Deloitte's 2015 "Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions"   foresees that  "the generation that won't spend" is actually "spending a lot on media content" and that "disruptive innovations with broadband delivery" will make higher speed services more widely available.

In its latest annual outlook, unveiled in mid-January, the global consultants examine an array of topics, from the Internet of  Things (one billion devices to be shipped this year, up 60% from 2014; predominantly used in industrial rather than consumer settings) to contactless mobile payment systems (should be integrated with other retail/financial applications; need strong security).

In its wide-ranging 76-page analysis, Deloitte paints a bullish picture for streaming media and equipment used to access it.  It expects that North America's 83 million Millennials (ages 18 to 34 years old) will spend $62 billion this year on media content, including video (pay TV, subscription VOD), music, games and other entertainment/information sources.

Overall, Millennials will spend about $3,000 per year on technology hardware and connectivity," including game consoles and portable devices on which they can receive and watch streamed video, Deloitte says.

The analysis contends that short form video has a strong future, but it is not the future of television."  It predicts that videos less than 20-minutes long) will represent  "under 3% of all video watched on all screens."  Although such short videos will generate $5 billion in global revenues, that sum will pale against the $400 billion from long-form TV content brought in by advertising and subscription revenues.

"Short-form should not be considered as a direct competitor to 'traditional' long-form content, but rather as an additional screen-based medium, addressing needs that were previously un-served or which were catered for by other media," Deloitte concludes.  

As for sports, the report notes that Millennials are "less devoted to major league sports than older generations," but that 86% of them watch live sporting events on TV and are many are "likely to spend $25 to attend a game."

In its Telecommunications forecast, Deloitte dwells on "haves" and "have nots," particularly  rural users. It concludes that, "There are evident implications for regulators" and "It may not be sufficient simply to call for broadband to be recognized as a universal service, in the same way as fixed-line telephony."  

The report suggests that the definition of broadband "needs to be updated regularly"; it predicts that rather than conventional downstream benchmarks, "in future, as broadband usage evolves, upstream speed will become increasingly important as users upload more content." 

"Regulators should also consider how price per megabit is affected by technology," according to Deloitte's assessment.   

As for over-the-top and VOD services, Deloitte recommends that providers may have to develop "alternative approaches" to reach customers who cannot access mainstream services. It cites "satellite caching" as a possible option.

The Deloitte study delves into some unusual territory, touching on topics that may be vital for cable operators looking at whole-home service, such as WiFi delivery.

For example, it acknowledges that WiFi can result in a 50% drop in speed.

"Providing a wired connection is too complex for most households," Deloitte observes, but it lists numerous barriers to wireless home service: older routers have less throughput; construction materials affect performance (thick walls in old home; foil-backed plasterboard/insulation in new homes); underfloor heating coils that deflect signal.

"The highest speeds within a WiFi home are generally closest to the router," Deloitte says, "but in some cases the device needing the fastest speeds (typically the television) may not be adjacent to the router."

Summarizing many of the challenges for these and other broadband installations, Deloitte concludes that, "In the long-term there is ample opportunity for more disruptive innovation with broadband delivery."

Gary Arlen analyzes broadband and media trends at Arlen Communications.

President Obama during his State of the Union address Tuesday night did not spend much time on broadband to which he had already devoted a speech last week, and the White House had already outlined his ambitious high-speed broadband plans, as well as actions to protect privacy and push cybersecurity.

The speech was mostly a valedictory vision of a better America through Democratic policies, or what CNN's John King called a left of center speech to a right of center Congress.

But the speech did include a number of communications-related issues, including network neutrality and at least a couple of mentions of high-speed broadband.

"I intend to protect a free and open internet, extend its reach to every classroom, and every community, and help folks build the fastest networks," the President said, "so that the next generation of digital innovators and entrepreneurs have the platform to keep reshaping our world."

He also talked about building infrastructure including "the fastest Internet."

On cybersecurity, he said: "No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids.  We are making sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism.  And tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information." He went off speech to emphasize that that should be a bipartisan effort. "If we don’t act, we’ll leave our nation and our economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe."

