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Cable shorts
Wednesday, 27 January 2010 19:59
Brian Santo at CED sagely notes "The announcement about trialing HD on a 4G network was short on details." I asked Cox what bit rate they tested, but they won't make that public. Cable video programming is multiplexed so there is no simple figure, but HD on AT&T runs at 6.5 megabits (last public announcement). Cable TV has similar quality so a single video stream requires about the same bit rate. On the other hand, some of the web video services are encoding 720p well below 2 megabits and calling it "HD". That's a different experience on demanding programming but possibly fine for a mobile handset. The actual performance of LTE is critical to broadband planning. One of the biggest issues when I go down to D.C. these days is how much LTE will substitute for DSL/cable at the low end. The heart of the broadband plan is going to be making more spectrum available with the thought the resulting competition will bring down the price. I've some good guesses, but no one is really sure what the performance under heavy load will be and how that will compete with DSL/cable.

Newsday imploding at Cablevision

Jimmy Dolan spent $650M to buy the Long Island newspaper less than two years ago and now is losing money at a rate of $10M/year. (NY Observer) He didn't realize just how bad the newspaper business is going. So they are trying a pay wall, to which NYO reports they have 35 subscribers. Not 35,000, 35. Admittedly, print and Cablevision TV subscribers don't have to pay, but that's astonishingly low. Meanwhile, the staff is in revolt, voting strike rather than accept a 10% pay cut. He made a mistake thinking it might be fun to own a newspaper.