Sometimes the onslaught of daily deals and lush forecasts obscures their real importance: They are collective indicators of the industry's direction, overshadowing the big picture (a version of the forest/trees conundrum). While last month included a stunning array of "big deals" in telecommunications and media, their significance looms even larger when, as I've just done, you absorb the whole month's news in a single dose.

For reasons I'll explain below, I was off the grid for most of May, and have just been catching up. Wow, a lot happened in a few weeks, but more importantly, the aggregation of deals and analyses confirms the increasing velocity of the cable/telecom industry overhaul.

Obviously, the biggest deals, especially Charter-Time Warner Cable-Bright House Networks plus Altice-Suddenlink, underscore the consolidation of the industry, especially with Altice's appetite for more acquisitions on this side of the Atlantic. The "internationalization" of domestic cable also pokes through, notably with the role that Liberty Media/Liberty Global can play in bringing content deals across the ocean; Altice may do the same.

I encountered plenty of reports about shifting power - away from programmers and toward pay TV system operators, well covered by Mike Farrell in his "Game Changer" report about the Charter deal. I also skimmed through many interpretations about the impact on equipment makers as the MSO customer base narrows. Deals take time, and this sudden tsunami is affecting all segments of the industry.

Meanwhile, the research factories cranked out plenty of forecast fodder -- all showing the accelerating uptake of over-the-top video viewing. I enjoyed the IHS Infonetics prediction that pay TV operators will aggressively deploy OTT services during the next five years, spurred by DISH's Sling TV venture. The study also concluded that pay TV operators (including cable companies) will offer "skinny bundles" to stave off cord-cutting. Who knows exactly how it will play out, but amidst other predictions, the reports reaffirmed the importance of the OTT juggernaut.

And I saw reports from the digital "NewFronts" and TV Upfronts about the growth of "branded entertainment." I've been following BuzzFeed's aggressive multimedia agenda and was impressed to see it was listed along with Fullscreen and Stylehaul as leading proponents that will make branded entertainment a core offering to their advertisers.

If it works, such sponsored programming can substantially revamp the way that advertisers allot their media budgets -- another major distraction from "business as usual." 

Of course, there was plenty of coverage of "the cloud" as a key to the next wave of delivery, including Charter's vision (thanks to its recently acquired stake in ActiveVideo and its CloudTV service) for a world with limited set-top boxes, replaced by virtualized STBs via the cloud. Maybe we shouldn't embrace everything we read about the cloud -- but one month's heavy dose of cloud stories from several industries convinced me that it's happening now. And much more widely and more quickly than I had considered.

In addition to the daily deluge of forecasts about the growing digital penetration, there was the usual slew of deal-making amongst digital opportunists.  Again, the takeaway was the unrelenting flow of activity.  There were several stand-out developments -- possible game changers -- such as Facebook's launch of its "Instant Articles" feature, which lets publishers post videos and stories directly onto  the Facebook NewsFeed.  Among the blue-chip participants are NBC, BBC and the New York Times.  

Google's new plan to create Android TV "channels" opens the door to hybrid TV that blends traditional TV and online content.  It paves the way for viewers of smart TVs to flip easily between any program source available to them. That's another reminder that non-cable entities will be making more deals with content suppliers that once may have been potential cable content  program sources. The process appears to be underway.

Nielsen's purchase of Innerscope Research, a neuromarketing research company, was a reminder of the necessary new tools being brought into play to assess what viewers like about what they are watching. The deal, along with previous Nielsen investments in similar tools plus other neural research ventures I've encountered in the past few years, reminded me of how important it is for programmers and advertisers to know what viewers are thinking and feeling.  It may not be NSA-level invasiveness, but the personal research is becoming a very big priority.

On the dark side, the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index report, which puts cable (especially Comcast and Time Warner Cable) at the bottom of 43 industries wasn't fun reading. It was a humbling reminder of the competitive challenge ahead from wireless and other carriers when and if they have the capacity.

Maybe it was just my overwhelming, sudden immersion into so many aspects of the business that instilled a sense of a "pivotal moment."  The merry month of May 2015 could someday be identified as a changing point for the industry, or maybe it was merely an accelerator for all the daily developments that we see unfolding but can rarely put into context.

As for my personal reason for uncharacteristic obliviousness during May: I was in hospitals for nearly three weeks. No, not a heart attack or bone-crushing traffic accident. It was "just" a triple whammy of unknown origin: staph infection, pneumonia and blood/gastric problems. After great treatments at Northwestern University medical center in Chicago and later at a Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospital in Washington, D.C. near my home, I've recovered well and am nearly back to what passes for "normal" in my life.  Appropriately, I was felled in Chicago on the eve of INTX cable convention.  The title above was inspired by the movie While You Were Sleeping, a 1995 rom-com that appropriately unfolds in a Chicago hospital (although there was nothing funny or romantic about my hospitalization).

Although I had my tablet, smartphone and TV Everywhere account information with me, I cannot say much about the mind-distraction factors while trapped in uncomfortable beds for weeks. (Blame most of it on inadequate hospital WiFi technology.)  I could say a lot about the boredom of TV programming and the proliferation of automotive commercials, but I'll do that elsewhere. The experience did allow me to binge a bit, such as during AMC's Mad Men marathon prior to the series finale (less enjoyable without my DVR). And there's plenty of admiration for electronic medical records and other health technology, on which I will wax elsewhere.

My thanks to the hundreds of kind remarks and encouraging messages that came in when I posted a health status report on Facebook. Although I treasure all of the comments, and I smiled as I read each message, one posting in particular stood out.   

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler (whom I've known and worked with periodically since the 1970s, just two Ohio boys who came to Washington and got into '70s cable) sent me an "OMG" comment. 

Noting that I had to skip the INTX/NCTA convention, Wheeler said, "Those cable shows can be tough." I don't know if he was referring to what he had to handle when he was NCTA president or to the current reception he receives when he speaks to the NCTA audience (probably the latter).   

But I appreciated his point and replied, "You got THAT right about cable shows."

Now I can't wait until the next one -- and to all the industry overhauls between now and then. Based on the past month, fasten your seat belts. It's going to be an intense period of industry change.

In a win for TiVo and a set-back of sorts for the Digital Living Network Alliance’s new “VidiPath” secure IP home networking standard, the FCC granted TiVo a waiver that will defer it from having to implement the DLNA’s technology until June 1, 2017.

In the FCC order released on Thursday, the Commission acknowledged that TiVo does not use an “open industry standard” as required by the rule, but did “find that its network interoperability solution enables subscribers to set up a home network and, given TiVo’s market share, we do not believe that a temporary waiver will undermine the goals” of the rule.

The rule on leased cable set-tops is set to take effect on June 1, 2015 (smaller cable MSOs had until Sept. 1, 2015 to comply), so TiVo has effectively secured a two-year waiver.

TiVo, which counts Suddenlink Communications, Grande Communications, RCN Corp. and Mediacom Communications among its U.S. MVPD partners, filed its petition for a waiver or a clarification of the rule for its products and services supplied to cable operators in August 2014, arguing that all of its products, including those sold at retail and wholesale to MSOs, already contain proprietary technology that would support the kind of home networking functionality supported by the DLNA standard, and that having to “back up” to the DLNA standard would impair its ability to  compete at retail and at the wholesale level. TiVo uses the technology in its whole-home DVR platform for set-tops and mobile devices.

The DLNA urged the FCC to deny the waiver, holding that its guidelines had been available long enough for TiVo to implement. The FCC said it sees benefits in expanding the availability of DLNA-compliant home networking equipment, but again cited TiVo’s “relatively small subscriber base” as a reason why a waiver wouldn’t undermine that process. Plus, TiVo’s currently deployed implementation “deliver much of what the rule intended to accomplish,” the FCC noted.

The National Cable Telecommunications Association and Verizon did not ask the FCC to deny TiVo’s petition but did ask the Commission to use it as an opportunity to waive the rule on an industry-wide basis. The FCC denied their request.

DLNA released the CVP-2 guidelines in March 2014, and followed in September with thedebut of the “VidiPath” brand and a certification  program -- initiatives that will provide a secure, in-home IP networking path, enabling MVPDs to deliver subscription TV content (and bridge their user interfaces and navigation systems) to VidiPath-certified retail CE products such as set-tops, gaming consoles, tablets and streaming devices.

Several major U.S. cable operators, meanwhile, are pushing ahead with the DLNA standard, as VidiPath was a focus of the INTX show in Chicago earlier this month.  Among the demos, DLNA showed Comcast’s Xfinity VidiPath Service for its X1 platform running on the MSO’s production plant and displaying on smart TVs and tablets. This video from an Imagine Park session at INTX shows VidiPath operating in tandem with X1. 

