Broadband Sandy's Blog

Why does it have to be this way? Or, a tale of 2 phone calls...

2011-09-09T15:06:00.003-04:00

I have written for and about the cable industry for a number of years. I know many of the people in the industry well. I like you all as individuals. BUT, why oh why does every encounter with you as an industry leave me feeling so *disappointed*?

We are building a new house in Sanibel. My job today was to establish phone, Internet and TV service for our new house. Since we already have condos in Sanibel I am pretty familiar with the telco and cable company that service the area. My experience has taught me that the telco can't offer fast enough internet to satisy my needs. The cable provider can offer the triple play--but the island is subject to enough outages that I don't want to rely on cable for my primary telephone service. So, my solution was simple--telephone from the telco and Internet and cable from the cable guys.

Here's what happened. At the end of one phone call with the telco, I had an account number, a date for dialtone, an assigned phone number, information on what my billing date would be and what it would cost me. They also took the phone number of our contractor to reach on site for any unexpected problems in establishing service. By the way, I did not have to hold for more than a minute to get connected to a repl.

And the cable story? It started with a long wait on hold, followed by someone who wanted my address even though I said it was new construction. What a surprise--he couldn't find the house number in his database!! I was then told they would have to send someone out to verify that such a house actually exists and that they would call me back in around 4 days when they had verified that it does!!! I didn't even get to the point of any converstaion about what the offers might be, when I could get something established, etc. I had no record of my call--like a # that I could call back or something!! Just a promise of a call in four days.

Hey guys!*&* You surely can do better than that!

PS As I was writing this I got a phone call to ask about my satisfaction with the Comcast experience. You can image how my ratings looked....

Post post script: Maybe there is hope after all! Although they had told me it would take several days to get anything moving, I had a phone call shortly after the customer saifaction phone call. It was a tech telling me he would drive to Sanibel tomorrow and verify that there is really a house there.

Don't quite know what to make of it. Were they just underpromising and overdelivering as the tech said. Or did someone monitor the negative results?? Seems hard to believe that it could have been that quickly.

Oh well--maybe there is a Santa Claus. Let's see what happens next.

Our holiday card

2010-11-09T23:58:00.001-05:00

Tropical Wishes Christmas

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Italy May 2009

2009-06-11T23:44:00.001-04:00

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Interactive TV -- Ya Gotta See It

2009-04-15T12:48:00.008-04:00

Interactive TV? We know you've heard it a million times. And in the end, the consumers will decide what they want. But this time, the cable industry seems to be ready. We went to the most recent cable show in Washington, DC and interactivity was everywhere--from the suburban home at the Broadband Nation exhibit to myriad demos on the show floor.

The difference now is that MSOs, technology vendors and content providers are all rallying around tru2way, a common software platform for building interactive applications. With tru2way, creators of interactive services will be able to "write" an interactive application once and have it run on any cable system that supports the specification.

Tru2way requires a fairly powerful set top box. Since the deployment of this new infrastructure will take some time, the industry defined a simplified data format for interactive applications, called EBIF ( Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format ) that can run on legacy boxes with more limited resources.

We believe that writing about interactive apps is no substitute for seeing them in action, so we shot over an hour of video and edited it into 15 segments that we've posted on You Tube and embedded in our report. The video segments are about Panasonic's tru2way, ADBs set-back box, AMDOCS tru2way Service Activation, NDS tru2way Unified User Interface, Alticast, Integra5 MediaFriends, itaas, Zodiac Interactive, TAG Networks (see these at http://www.bb-home.com/report/backissues/Report0902_7.html for tru2way. See also http://www.bb-home.com/report/backissues/Report0902_8.html for EBIF appications inclduding Starz, Biap and ActiveVideo.

Will this time be the magic charm? The time may finally be right for couch potatoes to spend part of their time interacting and not just blobbing!

The Three Faces of "Digital"

2009-02-24T00:10:00.002-05:00

The Digital Transition – What's All This "Digital" Stuff About?

There has been much confusion over the many things that are happening with respect to television when it comes to “digital” TV . This is entirely understandable since the word “digital” is being used to mean three different things. Here is a summary of the three meanings.

1. “US Digital Television Transition”: This relates to the way TV signals are broadcast over the air.
The US government decided to switch the way that free, over-the-air TV signals are broadcast from TV stations to TVs that receive their signals via antennas or “rabbit ears”. All TV stations now broadcast these over-the-air signals in a digital format, and the old analog format used for more than 60 years is being discontinued. The date for the government-mandated switchover had been set for February 17, 2009 but was recently extended to June 12, 2009.
a. Despite this date change, some broadcast stations have stuck with the earlier switch over date.
b. Consumers getting their TV signals from cable, satellite or telephone companies are not directly affected by this change. However, those service providers are making other changes that may result in changes in what a consumer receives.
c. Consumers without cable or satellite service can still receive TV over-the-air on their old analog sets by purchasing a converter box, for which the government has been issuing $40 credit coupons. The converter box decodes broadcast digital TV signals and converts them so they can be displayed on an analog TV set.

