Congratulations, you've just opened up another can of worms. One that has, for all intents and purposes, presented the illusion that it has gone away. Here, I'm referring to contention for "air" time by traditional program providers in the face of the more recent and popular sources of contention surrounding Internet access. The latter has overshadowed the former considerably, to the point that many citizens don't even consider the former an issue any longer, except in isolated situations. But it is.
This, historically, has had to do with the contention which exists concerning available spectrum space on cable systems to accept all program providers' desires to air their content. Of course, 500 MHz to 750 MHz systems, even 1 GHz systems could not possibly accommodate all potential comers through the use of yesterday's technology, which is precisely what today's HFC systems represent, still.
[[Maybe the upper region of the spectrum, when fully opened up, will alleviate some of this, but it will never fully alleviate all of it, due to the restrictions which inherently exist in coaxial delivery techniques. Consider future 3D programming before attempting to refute what I've just stated in the previous sentence.]]
This point about arbitration between competing program providers' services is typically driven home, whenever it arises, as you so aptly enumerate in the uplink:
" In a given area there are channels which are carried but are not carried in an adjoining area. An example in my area is CNBC. You'd expect that CNBC is universally carried, but surprisingly it isn't because the local area residents elected to have another channel carried instead since there wasn't as much interest in CNBC."
It was for reasons that caused this kind of arbitration that six to eight years ago an architectural prescription existed that called for video switching, known as Open Video Systems, or OVS. This was to be a federally overseen effort to allow any Tom, Fran and Mary Jane programmer to have an opportunity to air their content using video-on-demand- like technologies, in a switched mode. It was a great idea in principle for startup program providers and established players, alike, who were voted out of certain areas, but short on follow through. Switched video, in fact, was one of the driving factors that the incumbent LECs saw as their opportunity to differentiate themselves through the use of ADSL at the time.
This approach (OVS through SDV)has been languishing due to inefficient technologies (and other reasons which are not so explicit) to support it until recently. Now the technology exists in many areas to bring this to fruition. The only remaining issues being, then, is whether or not this mode of technology is still relevant enough to pursue, does it still have shelf life when positioned on HFC systems in the usual frequency plans, in light of other still nascent forms of delivery which may (I submit, will) sooner or later be available through the 'net.
Another point of possible contention which I've been meaning to ask here follows. Say I live in Comcast country, hypothetically, and I want to access Road Runner in its native form. Is this a doable feat today? Or vice versa?
If not, should it be possible without much ado on the parts of MSOs to make it happen? Consider the devil which lurks in the details before offering an opinion on this. Then take it a step further:
Could the provider of one or the other, i.e., ATHM or RR, use their cable modem service as a Trojan Horse to introduce voice over IP (and other time-critical conversational modes of service) in the other's markets? I'll leave it there for the time being. |
