Editor's Corner:  Setting definitions: IPTV is to IP video as CATV is to cable TV Also Noted: Spotlight On... Broadband differentiation: the proof is in the pricing
Telstra tightening up IPTV division; Consorteum Holdings partners with KO Entertainment and much more... Special Report:
 The Contenders: Municipal fiber providers meeting or beating the incumbent competition
In this installment of The Contenders, we look at five standout municipal broadband providers. Just a few years ago, municipal broadband looked like a long shot to many communities. But as demand for high-speed connectivity grows, businesses and residents alike are looking to their cities for affordable broadband. Read more
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Setting definitions: IPTV is to IP video as CATV is to cable TV
Attend any gathering of grizzled cable veterans, and CATV pops up in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge code word fashion. Old timers, particularly among the tech crowd, seemingly can't resist calling cable TV CATV. It's likely that many don't even know that CATV isn't short hand for CAbleTV but rather stands for Community Antenna Television--the concept of erecting a big antenna to receive distant TV signals and pipe them (for a price, of course) to homes. Cable TV hasn't been CATV since the mid-70s when satellites became the de facto way to transmit and receive TV entertainment. But the more than half-century old term persists. For what it's worth, you can argue that the term cable TV doesn't adequately describe an industry that delivers high-speed Internet, voice and sometimes wireless services along with entertainment TV. While certainly newer and definitely more relevant, it's possible that IPTV is approaching the point where it will be about as accurate as CATV. IPTV had its origins in the use of Internet Protocol to deliver TV signals to consumer homes. Those with strict definitions of the term will point out that it was never Internet TV and not even telco TV, even though telcos were the most ardent adopters; it was (and is) Internet Protocol TV, the use of Internet standards--not necessarily the open Internet itself--to deliver television entertainment. Today's problem is not so much the IP portion of the IPTV equation as the TV part. Just as cable is no longer--or at least shouldn't be--cable TV and certainly isn't CATV, IPTV is becoming only a fraction of what service providers are delivering across their IP networks.  Continue reading this Editor's Corner online
Read more about: Prism TV, CATV
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Today's Top News 1. Google, AT&T promise high-speed race in Austin
As expected, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Fiber's next stop will be Austin, Texas; not quite so expected is the news that AT&T (NYSE: T) will match the 1 Gbps service with one of its own. The word was out as early as last week that Google was moving to the Texas capital so it wasn't a surprise when the company, in conjunction with city fathers, confirmed that Austin would follow in Kansas City's footsteps as a 1 Gbps broadband network site. It was a surprise when, only moments later, AT&T released an announcement stating "it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin, Texas, capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second." The AT&T move is supposedly part of its long-range Project VIP, a multi-billion upgrade of the carrier's wireline and wireless infrastructure designed to build higher speed networks. It makes things a little bit different for Google, which pretty much had the ultra-high-speed market to itself in Kansas City where Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) took a wait-and-see attitude, with chairman-CEO Glenn Britt calling the Kansas City network "PR and hype," during a fourth quarter earnings call in February. "The reality is today there are not really applications that require 1 gigabit per second," Britt said, maintaining that the company's philosophy "has been to keep our speeds in line with what the market demands and what it needs." That means, Britt said, "sometime in the future we'll have 1 gig, maybe 2 gigs [but] this is not a real need for anybody right now." Apparently AT&T doesn't share that line of thinking, although it is tying its network advances to regulatory flexibility, with chairman-CEO Randall Stephenson citing "the recognition by government officials that policies which eliminate unnecessary regulation, lower costs and speed infrastructure deployment, can be a meaningful catalyst to additional investment in advanced networks." Google Fiber has, at least on the surface, changed the game with its K.C. rollout which has earned the area the nickname "Silicon Valley." "In Kansas City we've been amazed to see how gigabit connectivity has really been able to bring people together," Kevin Lo, general manager of Google Fiber said in an IPTV News story. Austin should be more of the same, added Milo Medin, vice president of Google Fiber in the same story where he called Austin a "mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism." For more:
- IPTV News had this story
- and AT&T issued this press release Related articles:
Time Warner Cable plotting 'evolutionary' all-IP future
Report: Austin preparing to be second Google Fiber city
