a switched
environment."
Time Warner Cable tested switched broadcast video using a BigBand
Networks Inc. switch in Austin. It also tallied viewership numbers
from Austin and the Oceanic Cable system in Honolulu.
"Lightly viewed" content - that is, programming viewed for less than
20% of the day - could be housed in 16 QAMs, the company determined.
That would include 160 "channels" of linear content, HDTV and VOD.
"You put the channels that are not viewed too much onto a switch and
take them off the dedicated linear broadcast capacity," Leddy said.
"The efficiency is about 65%," Leddy continued. "Using switching, we
can get 2.6 networks into the space occupied by one today."
BANDWIDTH USES
The newly opened bandwidth could be used for an expansion of VOD and
HD, or for the launch of any new linear network.
"The biggest bandwidth hog is HD," Leddy said. Time Warner Cable
carries about 15 HD networks per system, he estimated. "We could
carry as many as 50 HD networks once we have switched-broadcast
video. Most of those networks would be on the switch."
He added: "16 QAMs also would support a lot more VOD. SVOD is very
popular. The numbers are growing rapidly there. We're also seeing lot
of growth with music and news on demand."
VOD might eventually require six to seven QAMs, Leddy said, which
would be opened up with switched broadcast video.
New linear networks could be launched as long as they were carried on
the switched broadcast video side, he said.
Switched broadcast video costs pale in comparison to an upgrade to
870-MHz systems.
"We always need more capacity in this industry," Leddy said. "The
cost to go to 870 is roughly $1 billion. The cost of switching is a
fraction of that. It makes a lot of economic sense to grow bandwidth
this way and it is not nearly as disruptive to the customer base.
"For bandwidth calculations to work, you need to have relatively few
customers sharing those 16 QAMs," Leddy added. "You need to get
service groups pretty small," he said, reducing today's nodes of
2,000 homes passed to 500 homes, which translates to 150 digital
customers.
"The switch can handle huge numbers of customers," Leddy said. "But
the service group needs to be small so we get to 150 subs sharing a
couple of QAMs.
"If a service group doubles and we have 300 subscribers sharing only
two QAMs, the odds might be lot better they would be watching more
than 20 services," he said.
And if more than 20 different channels were requested at one time,
the result would be a busy signal - something Time Warner doesn't
want to face.
SIMULCAST UPDATE
SBV will follow on the heels of Time Warner Cable's digital-simulcast
rollout. The company plans to have half its digital subscribers
seeing all-digital pictures by year's end.
"It gets us the benefits of better picture quality, enhanced-TV
applications and, if we can get a full simulcast, we can take the
analog component out of the set-top boxes," Leddy said.
The MSO hasn't made final decisions on where encoding - national,
regional or local - will take place, Leddy said.
"We're still looking at all the options," he said. "There is the
complexity of ad insertion. Are you better off doing local encoding
and local ad insertion or national/regional encoding and local ad
insertion?"
One option is to use Time Warner Cable's regional ring architecture,
and do the encoding at the MSO's seven regional data centers. That
would allow the cable company to buy more expensive, but higher
quality, 16 to 1 encoders for some networks.
"You can't afford to buy those for every cluster, but you can afford
to buy them for regions," Leddy said.
<<Multichannel News -- 06/02/05>>
<< Copyright ©2005 Reed Business Information. All Rights Reserved. >>
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