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Feature: Everyone’s Jumpin’ On The BroadBandwagon
Applications Galore To Appear At This Year’s Western Show
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Now that broadband technology has a foot in the door of homes and businesses, vendors and cable operators are focusing on the applications that could drive up penetration. With that in mind, this year's Western Show will be filled with ideas for value-added services and the latest in management tools.

Broadband is not just for providing high-speed access to the Internet anymore.

That’s the message that will permeate the California Cable Television Association’s (CCTA) Western Show (November 28 to December 1), this year. Exhibitors and presenters will showcase advancements in technology, but also will highlight razzle-dazzle applications that could become value-adds and attract subscribers.

"For cable modems, the first 5 percent penetration is easy to get," Fred Stefany, COO of Zatso.com, says. "These people want speed and always-on capability. Beyond that it is a tougher sell."

Stefany’s company currently offers personalized newscasts over the Internet at no cost to the end-user.

"We have 200 new local video stories per day that people can get," he says. "This is a great way to use cable modems. Cable companies don’t have to use film trailers to show off the benefits of high-speed access. Personalized newscasts are a great application to help drive broadband deployment."

He adds that while Zatso.com will not have a display at "Broadbandwagon: The Western Show" this year, Roger Keating, Zatso.com’s president and CEO, will speak during the Plenary General Session, "Streaming to a Home Near You," on November 28 (3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.).

The company is working on making its personalized newscasts the "killer app" for set-top boxes and interactive television as well. Beta tests are in the works and talks with "most of the major MSOs" are underway.

"We are trying to be provocative and show what can be done. Swapping out boxes is not going to drive the rate of adoption of interactive television. Thinking about cool new applications can," Stefany says.

Emphasis on applications

For the eighth year, CCTA and CableLabs together are running a section on the show floor called CableNet that typically highlights technology coming down the pike. This time, however, the exhibit—with the theme, "What’s Next?"—has a new look. According to Mike Schwartz, senior vice president of communications at CableLabs, more of the 10,000 square feet looks like an actual home, office or retail store, replacing many of the stand-alone pedestals that dominated in years past.

"This stuff is reality now so people should see it in a [real] environment," Schwartz says.

Like Zatso.com, some of the CableNet 2000 participants believe applications are the key to driving up subscribership for broadband services. For example, IBM will show how its Hot Media Interactive TV Solution will allow viewers to purchase items they have just seen advertised.

Redback Networks, on the other hand, is using its space at CableNet to demonstrate the fruits of its partnership with Portal Software, Inc. and Inktomi Corp. A system using technology from all three companies allows for the instantaneous provisioning and billing of value-added broadband services. This means a subscriber would be able to click on an icon advertising a video clip for a certain price. If he or she agrees to pay, the program will be delivered in the correct bandwidth and the amount due added automatically to the next monthly bill.

"This eliminates the Internet side of the equation where the provider can’t guarantee the quality of anything. They can guarantee what is available on their own network," says Chris Johnson, Redback’s director of cable marketing.

Like many CableNet participants, Redback also has its own separate booth, where it will feature its managed access solution. This solution configures the correct bandwidth, security features and services, depending on who is using a modem. Separate people with different accounts may use the same computer, and a virtual private network (VPN) may be opened concurrently with the regular Internet.

"Our system allows you to set up another connection route and choose a different connection speed.... It gives the service provider the ability to figure out who is behind the modem and to dynamically set up bandwidth and security for that particular person," Johnson explains.

Scientific-Atlanta also says it will make an effort this year to show how its Explorer series set-top boxes can enable cable operators to deliver multiple interactive TV applications. They should think about subscribers being able to order pizzas through their television and being able to offer up a machine that remembers program preferences and tapes a show without any prompting.

"In the past, our solution has been more hardware-focused," says Dave Davies, director of strategic planning and business development, Subscriber Networks, Scientific-Atlanta. "Given that by the end of the year we should have four million digital set-top boxes deployed, we are in a position to help our customers drive applications into our networks . . .We are showcasing the ability to deliver these multiple applications and to help MSOs [multiple system operators] drive revenue and lower subscriber churn."

Scientific-Atlanta does have a new product, the Explorer 6000, that serves as a home "gateway," delivering voice, video and Internet access. S-A will feature it at CableNet.

According to Ken Klaer, vice president and general manager, marketing and business development, Subscriber Networks, Scientific-Atlanta, the company particularly is excited about the potential connection between the Explorer 6000 and wireless voice or data delivery to the home. Once certain types of next-generation wireless phones are available, standards may be incorporated into the set-top box, allowing a subscriber to make Internet protocol (IP) calls at home using these handsets. They become like a cordless phone; the minutes will not be billed as cellular.

"We will show applications that are being deployed and making real money for cable operators, and we will show where applications begin for the future," Klaer says.

