Alpine Communications Blog
According to a consumer satisfaction study by the Cloes Fornell
International Group, consumers say they will consider a service bundle sold by
a telecom company over one sold by a cable company. The study, “How
Customer Satisfaction Impacts Telecom and Cable’s
By Clint Swett - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, July 14,
2007
Addicted
to YouTube?
Think
how much better it would be if you could watch its videos on your TV in
high-definition.
Want to
check on the kids at home? A superfast Internet connection could let you view
their activities on a webcam in full-motion video.
Do you
need to collaborate with a colleague in another state? Instead of hopping on an
airplane, he'll appear on a screen set up in your office.
As
broadband providers jack up Internet connection speeds by tenfold or more,
experts say the increasing velocity will profoundly change everything from
entertainment to medical care to business travel.
It won't
be the first time that rising speed limits on the Internet superhighway have
changed American lifestyles or spending habits. As broadband penetration into
The
speed enhancements also gave rise to new businesses and widened the use of
others: Online music purchases from stores like Apple's iTunes have exploded.
MySpace and Google have emerged as household names. And, although still a niche
product, Internet phone service such as Vonage has become more popular.
Just as
early broadband made text-intensive content such as blogs and newspapers
quickly available online, faster speeds will do the same for video, experts
say. Already speeds of 6 megabits per second are available to much of the
"We'll
move from a world of 300 channels to 3 million" predicted Michael
Liebhold, a senior researcher at the Institute for the Future, a
That's
already happened to a certain degree.
For
instance,
Web
sites ranging from ESPN to MySpace post plenty of video content. But the
picture is sometimes jerky, screen sizes small and resolution blurry.
Faster
connections would eliminate many of those problems and even encourage
programmers to post higher-quality videos, knowing they can be streamed easily
over the faster networks.
High-speed
connections could allow consumers to bypass their cable systems and someday
click on an NBC, HBO or Fox Sports Web site and watch favorite shows or teams
in high-definition whenever they want. "It will be TiVo on steroids,"
said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media in
Such
programming would likely be supported by ads, pay-per-view or subscription
services, and could generate more than $15 billion a year by 2012 from an
audience of 1 billion users, according to a study by Michael Wolf, an analyst
for ABI Research in Seattle.
Yet the
innovation could also rattle the business model of cable companies by allowing
viewers to bypass cable.
"Comcast
might find they are better off in a business selling high-speed Internet than
selling cable (programming)," Leigh said.
Comcast
appears to be preparing for either eventuality. Company officials were not
available for comment, but later this year Comcast is expected to launch
Fancast, a video search hub designed to help people sort through the various
video offerings on the Internet.
The
cable giant also recently purchased ThePlatform, a Seattle-based company that
produces technology to create custom broadband video channels. And Comcast is
reportedly working on technology to provide broadband speeds of up to 160
megabits per second, roughly 26 times faster than its current 6 megabit
service.
Other
cable companies are taking Internet video seriously, as well. SureWest
Broadband in
SureWest
engineers are experimenting with hardware that will allow customers to view
Internet content such as videos on their televisions, said Haavard Sterri, the
company's executive director of marketing.
He also
said SureWest's Internet service could help insulate it against a move to
online video. "We have the platform to take care of both ends of the
spectrum," Sterri said. "So we will have a revenue stream whether
people are watching through the Internet or cable."
Less
than two dozen customers have signed up for SureWest's 50 mbps service, in
which the user could download "Terminator II" in about 4 minutes. The
same movie over a 1.5 mbps DSL connection might take more than 2.5 hours, and
an excruciating 67 hours over a typical dial-up connection, according to
research by the Stevens Institute of
John
Husman, a 24-year-old network administrator subscribes to the service in his
Natomas home, and said he has no second thoughts about paying the $260 monthly
fee.
He uses
it to host a couple of servers as well as play several online video games
simultaneously.
"It's
very smooth and very stable," he said, adding that it gives him a huge
advantage in blasting the bad guys in the games he plays.
Fears
that consumers will abandon cable in droves to watch online videos may be
overblown, said Bruce Leichtman, head of Leichtman Research Group in
"Television
already works pretty darn well," he said. "The Internet will augment
and complement television. To think it will replace TV is where people are
getting carried away."
With the
prices of high-definition screens plummeting, said Liebhold, the
Someday,
he said, people probably will routinely have open video connections to their
relatives' homes, allowing them to sit in their respective living rooms and
chat for hours, if they choose.