In addition to Comcast, DLNA members such as Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable have deployed or are expected to soon deploy set-tops and gateways outfitted with VidiPath servers.

Even with delayed support from TiVo, some analysts believe VidiPath is poised to take off. ABI Research recently projected that VidiPath-certified devices will be available in about 40% of all U.S. cable homes that subscribe to “advanced services” by 2016, expanding to 70% by 2020. If additional capabilities are added to VidiPath in the coming years (such as cloud-based deployment models and support by OTT video providers), ABI said adoption among the advanced cable service footprint could grow to 100%.  

Restart Notification, a feature for Comcast’s X1 platform that lets viewers restart a program in progress from the beginning, has moved out of Comcast Labs beta environment to become a default setting for the MSO’s cloud-based video platform.

When the notification appears, viewers can press the “Info” button on their remotes to pull up more information about the show and select “Restart” from the action bar to start the program from the beginning, Peter Nush, VP of product management at Comcast Cable, explained in this blog post highlighting a handful of X1-related updates.

Other recent X1 additions and enhancements include:

-Kids Zone, an X1 feature announced at the INTX show in Chicago, has gone live via Comcast Labs. Kids Zone presents content that is rated and reviewed by Common Sense Media for age-appropriateness, spanning live TV, DVR recordings and nearly 8,500 kid’s movies and TV shows offered via Comcast’s VOD service. 

-Comcast Labs has also added a “Control Panel” to X1 that gives subscribers quick access to service information and frequently used settings without interrupting what they are currently watching. Currently, Control Panel supports elements such as the current time, weather, subscriber account info, X1 tips and tricks, and X1’s Start Power Saver.

-Customers now have the ability to opt-in and kick the tires on all Comcast Labs beta features for X1 through an “Enable All” setting. “Many customers have told us how much they like being able to try things out during the development phase, so this makes it easier for you to stay looped in,” Nush noted.

-Comcast has added the Video Description Icon to the X1’s grid guide for linear TV. The icon signals when a program feature a secondary Video Description Service (DVS) audio track that provides audio descriptions of a program’s key vision elements, a feature, Comcast said, that is of particular value to customers who have low vision or are vision impaired. Customers can turn on the DVS track through the X1’s Accessibility Settings.

Comcast hasn’t announced how many of its 22.3 million video customers are on X1, but chairman and CEO Brian Roberts noted on the company’s first quarter earnings call that about 25% of the operator’s triple-play subs now have the next-gen video service. That means Comcast has at least 2.49 million customers with X1, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett estimated in a recently issued research note. Based on the MSO's earlier estimation that it was shipping about 20,000 X1 boxes per day, Comcast should have more than 9 million X1 devices deployed. 

AT&T has joined a growing list of service providers that will distribute Hulu, the over-the-top subscription video service.

Through its deal with Hulu, AT&T said it intends to make the service available through AT&T’s network of websites and mobile applications.

AT&T didn’t specify a launch date, noting only that it will offer Hulu sometime “later this year,” noting that customers subscribing to the OTT service via AT&T will have access to all existing Hulu apps and be able to browse and search for Hulu content from within AT&T’s own apps, including its authenticated TV Everywhere app for the U-verse service.

AT&T and Hulu are “exploring the possibility of bringing a Hulu app to TV,” the companies said.

Update: An AT&T official said the deal will eventually apply to all AT&T customers, including U-verse customers, with Hulu incorporated into a future release of an AT&T-branded app.

AT&T said that the Hulu agreement complements AT&T’s over-the-top strategy, referencing, for example, Otter Media, the joint venture formed with The Chernin Group in 2014 that's focused on investing, acquiring and launching OTT services.

"We know that our customers want to be able to access video on multiple devices,” said Andrew Goodman, associate vice president, AT&T content acquisition. “So we’re excited to be able to expand our relationship with Hulu and make its innovative and vast video selections available to AT&T customers on multiple screens."

“At Hulu, we strive to create the best possible video experience for customers – offering them the ability to view their favorite content, when, where and how they want," added Tim Connolly, Hulu's senior vice president of partnerships and distribution. "We are excited to be working with AT&T to connect its customers with our premium content on every screen." 

Hulu has been busy on the deal front. Following its first announced MVPD deal with Cablevision Systems on April 28, Hulu followed up last week with distribution pacts with five more --  Armstrong, Atlantic Broadband, Mediacom Communications, Midcontinent Communications and WideOpenWest (WOW!) .

Speaking at the INTX show in Chicago last week, Hulu’s Connolly said the focus of those MVPD agreements is to bring Hulu to the set-top box and offer a “holistic" environment that ties Hulu’s content together with cable operator’s on a unified interface.  He also confirmed that Hulu's MVPD partners will also get a share of Hulu's subscription revenue.

Joe Canavan, vice president of product management and sales at Atlantic Broadband, said in an interview (subscription required) that ABB plans to integrate the Hulu app on TiVo-powered boxes that the operator leases to pay TV customers. In addition to tying Hulu’s catalog into the platform’s search and discovery system, the operator also intends to offer some genre-based Hulu “channels,” such as one focused on kid’s programming, that deep-link the viewer to specific Hulu titles.

A microsite promoting Comcast’s new 2 Gbps residential broadband service, Gigabit Pro, showed, albeit temporarily, a starting price of $299 per month.

The marketing site touting Gigabit Pro, at www.comcast.com/gig_campaign, was taken down early Monday evening, however. 

“The web page was put up in error,” a Comcast spokesman said in an emailed statement. “We don't have an official price to announce at this time. Pricing, including introductory and promotional rates, are still being considered.”

DSL Reports was the first to report of the microsite and pricing detail, and one of its users posted a screengrab showing the $299 per month pricing alongside a phone number for consumers to call to receive more information on Gigabit Pro. 

Comcast introduced Gigabit Pro on April 2, announcing that the fiber-to-the-premises-based offering would initially be available to more than 1.5 million customers in Atlanta, and become available to 18 million homes by the end of 2015. Comcast has also identified several other markets that will soon offer Gigabit Pro, including Chicago; northwest Indiana; Nashville, Chattanooga and middle Tennessee; parts of Florida, including Miami and Jacksonville; and certain areas of California.

Comcast will offer the uncapped Gigabit Pro service to residential customers who are within “close proximity” (roughly a one-third of a mile) of the MSO’s fiber network.

While Comcast has not announced official pricing on Gigabit Pro, the company said last month that it intends to convert its existing Extreme 505 customers to the new 2 Gig service, and expects to sell Gigabit Pro at a price that’s below the rate those customers have been paying for the 505-Meg (downstream) service, which also uses FTTP and currently sells for $399.99 per month (with a three-year contract). 

Comcast is also moving ahead with plans to offer gigabit speeds via its widely deployed HFC network using the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 platform. Comcast offered a preview of a D3.1-based  “Gigabit Home Gateway” at last week’s INTX show in Chicago,  noting that the device will enter production this year and become available to customers in early 2016. 

Cox Communications confirmed that it recently raised the data plans for its residential broadband service tiers and will soon post the update on its Website to reflect the changes.

On a tier-by-tier basis, Cox’s new monthly data allowances are now as follows: 

- Starter: 150 GB/month

- Essential: 250 GB/month

- Preferred (Cox’s most popular plan): 350 GB/month

- Premier 700 GB/month

- Ultimate 2,000 GB/month

When Cox raised those limits in February 2013, Starter usage was limited to 30 GB, Essential at 100 GB, Preferred at 250 GB, and Premiere at 300 GB, while Ultimate held steady at 400 GB.

It was not immediately known how the revised policy affects Cox’s fiber-based, 1-Gig G1GABLAST service, which is now being offered in parts of four markets: Phoenix; Orange County, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; and Las Vegas. The current, posted policy for G1GABLAST in Phoenix, the first market to get the 1-Gig service, shows a monthly data plan of 1 terabyte. 

Update: Cox also  confirmed that 1 TB remains the monthly usage allowance for its 1-Gig residential offering. 

DSL Reports first reported on the revised Cox data usage policies on Friday, citing info posted to its user forum by Cox customers.

Cox’s policy aims to keep excessive use in check and, unlike some policies that have been adopted or are being tested by other MSOs, Cox does not charge extra for additional buckets of data once a consumer breaks through the monthly cap. Speaking at this week’s INTX show in Chicago, industry analysts said usage-based pricing for broadband is inevitable as an increasing amount of video is consumed over-the-top.

“When things get bad enough on the video side, they will have this arrow in their quiver,” Vijay Jayant, Evercore ISI Group’s senior managing director, said.

