It looked like doom and gloom. Splashed across the front page of Thurs’ WSJ was the headline "Cable Industry May Need Upgrades." The article, based on a leaked CableLabs report, said cable operators may need another round of multibillion dollar upgrades to offer the type of bandwidth that rival telcos plan to exploit. But there didn’t seem to be much hand-wringing among investors, with cable stocks up across the board at day’s end. Said one cable exec: "It was a big yawn on Wall St. Those of us who follow this all the time know about simulcast, switched digital, MPEG-4 compression." Bank of America’s Doug Shapiro seemed to take a similar stance. "Operators also have a slew of options for increasing the capacity of current networks at relatively low marginal cost," he said. "To us, the bottom line on the article is that it probably isn’t relevant within any reasonable investment time horizon." Cable operators stressed that the CableLabs report was a hypothetical, academic scenario, with the industry free to build out networks over time. Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research note that to trigger the bandwidth requirement in CableLab’s hypothetical scenario, "there would have to be massive consumer disintermediation of video… The competitive impetus to drive such a capital spending requirement appears to be entirely absent." Time Warner posted the biggest gain of the day, closing up 1.8%. Comcast was up nearly 1.2%, followed by Mediacom (.77%), Charter (.74%) and Cablevision (.31%). Deep Throat: As for the leak, no one is saying how the report got into the hands of anyone besides an MSO exec. CableLabs said it has taken steps to improve security, including more limited distribution of such reports. In a 399-word statement, the organization said the report shows that cable requires no major investment to compete with FTTP networks. "While it is nearly impossible to predict the future demand for more capacity to cable’s already robust fiber optic network, our research also shows that cable’s infrastructure can easily and cost effectively be upgraded as additional capacity is needed in the long-term," CableLabs said.

The Daily

Subscribe

Next Frontier: CableLabs Explores More than Speed Connectivity Era

Internet speed records are all the rage these days, with two separate breakthroughs making the headlines recently. One is more in the distant future, but the other hits closer to home.

Read the Full Issue
The Skinny is delivered on Tuesday and focuses on the cable profession. You'll stay in the know on the headlines, topics and special issues you value most. Sign Up

Calendar

Sep 11
2025 Faxies Awards Faxies Nominations Open! Final deadline: 4/4/25
Full Calendar

Jobs

Seeking an INDUSTRY JOB or hiring for one?
VIEW JOBS

In conjunction with our sister brand, Cynopsis, we are offering hiring managers a deep pool of media-savvy, skilled candidates at a range of experience levels and sectors. The result will be an even more robust industry job board, to help both employers and job seekers.

Contact Carley Ashley, [email protected], for more information about posting a job on the website and our Jobs newsletter, sent twice weekly to 85,000 media professionals.