What You Need To Know Now…
Live From The NCTC WEC: LTE Is Not Cable’s Savior
For future cable service offerings, says Rob McCann, president of Hamilton, Ontario’s Clearcable Networks, Wi-Fi is the best delivery answer rather than 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE), even though Wi-Fi doesn’t have anything like the range of LTE capabilities. However, Wi-Fi can deliver far more bandwidth than can LTE, and he sees myriad small Wi-Fi transmitters in a mesh configuration as being more economical than a few huge towers delivering LTE. He advised attendees here in Las Vegas to plan for what he calls “Internet micro-climates,” whose provision to end users will form the core of MSOs’ business in the future. Such micro-climates will be able to deliver hyper-localized content, including highly localized advertising. It won’t be cheap, though. More fiber will be needed.
While At Mobile World Congress, LTE Is The Answer
Wireless titan Ericsson believes that, as consumers demand access to media content on all of their devices, TV and video traffic is set to dominate networks and will grow from 40 percent to 90 percent of mobile traffic within the next 3 or 4 years. And, unlike Canada’s Rob McCann, the company sees LTE networks delivering TV Everywhere video — without buffering. As such, teaming with Qualcomm, the manufacturer launched an exclusive end-to-end solution at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier today, with Parissa Pandkhou, director/Advanced Solutions at Verizon, confirming his company will introduce Ericsson LTE Broadcast “to give sports fans a whole new experience while watching a game,” adding “we see new opportunities in this technology for sports, concerts and even distance learning and college classes." The solution includes HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), MPEG DASH and eMBMS (Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service).
Does A Cable/Wireless Guy Have A Chance At The FCC?
Tom Wheeler, currently a managing director at tech venture-capital firm Core Capital Partners and a former head of both the CTIA and the NCTA, reportedly is being floated as the next FCC chairman after Julius Genachowski’s term is up this June. The Obama administration, however, is being lobbied heavily to name a woman to the top spot for the first time. Notes Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeffrey Silva, while Wheeler had a political presence during the Clinton/Gore years, his stock rose with the Obama’s presidential win, partly because he was one of Obama’s earliest backers and a big fundraiser. In 2009, Wheeler led the Obama/Biden Transition Project’s Agency Review Working Group. Other possible male contenders include NTIA head Larry Strickling and White House economist Jason Furman. Some of the women being mentioned are the two sitting FCC commissioners – Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel – and former OECD Ambassador Karen Kornbluh and Obama insider Susan Crawford.
