Mark, here is a good article about this year's potential in the U.S
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HFC Deployment Dominates MSOs' 1998 Plans
TW, Cox, TCI, Jones banking on making major headway in next 12 months
By Jim Barthold
Any doubts that the cable industry will use a 750-MHz hybrid fiber/coax [HFC] architecture to deliver high-speed, interactive services heading into the 21st century have been all but erased.
"There are some small markets where we've deviated from our 750-MHz HFC architecture, but not very much," says Keith Burkley, the construction VP at Time Warner Cable.
The MSO's schedule calls for all systems to be totally upgraded to two-way HFC -- mostly at 750 MHz, some at 550 -- by the end of 2000. Time Warner says it has completed work on 54% of its networks, plans to hit the 71% mark by year's end, hit 86% by the end of 1999 and finish the job in 2000.
The anomaly is New York City, where Time Warner is building an 860-MHz plant to meet the demand for local must-carry channels.
"In New York City, there's really not a whole lot of difference," Burkley notes. "The architecture is still pretty much the same the way we're laying it out. We just have to remember that we have 860 modules and electronics that pass a higher bandwidth. There were a few engineering issues with the 860, but those are behind us now."
Another aggressive operator is Cox Communications Inc., which, like Time Warner, has been working hard the last few years to regionally cluster its U.S. operations.
"[Some] 83% of our customers reside in nine systems," says Alex Best, the senior VP-engineering at Cox. "The majority of our activity is focused on those nine clusters, the big ones being Phoenix, New Orleans, Hampton Roads, Va., what we call New England [Connecticut and Rhode Island] and some work still left in San Diego and a little bit in Orange County, Calif." The heavy-duty work will be done in the Phoenix, New Orleans, Hampton Roads and New England clusters, Best adds. Those upgrade efforts herald the arrival of more than just beefed-up broadcast video service capabilities.
"In our case, not only are we launching digital video, but we already have launched high-speed data in six of those nine systems and cable phone in two of those nine systems," Best says.
At the end of '97, Cox says 30.2% of its operation had been converted to two-way active plant. The end-of-1998 goal is 50.6%, according to Best.
While it's not as clustered as Cox and Time Warner are, Tele-Communications Inc. plans to aggressively rebuild and upgrade systems this year to pave the way for what the MSO is calling "ubiquitous" digital deployment.
TCI spent a good part of 1997 positioning itself for that effort by consolidating systems through trades, partnerships and sales. The MSO already has awarded turnkey projects for five of its largest areas -- Seattle, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver and Dallas.
"It's a three-year program," says John Malone, TCI's chairman-CEO, in explaining the company's digital rollout strategy. "[Some] 58% of our plant, as measured by customers, is already hybrid fiber/coax and only needs the two-way components in order to be fully upgraded.
"That's a process that's engineering-intensive rather than capital-intensive, and that's a program that is expected to be complete in the next two years."
Malone adds that while TCI has a somewhat diverse plant, it will, "with modest incremental investment, be able to accommodate the deployment of this new [digital] technology. The rest of the plant requires a mix of upgrades [and] rebuilds, and that ranges from complete rebuilds in some cases to merely certain electronic changeouts in others."
Another 1997 entrant in the digital arena was Jones Intercable Inc., which placed its first digital boxes in Tucson, where a cautious rollout schedule was followed.
"We're launching and deploying digital, but [in] some of the markets, we believe that analog will still continue to exist and provide us with a more cost-effective approach to programming delivery in the short-term," says Wayne Davis, the VP-technical operations at Jones.
He notes that Jones also wants to have all its plant at 550 MHz or 750 two-way active by 2000.
"Anything that we're upgrading right now is two-way activated," Davis says. "Savannah, Ga., is undergoing a massive upgrade right now to 750. Independence, Mo., is a massive upgrade. Reston, Va., Oxnard, Calif. -- those are the projects that are in the process right now."
Even the 550-MHz plant "will be retrofitted for full 760 spacing and 750 HFC architecture," Davis notes. "The only reason it's still 550 is [that] we may not change out taps. We'll change out the taps when we need the additional bandwidth, but that plant will be 750-capable."
MediaOne also is mounting an aggressive, two-way HFC effort. Chuck Lillis -- president-CEO of MediaOne's corporate parent, the U S West Media Group -- plotted the MSO's strategy last summer.
"We are a two-way network that can carry all sorts of services and we're successful," he declared.
That success hinges on the superiority of the HFC architecture and the flexibility it offers MediaOne when competing with incumbent telco providers, Lillis pointed out.
"For a telco to create that kind of an HFC network, they get no economic advantage for having their incumbent twisted-pair network in the ground, so it's very expensive," he said. "We bought cable and upgraded cable. If you're the telco, you have to dig up every yard, because you just can't push that much through that copper wire with any compression, in spite of what any dreamer would think."
In the long run, Lillis said, "the 750 HFC will be the dominant wired competing network, and I think anybody who is going to compete in the market as we define it -- two-way, all services -- is going to have to figure out how to get that class of network."
Come on little HLIT,I think you can.
Or am I in Oz,and do I have to click my heels three times?
Tim |