On government data collection: "As Americans, we cherish our civil liberties – and we need to uphold that commitment if we want maximum cooperation from other countries and industry in our fight against terrorist networks.  So while some have moved on from the debates over our surveillance programs, I haven’t.  As promised, our intelligence agencies have worked hard, with the recommendations of privacy advocates, to increase transparency and build more safeguards against potential abuse.  And next month, we’ll issue a report on how we’re keeping our promise to keep our country safe while strengthening privacy."

He took a shot at the flood of political ads post Citizens United. "A better politics is one where we spend less time drowning in dark money for ads that pull us into the gutter, and spend more time lifting young people up..."

The stars seemed to be aligning in Washington Wednesday for the President's push for high-speed broadband, including clearing away impediments to broadband buildouts.

The Supreme Court ruled in T-Mobile v. City of Roswell Jan. 14 that the Telecommunications Act requires local governments to provide timely reasons for denying a tower-siting request, and that simply sending a letter and providing a transcript of the hearing 26 days later did not cut it.

T-Mobile had sued the city of Roswell, Ga., arguing that the city council denial was not supported by substantial evidence in a written decision stating the reasons. A district court agreed, but The Eleventh Circuit U.S. court of Appeals concluded that the denial letter and transcript were sufficient.

T-Mobile took it to the Supreme Court, which reversed and remanded the Eleventh Circuit, saying localities need to provide their reasoning essentially contemporaneously and stated clearly enough for judicial review.

"The City failed to comply with its statutory obligations under the Act. Although it issued its reason s in writing and did so in an acceptable form, it did not provide its written reasons essentially contemporaneously with its written denial when it issued detailed minutes 26 days after the date of the written denial and 4 days before expiration of petitioner’s time to seek judicial review."

“PCIA is pleased that the United States Supreme Court agrees with our assessment that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires localities to provide clear, written reasons when applications to build wireless facilities are denied,” said Jonathan Adelstein,  President and CEO of PCIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association. “ Today’s decision in T-Mobile v. Roswell vindicates PCIA’s conviction that wireless providers must be informed in a clear-cut and timely manner when siting  applications are turned down.

A White House official told the Des Moines Register Saturday that the President will outline new steps to increase access to high-speed broadband when he visits Cedar Falls, Iowa, Jan, 14, which has a 1-Gigabit broadband network provided by Cedar Fall Utilities.

The speech will come only a few days before the President is expected to talk once again in his State of the Union (SOTU) speech (Jann.20) about the importance of high-speed broadband deployment and adoption—it has been a theme in recent SOTU's, as well as cybersecurity and privacy online.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who was a tech policy adviser to candidate Obama and President Obama, has already been doing some spadework on that effort, signaling last week that the FCC wanted to make 25 Mbps (downstream) broadband the new definition of high speed and had concluded that was not being delivered to all Americans in a timely fashion.

The FCC has also made speed a priority in the FCC administered E-rate program for underwriting high-speed broadband to schools and libraries. In last year's State of the Union, the President focused on connecting more schools to high-speed broadband.

Notable for its absence during the SOTU last year was any mention of the state of the network neutrality rules, which the President supported as both candidate and President. But the President has arguable made up for that since then by late last year coming out strongly for Title II reclassification of Internet Access under Title II, arguing that without it ISP's would be able to restrict access.

Cox Communications is getting ready to up the ante on multiple service fronts, with a particular emphasis on broadband and video. On the high-speed end, it’s already moving ahead on a plan to bring 1-Gigabit capabilities to all customers in the coming years while also weighing the path forward on a next-generation video platform. Cox will also be looking to free up precious spectrum for DOCSIS 3.1 and other services via an ambitious all-digital transition that will soon be in full swing. 

Kevin Hart, Cox’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, recently talked with Multichannel News technology editor Jeff Baumgartner about the MSO’s top priorities and an update on its key tech projects. An edited transcript follows.

SCTE DAILY: What are your top priorities for the rest of 2013 and into the start of 2014?

KH: No. 1 is our continued network transformation. We’re in the process of doubling our speeds across our footprint this year, up to 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps for our two most popular tiers. We’re also in the process of launching our Gigabit service.

