News - CableLabs

Stay up to date on the latest CableLabs news and announcements

May 8, 2014

Nielson: 17 of 189 Channels

On average, American pay-TV subscribers have about 189 channels to choose from. But, according to new research by Nielson, the average viewer only watches about 17 of those 189 available channels. The data "substantiates the notion that more content does not necessarily equate to more channel consumption. And that means quality is imperative--for both content creators and advertisers," the researchers concluded. More on the report from FierceCable.

May 6, 2014

Cable Providers Look to Boost Broadband

Multiple MSOs and operators have recently announced plans to offer downstream speeds as fast as 1Gbps. Alan Breznick at Light Reading picked up on the seeming trend, and talks about it more in-depth – including how moves like this may enable cable operators to fend off competitors in the broadband space – in a recent article.

May 5, 2014

Report: Hotspot 2.0 Poised for Liftoff

From CED Magazine: "According to a recent report by Infonetics Research, Hotspot 2.0 is the next big item on the Wi-Fi checklist, along with the monetization of Wi-Fi services. Hotspot 2.0, which is also known as Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint, allows mobile devices to automatically join a Wi-Fi network based upon preferences and network optimization whenever the user enters a Hotspot 2.0-enabled area." Read the full story here.

May 2, 2014

Cable Show 2014: Cable’s Wi-Fi Ambitions

Not surprisingly, Wi-Fi was a major topic of discussion at the Cable Show this week. Ostensibly, Wi-Fi could be looked at as a service that cable operators use to retain customers, but as Sue Marek of FierceCable points out, it's about much more than that. Read her take here.

May 1, 2014

Cable Hones Its EST Edge

From Jeff Baumgartner at Multichannel News: "Pay TV providers are looking to join the race to sell movies and TV shows through all-digital multiscreen storefronts, as retail distribution models shift away from physical DVDs and Blu-ray discs. And as Verizon Communications has already discovered with Flex View, an EST service the telco launched in 2010, pay TV operators have not just the foundation on which to build their digital video stores, but also a direct sales link to millions of customers." Read the full story here.

April 30, 2014

MSOs Prepared To Enter Gigabit Era

At a panel at the 2014 Cable Show, executives from top MSOs expressed their eagerness to begin using the Gigabit speeds which will be enabled by technologies such as DOCSIS 3.1. “You’ll see us being aggressive buying 3.1 product,” said Tony Werner, EVP and CTO at Comcast. More on what the panel had to say from Multichannel News.

April 29, 2014

Neustar, CableLabs in Smart Home Demo at Cable Show

Neustar, Inc., a provider of real-time information and analytics, today announced it is demonstrating with CableLabs the ability to coordinate and control smart home devices using standard set-top box cloud connectivity and remote control capabilities at the NCTA Annual Conference, The Cable Show 2014. Read the full press release at The Wall Street Journal.

April 28, 2014

Basic Cable Subscribers Love Movies

According to a recent report, subscribers to basic cable watched the most movies last year than in the previous two. "Cable networks are seeing the benefit of airing movies that get better non-prime time rating than some TV shows during the same time slots," Erick Brannon, senior analyst for television media at IHS said in a press release. Oddly, "Mrs. Doubtfire" was the most played movie of 2013. More on the report and the numbers from FierceCable.

April 25, 2014

CableLabs, Vendors Prepare To Solve Multicast Problem

A cable-optimized version of IP multicast has jumped to the forefront as a priority for the industry, and is a major initiative at CableLabs. In an update of R&D activity at the recent CableLabs winter conference in Atlanta, Matt Schmitt, Director for DOCSIS, and Jesus Lopez, Director of Certifications, said multicast was among the initiatives related to development of an all-IP cloud-based approach to delivering pay TV service. Content ingest, encoding, packaging and ways to support alternate content and ad insertion are also part of the cloud initiative, they said. Read more from Fred Dawson at Screenplays.