AT&T exec: 'We're going to expand U-verse' Read more about: 1 gigabit, AT&T
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2. CenturyLink's IPTV service could set off Nebraska price war
Local officials are hoping that CenturyLink's (NYSE: CTL) impending Prism TV service launch in Douglas and Sarpy Counties, Neb., along with metro Omaha, will ignite a price competition with incumbent cable providers Cox Communications and Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR). Prism TV should launch in the area by the end of the month, after CenturyLink negotiated franchise agreements with Douglas and Sarpy County governments and enhanced another agreement signed with Omaha in December. The carrier already offers DirecTV satellite service as part of its voice, video and data bundle in metro Omaha, but will now expand its terrestrial networks to offer Prism TV beyond what had originally been a small, somewhat restricted franchise territory. That expanded agreement runs through 2022. Where it has rolled out CenturyLink offers Prism TV packages starting at $39.99 a month and including bundles of phone and Internet service, prompting Omaha deputy city attorney Thomas Mumgaard to tell the Omaha World-Herald, "We hope to have more price competition." The new franchise agreements require CenturyLink to offer service to 25 percent of living units in Omaha within the first three years, after which it is obligated to expand only if 27.5 percent or more of possible subscribers sign up. If that happens, the carrier must build out an additional 15 percent of Omaha living units within two years. If those goals are again exceeded, the cycle begins again. The city would have liked to push CenturyLink harder but, Mumgaard said, federal law prevented the city from requiring a metro-wide rollout from the beginning. Cox isn't the only carrier expected to feel the competitive heat. Charter Communications serves nearby Springfield where Mayor Mike Dill told the newspaper that elected officials and residents welcome the competition. "Any time the people of Springfield have options that they can make their final choices from, the better off it is for everybody," Dill said. Cox, though, is expected to take the biggest competitive hit, as CenturyLink moves into its franchise areas in Bellvue, Gretna, Ralston City and LaVista. While a CenturyLink spokeswoman wouldn't talk about the rollouts with the newspaper, Gail Graeve, a Cox spokeswoman dodged the competitive issue and focused on Cox's overall business strategies which, she said, "are driven by innovation in technology (and) providing the products customers are seeking and delivering superior customer service." For more:
- the Omaha World-Herald carried this story Related articles:
CenturyLink hiring for IPTV service in Phoenix
CenturyLink adds 10,000 IPTV subscribers in fourth quarter Read more about: Charter Communications
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3. Microsoft plots expanded Xbox capabilities
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), having passed its Mediaroom IPTV business to Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), is now busily--and predictably--expanding its consumer entertainment play with a revitalized and connected Xbox. At the time the Mediaroom sale was announced, Microsoft said the move would free it up to concentrate on the Xbox. Now, according to sources who spoke with The Verge, that effort is moving ahead with "a (Xbox) feature that lets its next-generation console take over a TV and set-top box in a similar way to Google TV." The Xbox will feed off a broadband connection and then take it a step further, "taking a cable box signal and passing it through … via HDMI," the story said. Once accomplished, the box will overlay a UI and features on top of an existing TV channel from a connected TV or set-top box. "We're told that this (UI) is a key part of the next generation Xbox and that it will go a step further than Google TV's implementation thanks to Microsoft's partnerships with content providers," the report said. While all of this could mean that the Xbox is just another set-top box--or, worse yet, another device connected to the set-top box--Microsoft has another ace up its sleeve in its Kinect sensor technology, the story said. "Kinect will detect multiple people simultaneously, including the ability to detect eye movement to pause content when a viewer turns their head away from a TV," the story said. All of this information comes from sources. Microsoft itself will probably have a lot more to say when it holds an Xbox event in May. A Microsoft spokesperson refused to comment to The Verge on its report. For more:
- The Verge posted this story Related articles:
Ericsson buys Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV unit
HBO goes first to Kindle Fire Read more about: Microsoft
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4. TDG: TV Everywhere more than just anti-OTT