According to the Cox policy that is currently posted, customers who do exceed their monthly data ceiling will be notified by one or more methods (email, phone, or a message to the PC) before action is taken.

“We will then work proactively with you,” the policy explains. “In many cases, customers are not even aware of their usage because they have an unsecured Wi-Fi network used by others or a computer virus. Cox can work with you to ensure that these issues are identified and corrected. In other cases, customers may choose to reduce their usage or switch to another Internet package that provides more data. In rare cases of extremely high usage, Cox will suspend the user's service until they call Cox. In even rarer cases, Cox will terminate a customer's service if they do not decrease their usage after consultation with Cox.”

Comcast’s flurry of technology and service announcements this week at INTX also included what’s on the horizon for Xfinity Home, the MSO’s home security and automation platform.

Xfinity Home is about to get a big facelift in the form of a new software platform that will run a variety next-gen products developed by Comcast alongside integrations with a batch of third-party devices, including Nest, the popular smart thermostat that’s now part of the Google empire.

Amplifying a broader strategy that’s well underway in which Comcast is developing and designing its own consumer products such as set-top boxes, gateways and remote controls, the MSO showed off a suite of internally developed Xfinity Home products, including smart thermostats, indoor/outdoor cameras with night vision, sensors, and a revamped touchscreen controller (see picture above). Some of those products will feature the same low-power E Ink Corp. technology used in Amazon’s latest line of Kindle e-readers.

Comcast has not announced when it will launch the new products, but they will be made to support a range of wireless connectivity protocols, including WiFi, Zigbee and Bluetooth, according to an exec who was demoing the products.

Comcast also announced that it will open up Xfinity Home to a broad set of device partners, noting that the MSO later this year will release a software development kit (SDK) and a “Works with Xfinity Home” certification program.

This week, the company announced several partners, including August, a maker of smart locks and car adapters (Comcast Ventures is an investor); Cuff (smart jewelry); Leeo (maker of a connected nighlight); Lutron (dimmers, remote controls and battery-powered shade); Rachio (sprinkler controllers); Automatic Labs (car adapters); SkyBell (video doorbells); and Whistle (pet monitors).

Comcast is  separately developing an integration with Nest Labs through the Works with Nest program.

“We want to help people unlock the potential of their smart home,” Dan Herscovici, SVP and GM of Xfinity Home, said, in a statement. “Whether it’s through the television, an app or a voice command, we’re giving customers one easy-to-use experience to control all their favorite devices, seamlessly on the same platform.”

A Comcast official said the MSO’s relationship with Icontrol, its original Xfinity Home technology partner, is unchanged.

However, the coming SDK, an exec at the Comcast booth explained, will established a broader, “super set” platform that will encompass Icontrol, Comcast’s new internally-developed products, and its grander third-party integration initiative.

Comcast’s Xfinity Home is evolving as the platform starts to scale up. Speaking on the company’s first quarter conference call on Monday (May 4), Comcast Cable president and CEO Neil Smit said Xfinity Home has more than 500,000 customers.

“That business is really starting to catch on,” Smit said.

Chicago -- Hulu’s recently announced partnerships with a handful of MVPDs isn’t just about getting the OTT service on the set-top box, but also centers on deeper business relationships that aim to increase Hulu’s subscriber base while also giving cable operators a new source of recurring revenue. 

Hulu reached out to the pay TV universe about potential partnerships about a year ago as Hulu sought new ways to expand its core subscription service, Tim Connolly, Hulu’s head of distribution and partnerships, said here on a panel focused on online video strategies. 

Key to that was to show the MVPDs that Hulu and its deep catalog of TV shows offered a valuable, friendly complement to traditional pay TV services. That message has apparently been resonating. Following an initial agreement with Cablevision Systems, Hulu announced similar distribution pacts this week with five other MVPDs --  Armstrong, Atlantic Broadband, Mediacom Communications, Midcontinent Communications and WideOpenWest (WOW!) 

Connolly said the focus of those agreements is to bring Hulu to the set-top box and offer a “holistic" environment that ties Hulu’s content together with cable operator’s on a unified interface. 

While that could help cable operators keep eyeballs on their platform, Hulu's MSO partners will also get a share of Hulu's subscription revenue, Connolly said. 

While Hulu looks to amplify MVPD offerings, Sling TV is taking a different approach with OTT, delivering  skinnier bundles tailored for cord-cutters and cord-nevers, starting with a core package that sells for $20 per month, alongside optional add-on packages. 

The decision to develop the service was made more than five years ago as it became apparent that the traditional TV market would reach a saturation point and decline, due partly to costs.  “We needed a different model” to reach a different demographic, Roger Lynch, Sling TV’s CEO said.

“The $20 price point was really critical to us,” Lynch added, noting that hitting it was “the most challenging thing for us to do.” 

Lynch said it would’ve been easier to replicate the big bundle and deliver it over the Internet, “but we would’ve completely missed the market we were going after.” 

Lynch and Connolly also addressed churn, a huge challenge faced by all OTT video service providers. Both agreed that a big focus is to get customers to stay on the service for at least three months. After that period, churn rates tend to fall significantly. 

Sling TV is trying to hit that number through device bundles that offer a free or discounted Roku and Amazon streaming devices when customers agree to commit to the service for three months. 

But other subscribers can join or leave the service on a month-to-month basis. “We don’t necessarily view that activity as churn” in the traditional sense, Lynch said, noting that acquisition costs for OTT are far less than what a traditional MVPDs.

 He also said he expects consumers to be drawn to the Sling TV during big sporting events. “The challenge there for us is to make it [the service] interesting to them year-round.” 

As for new players looking to launch OTT services, they should be careful not to simply go about it by dipping their toe in the water and experiment with a “half-baked solution,” given the state of today’s competitive online video marketplace, Braxton Jarratt, CEO and co-founder of Clearleap, said. “That era was four-to-six years ago.” 

Clearleap teamed up with HBO Nordic, which is battling with Netflix, to help the OTT service essentially rebuild its architecture. That service relaunched about more than a month ago, and the improvements to the quality of the underlying service have already resulted in improved churn and better daily sales, he said. 

Jerry Kent, co-chair of INTX and CEO of Suddenlink, looked to get some answers from FCC commissioners at the show on whether blocking his subs' online access to online content was a network neutrality violation and, if not, why. He got an answer to at least half the question from one commissioner, while the Repbulicans who did not support net neutrality rules deffered.

At the end of Tuesday's panel session featuring four of the five FCC commissioners, "Help me out," said Kent from the audience.

In a Q&A session following the panel discussion, Kent said as far as he knew, no ISP was blocking or throttling traffic, "unless something was going on that I'm not aware of." He said that he "got" that the FCC was reclassifying ISPs under Title II common carrier regs to make sure nothing happened in the future. But he suggested there was unreasonable blocking going on now that was not being addressed.

"Today, we have programmers who block access to their websites when they have a dispute with an ISP," he said. He pointed to the major dispute he had with a "very large programmer (he did not say Viacom, but suggested everyone was aware of who he was talking about). "They are blocking access to their Web sites from any customer who has [an IP] address from Suddenlink."

Kent said that a DirecTV or Dish customer getting Internet access from Suddenlink was "theoretically paying for that content,” then asked them whether they thought it was a network neutrality violation and, if not, why not.

Republican commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Ajit Pai begged off, pointing out that they did not support the net neutrality rules. Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed it was "flat out a problem" when any consumer can't access lawful content online, “which certainly sounded like network neutrality language." But she said,  "I don't think that falls squarely within our network neutrality rules." She did say she shared Kent's frustration. "I think consumers should always have access to the bounty of the Web."

Last October, when Viacom began blocking Suddenlink sub access after its failure to reach a new carriage deal, Suddenlink complained the blocking was a violation of net neutrality. Viacom countered that its content " is available through hundreds of partners, including cable, satellite and many online destinations...Suddenlink abruptly decided to end our relationship, which has resulted in the continued interruption of Viacom programming across platforms, including online, through Suddenlink.”

Arris said it will make streaming music service Pandora available on the set-top via the Arris Market, an applications platform that enables Arris’s pay TV partners to mix over-the-top fare with traditional live video services.

Arris said Pandora is the first music-streaming app to be offered on Arris Market, a system that was launched last summer in partnership with Wurl. Arris is initially offering the app store via its Whole Home Solution, a product that is anchored by a six-tuner HD-DVR/gateway.

“Music is a universal experience that’s unique to every listener, and Pandora captures this special quality perfectly,” said Ron Miller, Arris’s VP of product management for consumer solutions, in a statement.