In
business settings, small wireless sensors will send constant streams of data to
people monitoring conditions from miles away. Doctors, for instance, could
oversee a diabetic child's condition even if the patient was at summer camp.
While
the faster speeds are likely to spur dramatic changes, they are not likely to
be severely disruptive, predicted Larry Irving co-chair of the Internet
Innovation Alliance.
"Unlike
the Internet where a lot of people didn't see it coming, people have time to
get ready for this," he said.
By Kim Leonard
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Bryan
Althaus followed a typical path for Comcast customers about six weeks ago when
he opted for a bigger bundle of TV, Internet and phone services from the cable
company.
Althaus,
29, of Scott, was a Comcast cable TV customer when he got a computer and looked
into Internet service in January. The company suggested he go for one of its
popular bundles combining TV, Internet and its Comcast Digital Voice on one
bill.
The
teacher at
"They
get you to get the bundle," he said, "and then you don't want to give
up the channels once you get used to them."
Cable
companies, such as Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., were the first to string
together their TV, Internet and phone services as a way of locking in customers
who years ago had different providers for each service.
Phone
companies like Verizon Communications Corp. came later to the game, and Verizon
will up the ante in
Who is
winning the battle? "I hate to make it a horse race," said Bruce
Leichtman, of the broadband analysis firm Leichtman Research Group in
Still,
"Throughout the country, the cable companies are ahead. They have over 10
million phone subscribers nationwide, and the phone companies have half a
million land line TV subscribers."
In the
local market, Comcast was the first to introduce a three-product package with
its $99 Triple Play promotion in March 2006.
For
$33 a month each, new subscribers could get the company's Enhanced Cable with
75 channels, High-Speed Internet and Digital Voice phone service, advertised at
a savings of about $450 over the year-long promotional period. Previous Comcast
subscribers could add services for $33 each, as long as they ended up getting
all three.
Verizon
followed with its own packages and now offers six Verizon Freedom plans locally
with mix-and-match phone, Internet and TV options -- including a $99.99 one
that's comparable to Comcast's original bundle.
The
Triple Freedom bundle has been available since January, and Verizon was selling
DirecTV as a stand-alone option before that, spokesman Lee Gierczynski said.
Neither
company will specify how well the packages have sold locally or disclose
customer numbers, though Comcast spokeswoman Jody Doherty cites the bundles'
popularity as a main reason for a recent expansion of the company's call center
in the
Comcast
has encouraged many of its initial $99 bundle customers from mid-2006 switch
over to a $129 product with about 70 more TV channels, and in general, has
gotten customers like Althaus to order upgrades.
"They
enjoy the products so much," Doherty said. "The Triple Play promotion
may attract the consumer, but it is Comcast's quality of products and service
that will keep them loyal."
Verizon
has the first quadruple bundle in the region that includes Verizon Wireless
service, along with DirecTV, Internet and phone for $139.99. Verizon shares
ownership with
Look
for Comcast to follow with a fourth product, though not right away.
Comcast
is one of four cable operators in a joint venture with Sprint Nextel to develop
a mobile phone service that lets customers access their cable TV guide, as well
as home voice mail and e-mail from their cell phones.
The
service, called Pivot, is being tested for $33 a month in
Verizon,
meanwhile, has installed fiber-optic lines through much of
The
company is building a hub office for FiOS TV in the Strip District, and is
negotiating for TV franchises with about 50 municipalities in the area, though
no deals have yet been signed, Gierczynski said.
Verizon
and AT&T, the nation's two biggest phone companies, have pursued changes in
state and federal laws that would allow them to bypass the local franchising
process, which has slowed their expansion into TV.
The
company wouldn't say what its bundles with FiOS TV will cost in the region,
though Verizon has packaged the service with phone and Internet in other areas
for $99 a month for two years or $109.99 a month for one year.
The
movement to expand their own TV services and regain some of the phone customers
lost to cable companies doesn't mean Verizon and others in its industry will be
dropping their satellite TV offerings.
Verizon
has about 350,000 homes with FiOS TV, and more than 620,000 with DirecTV, and
researcher Leichtman said phone companies overall have about 2.75 million
subscribers through partnerships with satellite companies.
"That
combination with satellite TV is more prevalent than any (fiber-optic)
overbuild or land line service from the phone companies. That will remain in
place," he said.