2. “Digital TV sets & HDTV sets”: This relates to the TV set itself.
“Digital” in front of the word TV (“DTV”) means that the TV set itself can process digital signals (ones and zeros). These sets provide better picture quality and can process additional information contained in the digital TV signal.

Nearly all digital TVs are high definition TVs (HDTVs) which means that they can display the highest-quality digital signals. These sets can display a wider picture (16x9 aspect ratio); all have built-in tuners to receive broadcast digital TV.

Some broadcast digital TV channels are in 16x9 “high definition” (HD) and others are in the familiar 4x3 “standard definition”. Digital TVs can display both types.

3. “Digital Cable Service”: This relates to cable companies using digital technology to provide many more TV channels in additional “digital service” tiers.
Cable companies have been making a gradual transition from analog to digital. Comcast’s “Digital” services currently include many analog channels, including the local broadcast stations that no longer broadcast analog signals. All cable operators have announced their intention to reduce the number of analog channels to make room for more HD channels.

Today’s digital TVs are not equipped to tune digital cable services directly – this requires a converter box from the cable provider. With a converter box, digital cable service can be received on both analog and digital TVs. If a consumer wants HD service from the cable provider, they are provided with a more powerful HDTV converter box and may need to subscribe to additional HDTV channels. Only a digital TV can display HD pictures.

An Opportunity To Help Someone

2009-01-15T11:10:00.005-05:00

If you're looking for a blog entry about broadband, you can skip this one.

Yesterday, I read an article in the NY Times by Dexter Filkins, titled Afghan Girls, Scarred by Acid, Defy Terror, Embracing School . As a woman who went to Vassar in the days when it was still a women's college, I was particularly moved by the story of these girls, who, despite brutal intimidation, continue to pursue their education. I decided to write to the reporter and ask how I could help.

I have gotten a response from Mr. Filkins and am about to send a check to him, made out to the “Mirwais School Fund,” as explained in his email to me (below). I thought that some of my friends, relatives and colleagues might also be interested in contributing, which is the reason for letting you know about this. Here is the email from Dexter:

"Hi, thank you very much for writing about the girls at Mirwais School. They are a very inspiring bunch.

Thanks for offering to help. I’m happy to say that I have been deluged by letters from readers.
They don't really have banks to speak of here, and I'm not sure I would trust giving any money to the government. My address is below. I am in Kandahar, Afghanistan at the moment, so there is no bank account for the girls or the school. (I can do that when I get back to the U.S. later this month.)

If you feel like you can trust me, then make a check out to meDexter Filkins. Or, write it to the “Mirwais School Fund,” which I will set up when I get back to the U.S. later this month.
Until then I won’t cash any checks. Please specify what you would like done with the moneyfor the school, or for Shamsia, the burned girl. I can let you know how the money is spent and send you photos and updates. I am trying to find a plastic surgeon for Shamsia; I have already been contacted by a foundation in Switzerland that may be able to perform the surgery.

I don't really recommend sending stuffschool supplies, for instance. It is very difficult to move in and out of the area, as it is under siege by the Taliban. And the mail and roads and such like here are so bad---I just don't know how it could be pulled off with any degree of certainty.

If I cannot find anything worth while to spend your money on, I will send it back to you.

The girls need every cent, and I am sure they would be thrilled to know that someone from the outside world cares about them. It isn't often that any one of us can change a life, so I will take great care.

My address:

The New York Times
Attention: Dexter Fillkins
Foreign Desk
MIRWAIS SCHOOL FUND
620 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10018

Thanks very much again.

Dexter"

I feel comfortable with the arrangement Dexter has suggested. You can learn more about him at
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/dexter_filkins/index.html and his acclaimed book at http://www.dexterfilkins.net/

If any of you are moved to send additional contributions to this fund and let me know you have done so, I will try to send additional contributions--not to match yours (I don't think I could manage that) but at least to add more to the fund.

Thanks for reading this and for your kind thoughts for the girls of the Mirwais School.

Sandy
Vassar 1961 (yes-- I really am that old--but don't feel like it one bit.)

Ordinary or extraordinary?

2008-11-26T16:37:00.012-05:00

"Ordinary events" are frequently the result of extraordinary journeys. I experienced one of those "light bulb" moments yesterday. After being an avid Skype user for years, I decided to add a Skype phone to our house, instead of always using it on my PC. We have tracked IP phones for years now, but had never felt that using the PC got in the way. It amazed me how blown away I was by the convenience and simplicity of adding a Belkin Skype phone in my kitchen. Intellectually I had known that the phone was a friendlier device because of its familiarity, but the difference was tremendous.