Pandora is also offered on several other set-top box platforms, including TiVo and Comcast's X1. 

It’s Gigabit Pro day. Soon after announcing that it had begun to roll out the new 2-Gig residential service to Nashville and middle Tennessee, Comcast said the new offering is also starting its push into the Midwest, starting with an anticipated debut in several markets in the greater Chicago region later this month.

The rollout in the Chicago area, which also factors in parts of Northwest Indiana and comes as this week’s INTX show is being hosted in The Windy City, will make Gigabit Pro available to about 2.4 million customers there, Comcast said.

AT&T launched its fiber-based GigaPower service in parts of Chicago last month. 

 Additionally, Comcast will make the service available through Xfinity Communities, a program for residents living in apartments and other multi-dwelling units.

Comcast is in the process of making Gigabit Pro available to about 18 million homes by the end of the year, offering it to customers who are within about one-third of a mile of the MSO’s fiber network. Deployments are also underway in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Atlanta; parts of Florida, including Miami and Jacksonville; and certain areas of California.

Comcast has not announced pricing for Gigabit Pro, a service that relies on fiber-to-the-premises technology. Plans are also underway for Comcast to offer residential gigabit speeds on its HFC plant using the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 platform.

“Greater Chicago Region customers will be the first in the Midwest to have access to multi-gigabit speeds,” John Crowley, regional SVP of Comcast Cable’s Greater Chicago Region, said. “We’re thrilled to bring the nation’s fastest speeds here and hope the introduction of Gigabit Pro will help further establish the region as the next great hub of technology and innovation.”

Diving more deeply into the 4K video pool, Comcast announced Wednesday that it will launch a 4K/Ultra HD set-top later this year alongside the launch of an expanded lineup of 4K content.

The box, called the Xi4, will run on Comcast’s cloud-based, IP-capable X1 platform, enabling customers to create “virtual 4K linear channels” via MSO’s UHD library. A version of the Xi4  from Cisco Systems was spotted passing through the FCC in January.

Comcast said it also developing the Xi5, a device that will support high dynamic range (HDR), an emerging format that supports a wider palette of colors and more brighter pixels. HDR will apply to both HD and 4K content.

On the content end, Comcast said it will offer “hundreds” of titles via an Xfinity in UHD catalog/library that will feature films and other content produced for IMAX from K2 Communications and Havoc TV, full current seasons of TV shows such as SyFy’s Defiance, USA’s Playing House, Satisfaction and Suits, and original fare from Starz, including Outlander and Power. 4K content will be encoded in the bandwidth-saving HEVC/H.265 format and delivered to the Xi4 via Comcast's managed VOD service, an official confirmed. 

"With Xfinity in UHD, our customers can easily and seamlessly enjoy some of the best 4K programming available today as part of their subscription with no additional equipment or costs," said Matt Strauss, EVP and GM of video service for Comcast Cable, in a statement. "We are committed to providing the highest-quality entertainment experiences across platforms and our next-generation set-top boxes deliver on that promise—providing our customers with UHD and HDR programming on the biggest screen in the home."

Comcast entered the 4K era late last year with the launch of an on-demand streaming app that’s initially available on 2014 Samsung UHD TV and provides access to a small, free content library.

DirecTV was the first U.S. MVPD to launch a UHD service. Dish Network is expected to launch a 4K service later this year in tandem with the debut of the 4K Ultra HD Joey box, which was unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show.

They are all getting into the 4K game amid UHD services from OTT players such as Netflix, M-GO and Amazon.

Comcast said it has begun to deploy Gigabit Pro, its new residential 2 Gbps broadband service, in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, announcing that it will be available to about 500,000 customers in the region starting next month.

Comcast has not announced pricing on the service, which will use targeted fiber-to-the-premises deployments to deliver symmetrical 2-Gig speeds.

Notably, Nashville is also being targeted by Google Fiber as part of an 18-city expansion. AT&T has also identified Nashville as a launch site for GigaPower, its fiber-based 1-Gig broadband service.

Comcast has not yet announced pricing on Gigabit Pro, a service that it expects to make available to about 18 million homes by the end of the year, offering it to customers who are within about one-third of a mile of the MSO’s fiber network. Deployments of Gigabit Pro is already underway in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Atlanta, parts of Florida (Miami, Jacksonville, West Palm and Ft. Lauderdale), and certain areas of California.

Comcast is also making plans to offer gigabit speeds on its more widely deployed HFC plant using DOCSIS 3.1, a new CableLabs spec that is targeting speeds up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream. On Tuesday, Comcast offered a sneak peak of an multi-service “Gigabit Home Gateway” that will support DOCSIS 3.1 and RDK-B, a new flavor of the Reference Design Kit, a preintegrated software stack, that can be applied to broadband devices as well as set-top boxes. 

“Our commitment to deliver the fastest speeds to the most homes in Tennessee continues with today’s announcement,” said Doug Guthrie, SVP of Comcast Cable’s South Region, in a statement. “As one of Nashville’s largest employers, we have steadily invested in our technology, added to our employee base and unveiled new products and services, making the launch of Gigabit Pro the latest in a series of investments across the state.” 

Rovi Corp. said it has struck a multi-product deal with Mediacom Communications Corporation covering Rovi Operator Insights, Rovi Ad Optimizer and Rovi Subscriber Analytics, products that will provide the MSO with data on network performance, viewership trends and the ability to more efficiently utilize available ad inventory.

The deal also includes an i-Guide renewal, clearing Mediacom to launch new Rovi discovery products on iPads, smartphones, and digital terminal adapters (DTA), respectively, with the Rovi Guide xD and Rovi DTA Guide.

The agreement also extends Mediacom’s license of Rovi’s intellectual property to cover set-tops, as well as online and mobile devices.

“This agreement with Mediacom, a major U.S. cable provider, underscores Rovi’s commitment to building high-quality technology offerings for service providers,” John Burke, Rovi’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. “As we continue to broaden our product portfolio, we look forward to enhancing our customers’ offerings by delivering advanced technologies that improve the viewing experience and bring entertainment discovery to life.”

“The data and analytics insights, enabled under this agreement, provide essential intelligence that will fundamentally enhance our business going forward,” added John Pascarelli, executive vice president, operations, Mediacom. “By aligning with Rovi, we’re able to gain relevant operational and subscriber use cases to ensure we drive more value to our customers.”

Vubiquity said it is revealing and demonstrating new products and services at this week’s INTX show in in Chicago focused on areas such as live streaming, digital distribution and electronic sell-through.

On the linear side, its LiveVU service is powered by powered by Vubiquity’s AnyVU Cloud platform, enabling service providers to quickly launch a live linear streaming service that includes content acquisition, content encoding and packaging, CDN delivery and a digital storefront.

Also on show is the company’s Bandwidth Optimization platform that uses reduced bitrate encoding to compress data and make more storage available, thereby enabling service providers to expand their offerings. The company said its Bandwidth Optimization platform facilitates 38% more storage and allows service providers to deliver 62% more on demand assets to their customers, leading to increased revenues. Bandwidth Optimization transcodes high-quality source files into lower bitrate profiles encoded at a rate of 9.25Mbps, while maintaining high-quality standards of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Visual Quality Metrics (VQM), and Structural Similarity (SSIM).

With respect to digital distribution, Vubiquity said its existing service provider portfolio consists of 550 distributors across 37 countries in 15 languages, noting that, beginning in the third quarter of 2015, the company will boost this portfolio and distribute content to additional service providers including OTT distributors.

Vubiquity is also showing an EST solution for that works with existing VOD set-ups and includes pre-licensed movies and TV shows for in- and out-of-home viewing on mainstream devices, set-top-box integrations, white-labeled storefronts, and device apps iOS  and Android devices, as well as PCs and Macs.

“At this year’s INTX, we wanted to really highlight all of the content capabilities we have been developing over the past year,” Darcy Antonellis, CEO of Vubiquity said, in a statement . “With new technologies and disruption comes many new challenges, and we have been diligently working to best support our partners and customers with new solutions.”

With news of slimmed-down pay-TV offerings from Verizon and others continuing to reverberate at INTX, a trio of seasoned execs offered predictions confirming long-held speculation: More skinny offerings are on the way.

"I think you're going to see more experimentation around this from programmers as well as operators. It's in all of our best interest not to lose customers," said Kathy Payne, senior VP and chief programming officer of Suddenlink during late-Tuesday panel session "Thin to Win: Choice, Change & the Rise of Skinny Bundles."

Citing company survey findings, she added that market forces, especially OTT offerings, are making "people say, 'Gosh, why am I paying this much to my cable operator when I have other choices?' So we have to be nimble."