While
cable and phone companies stress the cost savings associated with their
bundles, consumers who benefit the most are the ones who consistently use
what's included -- those who make a lot of phone calls, including long
distance, each month, for example.
"Many
will find they don't need that much," said John Breyault, of the
Telecommunications Research and
Althaus
used a cell phone for all his calls before signing up for the Comcast bundle
this year.
Now
that he has a land line phone at home, "I will start using it more,"
he said.
By Jon
Hemingway -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/21/2007 9:25:00 AM
The U.S. TV distribution
business will grow 5.4% to $123.3 billion by 2011, according to a new study
released Thursday by PricewaterhouseCoopers,
led by subscription TV, with ad-supported local TV basically flat over the same
period.
The study breaks out the
The most significant
surge in end-user spending will come from video-on-demand segment, though it
will remain a relatives small piece of the pie. The VOD market is projected to
increase by a 19.5% compound annual growth rate to $4.2 billion in 2011,
dwarfing pay-per-view growth rate of 4.4% over the same period.
While the market size of
the latter was $1 billion larger in 2006, PWC expects VOD’s total market
size to surpass pay-per-view in 2010 at $3.7 billion versus $3.2 billion,
respectively.
Within the VOD market,
cable will continue to be the dominant player, growing at a 14.1% rate, but it
will lose some market share as telephone companies roll out their expanded
networks. According to the data, telco growth in the segment will be 62.7% over
the study period and will claim a quarter of total VOD spending in 2011.
PWC forecasts only a 1%
increase in TV station ad spending to $27.5 billion in 2011, but multi-channel
video providers can expect a healthier 4.5% rise to $7.2 billion.
The overall growth rate
in the TV station segment is being held back by an expected -0.3% decline in
national spot, while local advertising over the period will rise by 2%.
Political campaigns will
continue to provide spikes in TV ad spending, especially in presidential
election years and PWC expects the multi-channel sector will continue to be
buoyed by local ad dollars.
The study, which charts
the growth trajectory of domestic and international television distribution, is
part of the firm’s “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook:
2007-2011.”
PWC’s forecasting
for this study was a combination of quantitative modeling and professional
analysis. PWC draws its conclusions by examining factors in recent trends and
building models that will quantify their impact. The factors include economic,
demographic, technological, institutional, behavioral and competitive.
High-speed growth
dips
From
Staff and Wire Dispatches
Nearly half of all
Americans now have high-speed Internet service at home, but the growth rate for
broadband service is slowing sharply and it's still uncommon among poor and
rural residents, according to a new study.
About 47 percent of
adult Americans surveyed by the nonprofit Pew Internet & American Life
Project said they have high-speed Internet service at home, up from nearly
nothing at the start of the decade.
According to
ConnectKentucky, a program for expanding high-speed Internet access throughout
the commonwealth has helped increase broadband Internet use by 50 percent and
has brought access to 518,000 previously unserved Kentucky homes in the past two
years.
Currently, 93 percent of
The Pew report said
the national growth rate for broadband service was only 12 percent for the
one-year period that ended in March. That was down from 40 percent for the
comparable period a year earlier and the lowest rate in at least five years.
John Horrigan,
associate director for research at Pew, said broadband growth hasn't necessarily
reached a plateau.
But clearly, many
people who can afford broadband service already have it. In the future, Horrigan
said, Internet providers will have to try harder to convince those without
broadband that it's worth the cost, typically $20-$40 a month.
"I think we're at a
point where many people in the upper socio-economic groups now have broadband,"
he said. "You'd expect to see growth continue, but it's going to be in fits and
starts."
Horrigan said the
sharp decline during the past year isn't surprising, given the rapid increase in
broadband use in past years, when many cable and telecom companies offered deep
discounts for new subscribers. Also, "once you get near 50 percent of the
market, sustaining growth gets more challenging," he added.
Not surprisingly,
high-speed Internet service is more common in urban areas and among the wealthy.
According to the Pew
study, about 52 percent of urban residents and about 49 percent of suburban
residents have high-speed Internet access. Among rural residents, only about 31
percent have it.
The study's findings
come as the Federal Communications Commission conducts an inquiry into whether
broadband providers -- primarily cable and telephone companies -- are doing
enough to provide rural and poor Americans access to high-speed Internet service
and all that it offers, from entertainment to educational programs.
Depending on the
outcome of the FCC inquiry, regulators could set rate caps or take other steps
to encourage broadband growth.