Service providers who see TV Everywhere as just a way to offset the advances of over-the-top video onto their networks are missing the whole picture, a research analyst at The Diffusion Group (TDG) have warned. "Operators have to date cast TVE in a defensive role; an incentive to keep people from jumping ship to an OTT service," TDG analyst Michael Greeson wrote. Service providers instead should see "the legitimate revenue potential that TVE holds; revenue that is being left on the table even as monthly fees increase and consumers are presented with alternative (and fully competitive) services," he continued. A study conducted jointly by iStreamPlanet and TDG concluded that "61 percent of pay TV subscribers are to varying degrees likely to pay an extra $5 per month for a live/live linear TVE service while 50 percent are likely to pay $8 a month," Greeson wrote. The analyst author said OTT itself is expanding as a threat, moving from now-conventional players like Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) to new competitors such as Intel Media's OTT offering. Service providers, he said, can't really be faulted for failing to see the potential of a service that, on the surface at least, appears to be another expense in an era when purse strings are being tightened. Still, he wrote, "free TVE access provides a means of enhancing the value of the core home TV subscription during what is expected to be a long period of above average price increases." It is also apparent from a study jointly conducted by iStreamPlanet and TDG that consumers are "quite enthusiastic about … and are willing to pay a few extra dollars each month" for a home TV service that's delivered live to connected video devices. For more:
- TDG released this analysis Related articles:
ABI: Content owners buying gear to bypass pay TV
OTT video: power users dominating video viewing Read more about: NetFlix
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5. Verizon pulling YouTube off FiOS interactive menu
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is pulling its most popular widget, YouTube, from its FiOS interactive menu, the carrier has informed its existing customers. A direct Internet stream will be available to new set-tops starting later this year for subscribers who want to access the Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)-owned video service. Verizon declined to say why it was removing the widget which provided access to a subset of YouTube's most-viewed clips. It has been a staple of the interactive menu since 2010, according to a story in Variety. The move could, in the end, make it easier for subscribers to access their YouTube videos via set-tops and connected TVs. The current FiOS scheme required subscribers to install Verizon Media Manager software on a PC to stream the videos to the TV. A new Verizon Media Server, coming later this year, will allow direct broadband video streaming from YouTube to set-top boxes, the story said. "The majority of connected TVs and so many connected devices within the average home today also provide access to YouTube," the spokeswoman said. Most YouTube videos are still watched on computers, but about 25 percent of global views are now coming from mobile devices, Google told the publication. YouTube is also available on game consoles from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Sony and Nintendo as well as connected TVs and other connected consumer devices. For more:
- Variety has this story Related articles:
Verizon CEO hints at a la carte pricing for video
NPD: Second-screen apps getting scant use Read more about: FiOS
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Also Noted SPOTLIGHT ON... Broadband differentiation: the proof is in the pricing  Broadband, while perhaps not ubiquitous, is market-saturated to the point that it's both accepted and demanded by the consuming public that has come to understand that speed thrills--although sometimes the price that needs to be paid for that speed kills. The ability of multiple competitive providers has led to something of a price/speed disparity among Tier 1, 2 and 3 telcos. FierceTelecom takes a deeper look at this disparity--as well as what it means to the end user--today in an analysis that can be found here.
More IPTV news bytes from around the Web: @FierceIPTV RT @broadbandtrends: Google Fiber provides new details on 18 New Fiberhood build-outs. Post | Follow @FierceIPTV > Telstra is reviewing its digital media and IPTV division as it attempts to simplify operations. Story > Nevada-based Consorteum Holdings is partnering with KO Entertainment, Inc. to distribute "entertainment and media products." Press release > Slovak IPTV operator Swan is reportedly preparing to introduce a new set-top box that supports USB and DLNA connectivity. Story > Ukrainian cable operator Volia has introduced an IPTV service called Volia Smart HD. Story > Movistar has launched an IPTV service promotion for one-third its standard price through the end of august. Story Wireless News > Dish Network's surprise $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel may spark a bidding war between Dish and Japan's SoftBank over the United States' third-largest wireless carrier. Full article. Cable News > Frontier said it will charge $14.99 monthly for a 24-hour customer support service focused on helping subscribers fix problems ranging from issues with WiFi routers to viruses on their computers. Full article And finally … the European Commission (EC) has given Liberty Global the go-ahead to purchase Virgin Media for $22.5 billion. Story News From the Fierce Network:
> Dyle poses new threat to Aereo Post
> Comcast paid CEO Roberts nearly $30M in total compensation in 2012 Post
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