Conversation and open diplomatic channels are key, the panelists agreed. Verizon's bold move was preceded by virtually "no conversation" with programmers, said Tonia O'Connor, president of content development and corporate business development for Univision. "That was a head-scratcher for us because we're more than happy to work with our partners to understand what the best option is for the consumer."

Given the expectation of more OTT services, including some from traditional players (a la CBS All Access or HBO Now), O'Connor added ominously, "The launch of new linear channels as we know them today, there's probably not a real future there."

For more, please see this story in B&C. 

CHICAGO -- While everyone seems to be fixated on residential broadband speeds the pump out 1 Gigabit per second or more, cable operators and other broadband ISPs must also continue to focus on improving the overall user experience as consumers connect in and outside the home.

That was a prevailing view here Tuesday afternoon during a technology session focused on innovation and the future of media.

The network is already doing a good job of meeting the needs of most consumers, but “the network has got to be smarter,” said David Dibble, the former Yahoo exec who was named CTO of Cablevision Systems last fall. “It’s not just a series of dumb pipes.”

By “smarter,” Dibble meant using things like telemetry  data and other forms of information that can keep tabs on the user experience, and in some cases, make the network itself a self-managed entity.

Tony Werner, the executive vice president and CTO of Comcast, agreed that an important goal is to manage that experience on the wired network to the home and when consumers access the Internet via WiFi. On that point, he said 60% of devices in the home aren’t wired and will only grow.

“I do very much believe that the home will go 100% wireless inside” within 12 to 18 months,  he said, noting later that MSOs should strive to make WiFi “bone-dead simple” for the consumer.

However, “you’ll still need a fairly robust [wired] network” underpinning it, Werner added.

While speed doesn’t tell the full consumer story for broadband, “speed is a good place to start,” Kevin Hart, EVP and CTO of Cox Communications said, noting that the MSO has been expanding the deployment of its new 1-Gig “G!GABLAST” residential service. “Speed is a key metric and something the consumer can relate to.”

But latency for gaming and other real-time apps and service reliability are also key metrics that the industry should also continue to pursue and maybe “put branding around.”

Still, 1-Gig is the new billboard speed that cable operators and other ISPs are chasing, even if the use-case isn’t obviously apparent to most broadband users.

But the consumer demand for 1-Gig will grow as people use broadband to consume video on an increasing number of IP-connected devices at once, leverage cloud-based services and apps, and tap broadband to manage and monitor more elements of their homes and lives.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about the Internet of Everything,” Yvette Kanouff, SVP and general manager of Cisco’s service provider video software and solutions group,  said.

Werner agreed that consumer demand for 1-Gig won’t revolve around a solitary, but an accumulation of them, but believes that it will be a long time before that capacity is fully utilized.

“I still think a Gigabit is overkill for some time,” Werner said.

Jeremy Legg, the head of technology and strategy and product monetization at Turner Broadcasting System, noted that beefier broadband can also help programmers develop “smarter content.”

For TV Everywhere apps like CNNGo, Turner is already annotating content as it’s produced live, paving the way for a future in which consumers can essentially “multicast” a feed of CNN tailored for a viewer’s particular  interests.

On the point of smarter content, Werner noted that Comcast is developing an “enhanced content” feature for the MSO’s X1 video platform that will enable programmers to add additional content that can be layered on top of the video feed.

“We very much want the content folks to be on our platform,” Werner said. 

Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts used the INTX stage Tuesday to offer a glimpse at a DOCSIS 3.1-powered, multi-purpose gateway that will enable the MSO to deliver gigabit speeds via its widely deployed HFC network.

“Developed by our teams here in Philadelphia and Silicon Valley, the DOCSIS 3.1 modem goes into production this year and will be available to customers in early 2016,” Tony Werner, Comcast’s EVP and CTO, noted in this blog post that provides more info about the device. “When combined with a DOCSIS 3.1-enabled network, the Gigabit Home Gateway is capable of delivering speeds greater than 1 gigabit per second (1 Gbps).”

Because it runs on the HFC network the Gigabit Home Gateway will enable the operator to bring gigabit speeds “to virtually all Xfinity customers once the DOCSIS 3.1 networking standard is deployed nationally,” Werner added.

Comcast is also using fiber-to-the-home in a targeted fashion to offer Gigabit Pro, a residential broadband service that supports symmetrical speeds of 2 Gbps and become available to 18 million homes by year-end.

According to Werner, the new D3.1-powered gateway will also feature gigabit WiFi, support IP video, and integrate home automation and security capabilities. It’s also the first Comcast device to integrate home networking control and monitoring software that the operator acquired in 2014 via its purchase of PowerCloud Systems. It’s also equipped with RDK B, a new flavor of the Reference Design Kit, a preintegrated software stack, that can be applied all-purpose gateways.

Cox Communications said its 1-Gig “G1GABLAST” residential service has been launched in parts of four markets: Phoenix; Orange County, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; and Las Vegas.

Cox added that it is also actively deploying broadband network infrastructure in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Oklahoma and Virginia to bring G1GABLAST  to customers in those states. The service will launch in those areas starting later this summer, the MSO said.

Using fiber-to-the-home technologies in a targeted fashion, Cox first launched the G1GABLAST in Phoenix last fall. 

Cox also expects to factor in DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for widely deployed HFC networks, as part its grander plan to make residential gigabit service available across Cox’s footprint by the end of 2016.

"We started in Phoenix last fall, but we have not stopped there. We are excited to have the choice of gigabit speeds available to more customers today, and we’re adding new building projects every month,” Cox president Pat Esser said, in a statement.

Last year, company doubled the speeds of its most popular Internet service packages, Cox High Speed Internet Preferred and Cox High Speed Internet Premier. The operator also plans to boost its “Ultimate” tier later this year.

On the wireless front, Cox has deployed quasi-public hotspots in parts of Virginia, Connecticut, Nebraska, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho and California. Those hotspots are accessible to Cox subs as well as credentialed customers of the Cable WiFi roaming alliance, a group that also includes Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Bright House and Time Warner Cable. Together, the roaming group has deployed more than 300,000 metro WiFi hotspots. 

Hitting on a trend that has caught on in the over-the-top video world, Comcast has introduced a kids-friendly version of its X1 video platform.

The new enhancement, called Kids Zone, features content that is rated and reviewed by Common Sense Media for age-appropriateness. Kids Zone spans live TV, DVR recordings and nearly 8,500 kid’s movies and TV shows offered via Comcast’s VOD service.

The feature -- to be launched as a “permanent feature” of X1 in the next few months (Kids Zone will initially be offered through the Comcast Labs area of X1) -- also sorts movies and shows by what’s on live, what viewers have recently watched, and by network. Parents also have the option to select TV shows and movies by a preferred age range.

When Kids Zone is enabled, certain features of the platform - including channel up/channel down, ability to purchase or rent programming, and certain voice commands – will be disabled to ensure that kids don’t stumble across inappropriate channels or programming. 

“We created an experience that gives kids the chance to watch TV independently but also gives parents peace of mind because they know the programming their kids are watching is age-appropriate,”  Jennifer Metz, director of product management at Comcast Cable, said in a statement. “This is a first-of-its-kind for our industry and because of the flexibility and power of the X1 platform; it’s only going to keep getting better.” 

Comcast, citing Common Sense Media research study, said children spend approximately two hours per day with some sort of screen media, with about 50% of that time spent watching TV in the home. A survey conducted by Sprout, NBCUniversal’s network for tots, also found that 69% of parents seek TV settings that prevent their kids from accessing inappropriate content.

YouTube and Netflix are among the OTT providers that have introduced kid-friendly versions of their services.

On Monday (May 4), Comcast introduced Xfinity Share, an app that lets X1 subs send live video streams, recorded video, and digital photos to the TV as well as to other smartphones.

INSP Brings Maureen McCormick to INTX 2015

CHICAGO — Maureen McCormick will appear at the INSP network booth (513) on Tuesday, May 5, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3-4 p.m. She is best-known as Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch. But she’s also host of INSP’s newest original production, the pilot program State Plate.

McCormick will fuel her passion for food and travel as she criss-crosses the U.S. to feature a food from each state. Along the way, she will visit some of the best cooks in the country at local eateries, county fairs and even in grandma’s kitchen. 

The first 200 people who stop by INSP’s booth on Tuesday, 12-1:30 p.m., will also enjoy a free slice of Chicago-style deep dish pizza.