According to the Pew
study, some minorities also are less likely than whites to have broadband
service at home.
Only 29 percent of
Hispanics, for instance, have home broadband service. About 40 percent of
African Americans have home broadband service, a sharp rise from 31 percent a
year earlier. Among white non-Hispanics, about 48 percent said they had
high-speed Internet service at home.
Income also matters.
More than three-fourths of adults with annual incomes of more than $75,000 have
high-speed Internet service at home, while only 30 percent of those with incomes
of less than $30,000 have it.
Americans who do have
broadband service use it far more than those with slower dial-up service,
according to the study. About 65 percent of broadband subscribers said they use
the Internet or e-mail at home on a daily basis, compared with 40 percent of
dial-up service subscribers.
Last month, U.S. Rep.
Rick Boucher, D-Va., outlined a four-step plan to improve broadband access to
the many parts of the
He said he would push
federal lawmakers to adopt a program similar to ConnectKentucky, which uses
public and private funding to promote DSL, cable, fixed wireless, satellite and
other systems to blanket the state with service.
The Pew study was
based on a phone survey of 2,200 adults between February and March. The margin
of error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
Cox News Service contributed to this story
AT A
GLANCE
The dream of an intelligent home that
automatically controls the living environment and responds to individual
preferences has been around since the advent of the microcontroller first
suggested the possibility. High cost, reliability issues, limited capability,
and a lack of standards have imposed major constraints on the market, however,
keeping home automation more in the realm of imagination than practice. The
advent of wireless technologies, the emergence of home-networking standards, and
pull from both the entertainment and the energy markets are now revitalizing
efforts to realize that dream, although industry participants are still hotly
contesting the implementation methods.
Despite such successes, however, neither LonWorks nor any other home-networking technology has taken off in the market. There are several reasons for the faltering of home automation. One is that no one technology offers all of the attributes that consumers demand in their technology. Another is the lack of a killer application to jump-start widespread adoption with its inevitable cascade of decreasing costs, increasing public awareness, and competition-fostered innovation.
A technology must possess many attributes to be successful in a consumer market such as home automation. These features include:
Currently, every available home-automation technology falls short in one or more of these areas, although proponents are continuously working to address these shortcomings. Sometimes, the shortfall arises purely from the communications medium. Home-automation systems use one or more of three media: wire and cable, power line, and wireless, typically RF. Each approach has its advantages and drawbacks.
Wire and cable media for home automation include twisted-pair wiring, coaxial cables, and optical fiber. These media have an advantage in their high data capacity and ability to provide a relatively noiseless communications channel for network signaling. Their major drawback is cost. Estimates for the installation of cable in construction range from $65 per linear foot for residences to nearly $300 per linear foot in industrial settings. Costs are lower when installation occurs during new construction but still remain too high for most consumers.
A second drawback of wire and cable media is inflexibility. Consumers are not free to relocate controls or endpoint equipment as they wish. The location of the installed cabling restricts placement, and the cost of new cabling is prohibitive.
In response to the drawbacks of cabling, home-automation technologies seek to use one type of wiring in every residence: the power line. As a networking medium, a power-line connection has two advantages. One is that they are in place and run to nearly every location where endpoint devices exist. The second is that endpoint devices need no external power source, such as a battery. Both help satisfy the low-cost and ease-of-use requirements of a consumer technology.
Power-line networking has its challenges, however. The medium is noisy, carrying a variety of voltage spikes that arise as lights and motors switch on and off, loads change, and disturbances on the power grid propagate into the home. As a result of this noise, power-line-networking technologies have either restricted their signaling bandwidths or employed sophisticated and expensive noise- and error-reduction strategies.
Dramatically higher rates have become available over the last few years. The HomePlug Powerline Alliance’s new HomePlug AV standard, using technology from Intellon, employs orthogonal-frequency-division multiplexing to generate signals that attain data rates as high as 200 Mbps. This speed is fast enough for the network to go beyond simple control of lights and power and serve as a communications channel for entertainment media, such as IPTV (Internet Protocol television). It remains to be proved, however, that the cost for this sophistication will drop to the levels needed for widespread adoption.
Power-line signaling also has other drawbacks that can impact its long-term success. In US homes, for instance, power comes to the house as two out-of-phase, 120V feeds with a neutral line. This arrangement allows the wiring of 240V power for demanding appliances, such as furnaces and dryers, and allows regular household power to run at the safer 120V level. The result, however, is that the power lines in the house split among the two phases, and power-line signaling cannot reliably cross between the phases without the help of either a bridge node or a high-frequency shunt between phases. This step adds complexity and cost that consumers may not tolerate to the implementation of a home network.
