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Time Warner Cable faces an increasing number of subscribers cutting their cable television service off, choosing to watch their video entertainment online.
Now the nation’s second largest cable company is trying to mitigate the potential damage with a series of new applications designed to bring cable television and your computer, cell phone, and iPad together.
Time Warner is getting started with the iPad, developing an application that will help cable subscribers remotely control their DVR cable box to record and manage programming. Away from home and want to scan a program guide and record an upcoming show? The new app will let you do it. Need to grab some video on-demand from Time Warner? Not a problem. You can even start watching on your iPad and pick up where you left off from your home.
Integrating the many devices consumers use as part of their daily lives with cable television could bring the cable viewing experience back front and center among at least some subscribers. That reduces the chance customers will decide they can do without cable TV. Since most of Time Warner Cable’s on demand library will only be available to current cable subscribers, cutting cable’s cord also means an end to online on-demand viewing of cable-licensed programming.
Time Warner Cable's prototype iPad app
Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt has repeatedly emphasized his interest in delivering cable services the way customers want, and claims the new generation of applications on the way from the cable company will provide just that.
Although Time Warner will start with the iPad, the application will quickly become available for the iPhone and iPod Touch series. Additionally, versions for other smartphones as well as portable and home computers will soon follow.
Ironically, this integration process could drive data volumes on Time Warner Cable’s broadband network to new heights. Video streaming alone will dramatically increase traffic. Yet the same company that is ready and willing to provide these bandwidth-intensive services also complained about existing broadband customers “using too much” of their existing broadband service. In the spring of 2009, the company sought to implement a 40GB usage limit on some its broadband customers and charge up to three times more — $150 a month for unlimited access. At the time, Britt and other company officials blamed the burden of online video and other usage-intensive applications for spiking the demand on their network.
Customers may wonder whether Britt’s new enthusiasm for online video means he recognizes their network has plenty of capacity to support unlimited access or is looking for a new excuse to justify a return to Internet Overcharging schemes.
http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Time Warner Cable iPad App.flvTime Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, CTO Mike LaJoie, VP of Web Services Jason Gaedtke and Director of Digital Communications Jeff Simmermon ponder their prototype iPad app and discuss the implications of integrating cable TV with other electronic devices. For Time Warner Cable, it’s a matter of preserving cable TV subscribers who might contemplate cutting the cable TV cord and watching everything online. (13 minutes)
Other stories of interest:
- Pondering Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner Cable
- Time Warner Cable Starting “TV Everywhere” and IPTV Trials in NYC
- Hulu Plus is No TV Everywhere – Online Video With a Price Tag
- The Coming Online Video War: Cable Customers Start Looking for Alternatives As Rate Increases Continue
- Shaw Cable & Vidéotron Introduce Canadians to “TV Everywhere” Online VOD, But Data Caps Enforced
I wish that Time Warner would set the cap up at 40 GB. Presently, despite Time Warner’s television advertising, a real subscriber couldn’t download a CD in an entire evening, much less the seconds promised in the TV ad. Your connection will be reset, irrespective of which mirror site you try and, if you persist in restarting the download, your entire connection to the Internet will be disconnected and you’ll have to call tech support to get reconnected. That isn’t pretty either because you’ll have to connect a PC directly to the cable modem, drop Windows firewall and any anti-virus program you might have, after which the other computers in your family will be able to get on the Internet again but the one you connected to the cable modem will be infected with a trojan horse and will have to be re-imaged. I think that’s why Time Warner’s profits are up: decreased usage with constant or increasing subscriber fees.
Hopefully, AT&T will offer internet service in my area soon. They’ve always been professional in the past and I’m looking for and hoping that will continue in the future.
Weird, TWC works perfectly fine (no resets, etc.) here. Speeds to some download sites aren’t the best, but PowerBoost kicks speeds on their own network (and on direct peers) up into the 30 Mbps range in some areas, 20 Mbps in others.