Fox News, Fox Business Talent Visit Wednesday

CHICAGO — On Wednesday (May 6) there will be a meet and greet with Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network on-air personalities at Booth 113, 2-3 p.m., featuring:

• Shepard Smith, FNC’s chief news anchor, managing editor for the breaking news division and anchor of Shepard Smith Reporting (weekdays 3-4 p.m. ET)

• Kimberly Guilfoyle, co-host of FNC’s The Five (weekdays 5-6 p.m. ET)

Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, host of FBN’s Kennedy (weekdays 10-11 p.m. ET)

• Deirdre Bolton, host of FBN’s Risk & Reward with Deirdre Bolton (weekdays 1-2 p.m. ET)

Ride TV to Feature Live Trick-Roping Demos

CHICAGO — Equestrian lifestyle network Ride TV will feature live trick-roping and cooking demonstrations from its booth space (1422), performed by Anthony Lucia, host of the network’s Swamp Donkey and Paige Duke, host of the channel’s Southern Fried Skinnyfied.

The Ride TV booth will also feature giveaways and raffle prizes, such as custom-fit cowboy boots by Anderson Bean and a custom-fit straw cowboy hat by American Hat Company. “We are very excited to have launched Ride TV and to offer it to television viewers around the world. This is our first year as an exhibitor at the annual Cable Show and we invite everyone by our booth to learn more about our new breed of entertainment,” Michael Fletcher, CEO of Ride TV, said in a release. The channel launched in October 2014.

Fuse Plans Customized Uber To Shuttle Execs To Affiliate Meetings

CHICAGO — Fuse, which is planning to expand beyond music to include a mix of comedy, culture and lifestyle programming, is unveiling the Fuber — a Fuse-branded Uber — that will be used for attending affiliate executive meetings.

It will come equipped with a plasma-screen to show network partners new and existing content and will also be used to transport network clients to meetings around the Chicago area. 

"Fuse Media has found yet another platform to take TV literally everywhere,” Fuse senior vice president of affiliate sales and marketing Judi Lopez said in a statement.

Big Ten Conference Mascots Muster In Chicago

CHIGAGO — Ten of the Big Ten Conference’s mascots, including the legendary “Brutus Buckeye” and “Bucky Badger,” will make promotional appearances at INTX 2015 on Tuesday and Wednesday (May 5 and 6).

The Fox Sports mascot, Cleatus, will also make an appearance. The 11 will be hosted by Fox Networks and Chicago’s own Big Ten Network.

Big Ten Conference mascots scheduled to appear are: University of Iowa, Herky the Hawk; Northwestern University, Willie the Wildcat; University of Maryland, Testudo; Ohio State University, Brutus; Michigan State University, Sparty; Purdue University, Purdue Pete; University of Minnesota, Goldy Gopher; Rutgers University, Scarlet Knight; University of Nebraska, Herbie Husker; University of Wisconsin, Bucky Badger; plus, Cleatus.

Appearance schedule: Tuesday, May 5: Cleatus ONLY, 2-5 p.m. Fox Networks booth 113.

Wednesday, May 6: Big Ten Conference Mascots, 3:30-5 p.m.

The mascots also will be visiting The Chairman’s Reception (invitation only).

Five more U.S. MVPDs have joined Cablevision Systems in striking deals with Hulu that will enable them to offer the over-the-top streaming service to their respective customers. 

Armstrong, Atlantic Broadband, Mediacom Communications, Midcontinent Communications and WideOpenWest (WOW!) have agreed to distribute the OTT service. Those deals follow a similar agreement announced by Hulu and Cablevision on April 28. 

Hulu’s subscription service sells for $7.99 a month as a stand-alone OTT service. In its announcement about the Hulu agreement, Mediacom noted that pricing, availability date and “other particulars” will be announced in the near future, echoing what Cablevision said last month.

Update: A Hulu official confirmed that the OTT service will also sell for $7.99 per month via its MVPD partners. 

Hulu said the agreements will allow its pay TV partners to offer Hulu's full library of content, including Hulu originals, directly to their video and broadband subscribers via their "advanced set-top boxes."

“At Hulu, we believe users should have the ability to consume their favorite content, when, where and how they want,” Tim Connolly, Hulu’s senior vice president, distribution, said in a statement. “We are very excited to partner with these MVPDs to bring Hulu to users where they are already watching TV.” 

“We believe Hulu is the perfect complement to Mediacom’s Internet service offerings,” John Pascarelli, Mediacom’s EVP of operations, added in a statement issued by the MSO. “Hulu brings a robust video selection to our customers who want to supplement their traditional cable service with online content at home or on the go.”

Hulu, co-owned by NBCUniversal, Walt Disney Co., and 21st Century Fox, announced last week that it has nearly 9 million subscribers, a 50% increase since 2014.

CenturyLink confirmed that it has licensed the Reference Design Kit (RDK), making it the first U.S. telco to affirm its interest in using a pre-integrated software stack for IP-capable and hybrid IP/QAM set-tops and gateways that’s being managed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global.

“We are evaluating RDK and other platforms for CenturyLink’s next-generation video strategy,” a CenturyLink official said in an emailed statement, noting that the telco plans to share more on the project in “the coming months.”

CenturyLink currently runs its IP-based “Prism TV” service on Ericsson Mediaroom, the middleware platform Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in September 2013.

CenturyLink is using that platform, also in use by AT&T for its U-verse TV service, in several markets, including La Crosse, Wis.; Columbia and Jefferson City, Mo.; Tallahassee, Fla. (and areas covering central and southwest Florida; Las Vegas; Phoenix; Omaha, Neb.; Denver, Colorado Springs, and Highlands Ranch, Colo. CenturyLink ended 2014 with more than 240,000 Prism TV customers.

“We anticipate expanding Prism TV service to additional households and markets during the second half of 2015,” Glen Post, CenturyLink’s CEO, said in February during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call. Minneapolis is among the cities the telco is seeking TV franchises.

While CenturyLink has not made its final technology picks for its next-gen platform (Ericsson, the telco’s current partner, launched an upgraded, multiscreen-capable version of Mediaroom last fall), the RDK could enable CenturyLink to benefit from the scale the RDK ecosystem represents.

RDK Management announced last week that more than 220 companies have licensed the stack. That group includes a mix of CE manufacturers, chipmakers, software developers, system integrators and pay TV operators. Of the latter group, 25 are cable operators, telcos and satellite TV service providers. Known service provider licensees include Comcast, TWC, Liberty Global, Rogers Communications, Kabel Deutschland, and Japan’s J:COM.

CenturyLink also has some familiarity with the group that’s managing the RDK. Aamir Hussain, named CenturyLink’s executive vice president and chief technology officer last fall, most recently served as Liberty Global’s managing director and CTO for Europe.

For more detail on the status and direction of the RDK, please see a Q&A in this week’s edition of Multichannel News (pgs. A6-A8 of the INTX: Focus on Tech supplement) with Steve Heeb, the Comcast executive who was named president and general manager of RDK Management in September 2013.

It’ll be hard to miss this year’s Imagine Park stage — it’s smack-dab in the center of the INTX “cityscape” show floor. As this year’s co-chairs, we can attest to the volume of goodness in store.

Refresher: Imagine Park turns five this year, and (as always) aims for a live-television, The Tonight Show–style treatment of the hot tickets in this industry we used to call “cable.” It’s three days of “show-don’t-tell,” programmed around the wheel with fresh info and demonstrations you may not have seen before.

Plus! Bountiful WiFi, on its own channel, so you won’t be competing for signal. Plenty of comfy seats and tables, to rest the feet and catch up on your stuff. A food/snack bar, to refuel. All in a park-like environment, with great music, occasional birdsong and a 5 p.m. to 6.m. happy hour on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. As we like to say: It’s always a happy hour in the Park! (Stop gagging!)

Here’s the short list of what’s hot:

Tuesday, May 5

11:35 a.m. – We’re sworn to secrecy on the particulars, but here’s a tip: The opening general session ends at 11:25, which gives you 10 minutes to get to Imagine Park. It’s a short walk. Bring a camera.

11:45 a.m. – If fresh data about over-the-top (OTT) video consumption is your thing, drop in to hear the latest from Amdocs and IE Market Research. It’s based on a 2015 poll of 4,000 domestic and international consumers, about OTT — what’s desirable, whether rights matter, how inclined we are to purchase content.

It’s part of the “Changing Face of the Interface” segment, which runs right after “the big reveal,” mentioned above. Bonus: Mari Silbey, independent tech writer and gifted tech conversationalist, hosts the session, which also features a segment on better (read: spoken) content discovery, from Rovi. Also: A look at enhanced navigation from Espial, a leader in the HTML-5 and RDK (Reference Design Kit) communities.

4 p.m. – Along the road to this year’s Imagine Park, we caught wind of a private moment during this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, where a vendor showed an (unnamed) cable CTO how to hack a “connected lock” -- to which the CTO replied, “Crap, I have that lock at home!”