Power-line signaling also has a limitation to its installation flexibility: It requires that power lines be present at every node in the system. This situation imposes restrictions on the placement of control nodes, such as light switches and thermostats. Ideally, consumers would want to locate anything anywhere with no restrictions.
Technological advances have thus brought a variety of home-networking approaches to levels that will allow the dream of intelligent houses finally to become reality. Two roadblocks still remain, however. One is interoperability. Many companies base their approaches on proprietary technology, which limits the number of suppliers from which consumers can choose. The other roadblock is the lack of a compelling application to jump-start the market.
The killer app?
As exciting as these possibilities seem, however, from the consumer’s viewpoint they represent just the gravy. Alone, they will not fuel the market. The meat of home automation, the killer application, must command widespread acceptance of the technology.
Such an application may be emerging. Power companies in both Southern California and Texas are looking to technologies such as ZigBee to help them implement load control and demand-based pricing in the home. With a ZigBee link from the meter into the home, these companies hope to provide customers with real-time feedback on energy use and cost as well as adjust user demand by remotely turning thermostats up or down, turning off water and pool heaters, and the like.
As energy costs continue to rise, such uses of home-automation technology can become compelling and may become mandatory. It’s a humble beginning and less exciting than an intelligent home that conforms itself to your presence and preferences, but it may be all the home-automation industry needs to gain entry to the consumer’s home. From there, the approaches that best satisfy the many requirements of consumer technology can see the kind of opportunity growth that the PC industry enjoyed in the late 20th century.
From Inspired Business Growth:
When I was a kid, I lived in a Chicago suburb with a thriving and quaint downtown shopping area. It wasn’t a mall or a strip mall - I mean a real downtown with a train station, neighborhood bank, farmer’s market, city hall and little one-of-a-kind shops that were owned by people who lived in our town.
Although many businesses have come and gone since I was a kid (not THAT long ago!), technology and the Internet has changed the way we do business, plain and simple. Some of the shops that used to dot our neighborhood shopping areas will simply never come back to a brick-and-mortar way of doing business. Others are ‘endangered species’ - ones that with just a little more momentum will be gone in the next few years.
Sometimes the culprit was the convenience or advancement of the Internet. Others, it was the in-store technology of large chain stores that made it easier and cheaper to carry a wider variety of products.
In all cases, business found a cheaper and more efficient way to deliver in-demand products. In the end, it also meant that many small mom-and-pop stores either have had to change with the times or go out of business.
Maybe we are fortunate beings for our techno-gadget isolation?
Amidst today’s
iPhone launch hype and hoopla, there’s also less publicized but telling news of
the impact cell phones are having (and will have) on landlines (hard-wired
phones) and phone directories. It’s a sign of the times, reflecting a mobile
society and technological advances.
Various reports, including ones cited by Newsweek.com/MSNBC.com, and by CTIA, The Wireless Association, have cited that more than 8 percent of American households (24 million people) today have selected wireless phones as their only phone, and that as many as 6 million more tech-savvy consumers intend to “cut the cord” in the not too distant future (and no doubt among this crowd will be some of the millions of anticipated new iPhone owners).
The number of landlines has been on the decline since 2001, due to use of email, broadband, texting, mobile web browsing, and cell-phone-number portability. That decline in landlines is also resulting in slimmed down phone directories, even in high-growth cities.
In one report by the New York Times, the big fat phone book is losing weight, even as city populations rise. In fact, the article recounts how the 2007 Verizon White Pages for Manhattan slimmed down 142 pages from the 2006 edition, even as the city grew by 10,000 people in a year.
So, if you are among the lucky ones to snag a fresh new iPhone tonight and are considering joining the ranks of the wireless-only, remember that there are pros (one phone, one number, fewer bills) and cons (reception, battery power, running up your bill) to going wireless only.
But if you do cut the cord, just don’t lose your cell phone.
Alpine Communications has been providing telephone, Internet, and security services to six rural exchanges in northeast Iowa since 1997. Alpine also offers cable TV service to seven nearby communities. A new retail center, Web hosting/design, computer security, and business phone system sales and service are Alpine's other areas of specialization. A fiber-to-the-home project was recently completed in Elkader and Guttenberg.