Some days seem made for epiphanies. My second ordinary/amazing moment came when Dave finally installed the high quality camera he had bought for his PC back a year ago when Skype started supporting them. As someone who lived thru the arduous history of desktop videoconferencing and videophones at AT&T, I had become a Skype devotee when my daughter in Florida was awaiting heart surgery. With expectations conditioned by years of compromise, I thought that the pictures I was getting of my far-flung family were adequate and didn't expect more. When Dave called me with his new video camera (which costs $89.99) I once again realized what a long road we have travelled since the days of the $500 AT&T Videophone 2500, with its (maybe) 4 frames per second capability. What a picture!

Lest I seem hung up on Skype (I guess its my deep video history), I was also struck today by an article in Telecommunications Online, by Sean Buckley. With the leader "Actiontec cleans up the home network clutter" Buckley starts by saying: "It’s hard to imagine a time when the idea of having an integrated modem with Wi-Fi wireless and other capabilities on one common network gateway device was a foreign concept." I flashed back to a slide we presented at VON Asia 2000 (November 13-15, Hong Kong, China ( www.broadbandhomecentral.com/presentations_archive.html ). Called "Enabling the Broadband Home", we illustrated "the complexities which need to be overcome by the industry to make the broadband home a reality for the mass market." It is humbling to understand that it has taken eight years to move from conception to realization and adoption!!

PCs and broadband--life's essentials?

2008-08-15T21:42:00.005-04:00

We're about to start the remodeling of our second "broadband condo" in Sanibel. On Monday the contractor starts dismantling everything, so today we gave away virtually all the furniture. We'll be putting in new furnishings when the reconstruction is done.

As with our previous condo (which we still own) we'll be putting in some structured wiring, wireless, a sound system, 3 flat screen HDTVs and probably a Skype phone.

Looking around the condo this afternoon had me musing on what the essentials of life really are. We have a bed, the refrigerator is still here and we have our porch table as a temporary desk, eating spot, etc. However, the things that are most prominently still here are 4 PCs (3 laptops and 1 desktop), our cable modem, our Homeplug setup and an old TV. I've posted a few pictures of our temporary digs--they show what we can't live without. Oh yes, the other thing we do have is a couple of bottles of wine--one more essential of roughing it :-)

POF and musings on video vs text interviews

2008-08-05T13:22:00.007-04:00

I noticed that we were not the only ones to observe on plastic optical fiber (POF) at the IPTV World conference, where we recorded several videos on the topic http://www.broadbandhomecentral.com/videos-IPTV_WF_NA_08.html. Today's issue of Fierce IPTV http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/pof-presents-another-wiring-option/2008-08-05?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal&cmp-id=EMC-NL-FI&dest=FI noted that Swisscom is a leading deployer of POF, and that the technology has received most of its attention in Europe thus far.

Speaking of videos, we are still figuring out which medium to use where. One of our BBH Report readers that said that she still preferrs text interviews over video. I am speculating on whether this is because you can skim a text interview, pick out if there is anything of interest, and then focus on that section. With simple videos you have to watch the whole thing--and might not find anything you really wanted to know.

I wonder what other people are doing and find useful. For example, should there be a breif text summary of the main points, with links to the section of the video where that topic is discussed? Could be... But that means yet another layer of work to get these things online. Comments??

Where to find all of Broadband Sandy's videos

2008-08-03T19:45:00.005-04:00

I realized I had put in a link to one of the videos we did at IPTV World, but didn't say how to find the others. We've (namely Dave, has) modified our Website to add a place with links to our videos and blogs http://www.broadbandhomecentral.com/videos-IPTV_WF_NA_08.html . Videos are organized by conference they were done at. You can see all 4 from the Chicago conference at http://www.broadbandhomecentral.com/videos.html .

I was thinking about shooting a video of the outside of our broadband home (we did a video a long time ago about the inside) but decided it was more fun to work in the garden than to video it. I'm including a picture of the mailbox--just for fun.

Finally--we have 4 videos on YouTube

2008-08-01T23:31:00.016-04:00

I know this all will be much easier the 2nd time through--but there were an amazing number of things I didn't know when we did our first interviews at IPTV World in Chicago. Like--YouTube has a max length of 10 minutes for a video--and our interviews were longer. Or like--you need to do something special before you record if you want to be able to edit audio and video tracks separately --at least with the editor we are using (which is Ulead Video Studio 11). ...and more.

One of the interviews was with a very charming guy named Armen, from a French company called Witbe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gogtAurJ2akThe company is very interesting--and Armen also has a very captivating smile.

It is great that this is done but now come a whole new load of "learning opportunities". Like where to put links to these, how to syndicate and lots more. Life in this age of technology can never be dull--there is always something new to learn

Goodbye 20th century

2008-07-26T18:49:00.000-04:00

After writing Sandy and Dave's Report on the Broadband Home for the last eight years, we've finally decided it's time to embrace the 21st century. As we have covered new technology, we've taken photos and written articles, but have not captured our interviews on video.

That is finally changing. At the recent IPTV World Forum in Chicago, we captured three video interviews, which we will be posting to YouTube. Hello, 21st century!