See the hack during this jam-packed Internet of Things session, which features IOT aficionado Don Dulchinos, co-hosting with Parks Associates’s Tom Kerber. Plus, in terms of tech-side favs, this session features Alticast President and CTO John Carlucci, plus a double-duty demo from Comcast fellow Mark Francisco and Arris’s (always entertaining) Charles Cheevers about the how the IoT intersects with RDK.

Wednesday, May 6

12:45-1:30 p.m. –Joan Gillman, EVP and COO of Media Services for Time Warner Cable, makes her Imagine Park debut this year, as host to “The Money Cloud” -- which, as you might imagine, examines the intersections of advanced TV advertising, and cloud-based technologies. Bonus: The session debuts a “web speed” cloud technique only seen before in a CES “whisper suite.”

2:45-3:45 p.m. – The two of us co-host the first part of this session, where we’ll run through the hit list of what’s hot, both at INTX and within Comcast’s nearby booth. That’s followed by a deep-dive into the latest in “immersive engagement,” led by the talented and lively Rebecca Rusk, new head of BexUx.

4-5 p.m. – Definitely don’t miss the INTXHACK finals, hosted by Mike Hayashi, who left Time Warner Cable at the end of March to head up Jinsei 2.0 Consulting. The finals conclude a live, 24-hour developer challenge involving six Chicago-based startups, competing for accolades and cash money. As if Hayashi isn’t enough — Comcast chief software architect Sree Kotay will be on-hand as an INTX judge. And, when it ends, the second Imagine Park Happy Hour begins!

Thursday, May 7

9:45-10:30 a.m. – If Wi-Fi is in your crosshairs, drop in for “The Wireless Frontier” to see a live demonstration of Comcast’s new “Xfinity Share” service, powered by webRTC. Also: Fresh data about how Wi-Fi calling (also known as “Wi-Fi First”) is faring amongst service providers, and more.

10:45-11:30 a.m. – This is our favorite part of Imagine Park, every year: Lab Week. Here’s the background: A few years ago, in pursuit of the “agile workforce” culture that’s foundational to broadband-natives like Facebook, Google, Etsy, and Spotify, some MSOs opted to dive into the world of regularly occurring “lab weeks.”

That’s where developers are encouraged to develop a solution to a problem — internal or consumer-facing — then to demonstrate their work at a one-day “science fair.” Liberty Global, Time Warner Cable and Comcast return to the stage this year to show the latest from their respective lab weeks. Drop in to see a webRTC-based virtual truck roll, a Siri-like desktop problem solver, and (lots!) more.

Note: This is but a short list of Imagine Park fare. Be sure to check out the full slate here: https://intx15.ncta.com/show-floor/imagine-park/

See you at the park!

Leslie Ellis is technology analyst for Multichannel News and Next TV. Tony Werner is Comcast’s chief technology officer.

As a rechristened and recast Cable Show, this week’s INTX confab will still offer a variety of tech panels and sessions for the hard core engineer as well as the operations exec who’s looking to get a technology edge.

While it’s impossible to hit every session (please see Leslie Ellis and Tony Werner's preview of  what will be cooking at Imagine Park), here’s a list of sessions that will be on our don't miss list and plunge into key topics and areas that are important today, as well as a few that are expected to factor into the future shape of the broadband and TV industry.

The Broad Strokes

If you seek a multi-faceted, bigger-picture view and a CTO-level discussion on the biggest tech trends, you’d do right by putting this panel on your dance card:

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: Technology, Innovation & The Future Of Media

-Tuesday, May 5 at 3 p.m. ; Room W470

-On tap: Phil McKinney, CableLabs (moderator); David Dibble (Cablevision Systems); Kevin Hart (Cox Communications); Yvette Kanouff (Cisco Systems); Jeremy Legg (Turner Broadcasting System); and Tony Werner (Comcast).

Gaga for Gigabit

If you’re a cable operator and you aren’t launching gigabit (or even 2-Gig) speeds to residential customers, or have it on your docket, then you just aren’t trying hard enough.  While Google Fiber gets much (too much?) credit for putting 1-Gig on the map and accelerating the deployment of those speeds, it’s clear that gigabit is now a priority for ISPs of all shapes and sizes, whether that’s delivered via fiber-to-the-premises or emerging DOCSIS 3.1 technologies. Pick your poison – all options will be covered this week.

Don’t miss:

Getting The Gig: Realizing the Potential of DOCSIS 3.1

-Wednesday, May 6 at 11:30 a.m.; Room W474

-On tap: Ralph Brown, CableLabs (moderator); Ayham Al-Banna, Mike Emmendorfer, and Carol Ansley, Arris; Scott Helms, Zcorum; Maxwell Huang; Cisco; and Niki Pantelias, Broadcom

Dude, You’re Getting a Gig: The Perils & Promise of Ultra-Fast Access Networks

-Wednesday, May 6 at 4:30 p.m.; Room W474

-On tap: Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable (moderator); Philip Nutsugah, Cox; Eric Small, AT&T; and JR Walden, Mediacom Communications.

The Network: Going Soft…and Remote

A hot topic across the telecom sector is the shift from single-purpose hardware to off-the-shelf gear that can be managed and optimized by software – represented by the move toward software-defined networking (SDN) and networks-function virtualization (NFV). With the potential operational benefits they can provide, cable is keying on this trend as it pursues next-gen access architectures such as the “virtual” Converged Cable Access Platform.  While still an arena best suited for the engineering crew, it will play a big role in the future of how cable builds its networks of the future. Tied in, cable’s also looking at access network architectures that are less centralized and monolithic, and instead move some key functionality deeper into the network and closer to the subscriber edge.

Don’t miss:

Software Vs. Silicon: Understanding and Advancing the SDN Revolution

-Tuesday, May 5 at 11:30 a.m.; Room W474

-On tap: John Chapman, Cisco (moderator); Jeff DeMent, Arris; Brian Field and Nagesh Nandiraju, Comcast; Glen Griffith, Ericsson; and James Kim and Karthik Sundaresan, CableLabs.

Remote PHY, When and Why: Approaches for Physical Layer Migration

-Wednesday, May 6 at 8:30 a.m. ; Room W474

-On tap:  Daniel Howard, SCTE  (moderator); Alon Bernstein, Pawel Sowinski, John Chapman and Hang Jin, Cisco; and Dan Lavender and Karthik Sundaresan, CableLabs.

Whipping Up More Wireless

In the U.S., cable’s the king of wired broadband, but the future is mobile and wireless – an area that is becoming a huge focus for cable operators. While access to WiFi in public and business locations is being used primarily as a perk for cable modem subs, operators are expected to look at “WiFi-First” mobile strategies that use cellular as a fallback connection, while others, such as Cablevision Systems’ new Freewheel service, are going with WiFi-only pursuits. Liberty Global, meanwhile, has been using a mixture of WiFi, MVNO deals, and even mobile acquisitions formulate its plan. Expect the next chapter in cable’s wireless and mobile future to begin to take shape this week.

Don’t miss:

Across the Spectrum: Strategies for a Changing Wireless Marketplace

-Tuesday, May 5 at 4:30 p.m.; Room W475

-On tap: Rob Pegararo, USA Today and Yahoo! Tech (moderator); Timothy Burke, Liberty Global; Charles Cheevers, Arris; Dave Mayo, T-Mobile USA; and Tom Nagel, Comcast.

The 411 on OTT

Is over-the-top video friend or foe to the pay TV industry? It’s clearly both, as operators continue to push authenticated TV Everywhere offerings, while others develop and roll out new direct-to-consumer offerings that are causing a rift in the status quo.

Don’t miss:

Why OTT is Their Best Friend: Strategies for Online Video

-Wednesday, May 6 at 9 a.m.; Room W470

-On tap: Colin Dixon, nScreen Media (moderator); Tim Connolly, Hulu; Braxton Jarratt, Clearleap; and Roger Lynch, Sling TV. 

Mediacom Communications said it has inked a deal with Netflix that clears the way for the MSO to offer the over-the-top SVOD service on MSO-leased TiVo-powered boxes.

A Mediacom spokesman said the agreement with Netflix does not involve Open Connect, Netflix’s private content delivery network that relies on edge caching devices. That’s an important distinction, considering that Mediacom has previously held that Netflix was using integration on MVPD-leased TiVo boxes as a “bargaining chip in their Open Connect negotiations.”

Instead of Open Connect, the agreement between Mediacom and Netflix calls for the MSO to build fiber directly to Netflix’s facilities, “eliminating the middlemen,” Thomas Larsen, Mediacom’s group vice president of legal and public affairs, said via email.