More telephony

Video and streaming capabilities are not the only applications making appearances at the Western Show as potential value adds. Telephony also will be on the exhibit floor and debated among panelists. Moderator Steve Craddock, vice president of new media development for Comcast, says industry insiders will hash out the various models for the delivery of telephony by MSOs during the "Will Cable’s Telephone Ring Off The Hook?" seminar on November 30.

Comcast, for example, is leaning toward an entirely IP solution that uses only a so-called softswitch. Craddock adds that at the same time, the big push for his company still is on the penetration of high-speed access.

"If the cable division has been wildly successful in high-speed data, it is a lot easier to offer high-speed telephony because the infrastructure to the house will already be there," Craddock says.

Bart Bartolozzi, director of strategic development for Net2Phone, Inc., scheduled to speak on Craddock’s panel, says he will remind participants that if a company plans for telephony "right out of the box," it can bundle high-speed data with free calling minutes as a marketing tool.

His company will target the cable service provider market by integrating its telephony solution with set-top boxes. Net2Phone already has announced a deal with Scientific-Atlanta and expects the resulting boxes to be available in the second or third quarter of 2001.

To make calls, the end-user needs only a standard phone. He or she will be issued an account number and pin number both as a way to keep track of the free minutes used and as a way to recharge the amount available through Net2Phone’s Web site. The monthly payment would go to Net2Phone, which would share the revenue with the cable provider.

"This will allow them to recoup profits from broadband," Bartolozzi says. Look for the Scientific -Atlanta box at Net2Phone’s booth on the exhibit floor.

Other companies also are billing their products, in part, as a way to facilitate telephony. Com21, for example, will have its new DOCSIS-certified single-chip cable modem on display at Western. According to Ehsan Rashid, Com21’s vice president of access products division, the single-chip modem not only will bring down costs, but it also will require the use of less power for the system because it is integrated. To be a telephone provider, a cable company has to be sure it can provide lifeline services even if the traditional power supply goes out.

"Cable companies have been playing around with the idea of providing the necessary power for the modem through coax," Rashid says, explaining that the lower the power requirement, the better. The single-chip product also allows for firewalls to be placed directly on the modem.

Network management

MSOs certainly want to know they will be able to troubleshoot adequately so they can ensure they are delivering quality broadband services. Network management systems, therefore, will get big play on the show floor this year.

Micromuse has a new version of Netcool Visionary. What is different about version 1.5 is that it is fully integrated with the Netcool object server and the company’s flagship product Netcool Omnibus. The latter is a real-time fault monitoring system, which gathers information from 200 devices. The results may be viewed in full or part on a graphical interface screen at the network operation center or the cable headend.

"Cable operators in the era of deregulation also are offering voice and Internet service," Evan Birkhead, vice president of marketing for Micromuse, says.

"The beauty is we monitor devices in the infrastructure underlying all of those systems."

NetCool Visionary adds the capability of monitoring simple network management protocol (SNMP) devices and allows the results to be read on the same event screen.

"We expect this product to become an enabler of sales of the entire Netcool suite into the cable industry because they require this information," Birkhead explains.

Other network management systems include C-COR.net’s COR-Convergence platform that integrates network management technology with customer care and billing systems. It pinpoints the source of an outage and who is effected.

C-COR.net has a multimedia demonstration at Western that will illustrate how COR-Convergence is playing out as part of the Time Warner Integrated Services Management System pilot in Tampa, Fla. This project has involved 900,000 subscribers receiving high-speed data and entertainment services.

"The solution is intended to grow with Time Warner’s business and be able to accommodate new service applications that are not part of the business fabric today," Carrie Packer, C-COR.net vice president of broadband management engineering, says.

Aside from its network management system, C-COR.net is introducing a new addition to its transmitter product line. The 1550 nm Externally Modulated DWDM Forward Path Transmitter will help networks support digital video, high-speed data transmission, telephony, video-on-demand and pay-per-view services.

Other new show features

Given the new applications and the new fields that cable operators have open to them, CCTA this year is sponsoring two one-on-one sessions with people outside of the industry.

"We just want to have excellent examples of corporate business as cable—increasingly through broadband and other means—goes into a variety of business applications through the Internet. We want to hear from high-level CEOs who can talk about the business environment for Internet software and cable and their views of those worlds," Paul Fadelli, CCTA’s public affairs director, says.

According to Fadelli, on Wednesday, November 29, Larry Ellison, chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp., will be CCTA’s guest while on Thursday, November 30, John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems, will be asked about what he sees as cable’s ties to broadband.

Because the Western Show is in Los Angeles again this year, CCTA also wants to explore how high-tech and Hollywood content are converging.

"In general, the synergies demonstrate themselves throughout the show," Fadelli says.

Specifically, Wednesday’s "Hooray for Hollywood" is the venue. At our deadline, the speakers for this session had not yet been announced.

In the end, whether it be streaming, specialized programming, the ability to provision and bill, the Western Show this year is all about showing MSOs how the technology will work for them. Look to be surprised by how much already is available today and wowed by what vendors have in store for the future.

Monta Monaco Hernon is contributing editor to Communications Technology. She may be reached at .

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