No. 2 is our all-digital project — not only network readiness, but the full back office and the customer experience. There’s lots of good preparation around that with the launch coming up in the fourth quarter.

No. 3 is our future-state video, as we think about the future platform for our video framework and our transition to IP. We have two or three different trials going on around our future-state video platform.

Fourth is the enablement of Cox Business commercial sector. We’re getting very close to launching some of our new sales workflow enablement capabilities for Cox Business.

SCTE DAILY: Can you offer more detail on your future-state video platform?

KH: We’ve been very pleased with the launch of Contour — primary screen, secondary screen, the storage on the set-top box, etc. — and now we’re thinking about, what’s the next generation of that solution? We’re got a couple of things going on internally that we’ve looked at from our own development and we’re also looking at partnering with others across the industry around different trials. [Ed. note: In January, Comcast announced that it was in talks with Cox about licensing its X1 platform. At the time, Cox said X1 was one of the options it is assessing.]

SCTE DAILY: When do you expect to decide on a direction?

KH: We’re likely to have trials in the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of next year, [followed by] post-evaluation of different options, including some things we’re doing internally, as well as leveraging platforms like X1. We’ll make a decision on the path forward.

SCTE DAILY:For 1-Gig, you’ve already identified your initial markets — Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha, Neb. — for that effort. Can you get us up to speed on the progress as you look to begin market-wide deployment of Gigabit speeds by the end of 2016?

KH: This is a top priority for us at Cox. We’ve [introduced] some of our market-branding, “Gig Life,” promoting the service capability and the customer experience. We are on track for a fourth-quarter launch in Phoenix. It’s a combination of new greenfield facilities, both MDUs [multiple dwelling units] and residents within Phoenix, and also some overbuild for existing neighborhoods.

We’ve announced that Las Vegas and Omaha will follow and we haven’t announced exact time lines yet.

SCTE DAILY: In Phoenix for the overbuild component, are you looking at a fiber-to-the-home implementation, like a GPON?

KH: We’re definitely going to leverage both fiber-to-the-home as well as DOCSIS 3.1. With DOCSIS 3.1 not being market-ready yet, we will leverage solutions like GPON to enable Gigabit speeds, particularly in the greenfield builds, and particularly in the MDU [multiple dwelling unit] space.

SCTE DAILY:In Phoenix, how are you deciding where to roll out 1-Gig with fiber? Will it be everywhere or in specific parts of the network initially?

KH: Eventually, it will be everywhere, leveraging the DOCSIS 3.1 platform. Initially, based on marketing analysis and market demand, we have a Web site where we have customers signing up from a pre-registration standpoint. There are probably three or four different factors that are helping us shape the build curve.

We had huge early results in terms of customers signing up and kind of outpaced our expectations in terms of the numbers.

SCTE DAILY: Can you shed more light on Cox’s all-digital project?

KH: We’ve made a ton of progress since we talked last [in April 2014]. We’re on track for a fourth quarter market launch. We have several markets from a technical network perspective ready for the conversion. Now we’re doing our final stages of testing around the actual DTA [digital transport adapter] all-digital kits that will be sent to our customers’ homes. 

We’re on track for a fourth-quarter market launch and then we have … a very aggressive schedule to complete this in 2015 and 2016, with a very steady cadence throughout those two calendar years.

SCTE DAILY:4K and Ultra HD is still an emerging market, but where is it on Cox’s agenda?

KH: I would say it’s still an emerging piece of our products and service portfolio. I think we have the capabilities, but it’s still kind of early in the lifecycle from a consumer demand standpoint. But we are ready; it’s just timing from a market standpoint.

SCTE DAILY:What’s the status of your WiFi deployment? Is Cox considering a home-as-a-hotspot rollout in gateways deployed in customer home?

KH: We’ve been pleased with our metro WiFi deployments to date. We’ve announced that in addition to lighting up Omaha, we’re also going to light up Phoenix as part of our Gig Life rollout, and we’re currently doing a build now, and Las Vegas will follow. You’ll probably see more metro WiFi deployments in line with our Gig announcements.

We’re looking at the second SSID [service set identifier], particularly in our Cox Business footprint, and we’re still evaluating home-as-a-hotspot.