While that sort of agreement sounds like the kind of paid interconnection deals Netflix has signed with Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable  (Bright House Networks is benefitting from the TWC/Netflix agreement), Mediacom’s agreement with Netflix does not involve payments, Larsen explained.

Mediacom ranked seventh among major U.S. ISPs on Netflix’s ISP Speed Index for March 2015, providing an average Netflix streaming speed of 3.24 Mbps. Mediacom said it expects the quality of its customers’ Netflix video experience to improve further as the MSO completes construction of a direct connection to the Netflix network this summer.

Mediacom’s TiVo customers will need to have an existing Netflix subscription or subscribe to Netflix in order to utilize the Netflix app.

Mediacom, which provides services to about 1.3 million customers in 22 states, joins several other TiVo MSO partners to integrate Netflix on leased boxes, a group that includes Suddenlink Communications, RCN, Cogeco, Cable One, Midcontinent Communications, Atlantic Broadband, Grande Communications and Virgin Media, among others.

"Striking this agreement with Netflix is another great example of Mediacom taking steps to simplify and enrich the customer experience inside the home," said Mediacom’s executive vice president of operations, John Pascarelli, in a statement. “Adding the easy functionality of popular services like Netflix to the TiVo set-top box gives Mediacom customers far greater access to content and underscores the superior quality of our high-speed Internet service.”

"Mediacom is making it even easier for consumers to watch Netflix on their TVs," added Bill Holmes, Netflix’s global head of business development. "This combination of traditional cable services with Netflix’s online content significantly enhances the experience of Mediacom customers.”

Dave Fellows, the long-time cable engineering exec and co-founder and CTO of “next-generation cable operator” Layer3TV, has joined the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ Energy 2020 initiative in the role of “chief scientist.”

Noting that his interest in energy consumption dates back to the late 1970s, Fellows, who is late of MSOs such as Comcast and AT&T Broadband and suppliers such as Scientific-Atlanta (now part of Cisco Systems), said he reached out to offer his help to SCTE 2020, which is currently being co-chaired by John Schanz, EVP and chief network officer of Comcast Cable, and Balan Nair, the EVP and CTO of Liberty Global.

“This [SCTE 2020 initiative] is important to me, it’s important to my company, and it’s important to the industry,” said Fellows, who has been serving in the role for more than three weeks. 

Introduced last June and outlined at last year’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver, Energy 2020’s energy targets include a 20% reduction of power consumption a unit basis; a 25% reduction in energy costs on a unit basis; a 10% reduction of grid dependency, and an optimization of technical facilities and datacenters footprint by 20%.

Fellows’ interest in the energy-savings game stretches back to 1979, when he was doing research for GTE and filed a patent for a digital energy line sensor, which was issued in 1982. The patent, focused on the need for devices to require access to power on a 24/7 basis but do so on an energy-efficient basis, enables a device to power everything down except for a very low power sensor that would then monitor for signals indicating the need for the device to fully power up again.

Though the invention was focused on the telephone networks of the day, the base idea seems more significant today as more and more devices are connected to the Internet. “It was the Internet of Things before there was an Internet,” Fellows said.

In his role as Energy 2020’s chief scientist, Fellows will work closely with the program’s stakeholders to accelerate the industry’s strategic approach to energy resource management. He’ll be responsible for ensuring the work being output by the nine Energy 2020 Working Groups fits with the grand vision of the Energy 2020 Steering Committee and Core Team.

Layer3 TV has not revealed much about its specific service plans, but the Denver-based company, co-founded by another industry vet, Jeff Binder, has a goal to be “the greenest cable company in the world,” according to Fellows.

“A key milestone on the Energy 2020 roadmap is the weaving of new standards and operational practices into our cohesive long-term strategy,” Comcast’s Schanz said, in a statement. “With his vision, industry expertise and organizational skills, Dave Fellows is the catalyst we need to help our working groups come to conclusions on solutions to technical problems.”

“Dave Fellows’ background as a cable operations executive, a vendor, an entrepreneur and a physicist give him a 360-degree view of the industry that will be of great value in working across multiple Energy 2020 constituencies,” Liberty Global's Nair added. “What’s most important, however, is the unwavering commitment he and the Layer3 TV team share to reducing the industry’s energy footprint. We plan on using the Energy2020 specifications in all of our future RFPs as a requirement. This is how critical this initiative is to us.”

Alcatel-Lucent has expanded its portfolio of broadband access products with the FX-12, a fiber-based platform for cable operators that can deliver up to 10 Gbps.

The FX-12, now part the vendor’s 7360 ISAM FX product family, targets high-capacity, large-scale broadband deployments for residential and business-class services, the company said.

FX-12 is a 19 inch-wide high-capacity shelf with 12 line card slots that’s optimized for EPON (both 10G and 1G) in cable networks, and supports DOCSIS provisioning of EPON. DPoE is a CableLabs interop spec that enables MSOs to extend their DOCSIS-style provisioning and other backoffice systems to EPON-based networks.

 “Alcatel-Lucent sees a growing opportunity to address the needs of cable MSOs as they move to embrace fiber-based ultra-broadband access, IP and cloud networking technologies,  Federico Guillén, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s Fixed Access Business Line, said in a statement.

Espial, a supplier of video software and user interface technologies, has launched G4, a fourth-gen set-top box client for cable operators, telcos, satellite TV and other types of video service providers that can weave together linear, on-demand and Internet-based content into a uniform interface.

G4, the Ottawa-based company said, can integrate third-party recommendation engines and run on most set-top box platforms, including devices outfitted with the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack for IP and QAM/IP hybrid set-tops and gateways that’s being managed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global.

Three unnamed operators – one “major” MSO in North America and two in Western Europe -- have selected G4 for their next-gen video platform, Jeff Huppertz, Espial’s vice president of marketing and business development, said. All three operators in question have at least 1.5 million subs, and about 8 million between them, he said, noting that they are also discussing G4 implementations on the RDK.  

Of Espial’s trio of MSO customers committed to G4, the one in North America is tapping the platform to power an new all-IP platform, while the two in Europe will use it for their respective hybrid QAM/IP networks.

Operators, Huppertz said, can use the HTML5-powered G4 platform to develop and roll out fluid, customized interfaces, and continue to add and tweak the look and capabilities of the interface.

“The operator owns the look and the experience…and making changes to [the UI] is as easy as changing Web pages,” Huppertz said, noting that pay TV operators have been stepping up their video interface development amid over-the-top competition and as programmers continue to enhance their own apps and launch or develop new stand-alone services.

But Espial has plenty of competition, including TiVo, which has had success with mid-sized tier 1s in the U.S. and some major ones in Europe, as well as from the operators themselves – Comcast and Charter Communications, for example, have developed next-gen video platforms largely through in-house projects. Time Warner Cable has also developed a cloud-based interface based on HTML5 that will run on the RDK.

Huppertz said the addressable market for G4 includes operators of all sizes that are still developing next-gen video strategies. “We think it’s a wide-open opportunity,” he said.

While G4 is a set-top box-focused client, Espial’s also has solutions operators can tap into to bring similar experiences to multiscreen devices.

Founded in 1997, Espial posted 2014 revenues of $20 million, a year-on-year increase of 59%. Mike Hayashi, the long-time TWC engineering exec who announced his retirement last year, recently joined the Espial board of directors.

Advanced advertising company Visible World said it will use next week’s INTX show in Chicago to demo a household addressable TV ad application for a set-top running the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack for IP-capable set-top boxes and gateways.

Visible World, a company that’s rumored to be an acquisition target of Comcast, said the demo will show how the system can switch between video streams  in tandem with household-based addressable TV advertising. Visible World, an official noted, said the spots for the demo will be delivered via IP using the DOCSIS 3.0 model built into the RDK-based set-top. 

"RDK enables MVPDs to easily customize applications that can enhance viewer experience and serve as a powerful platform to accelerate the growth in deployment of Household Addressable TV Advertising,” Seth Haberman, founder and CEO of Visible  World, said in a statement. “Our new application makes TV advertising more relevant for viewers, as well as more valuable for advertisers and MVPDs."

“Visible World aims to leverage the advantages that the RDK provides in product development cycles and post-deployment in terms of speed to market and innovation,” added Gerrit Niemeijer, Visible World’s CTO.

RDK Management, a joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global, announced earlier this week that more than 220 companies, including a group of 25 made up of cable operators, telcos and satellite TV service providers, have licensed the Reference Design Kit. Those licensees also include a mix of CE manufacturers, chipmakers, software developers, and system integrators.