Aereo’s over the air antenna is about the size of a dime.

Aereo is coming to Austin in March.

Already available in four other Texas cities, Aereo will allow Austin residents to watch local over-the-air television stations on mobile devices, tablets or home computers through live video streaming.

Aereo will accept customers for its Austin service from these counties: Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Fayette, Gillespie, Hays, Lee, Llano, Mason, Travis and Williamson.

Customers are invited to sign up early for the waiting list on their website to get the service first when it launches March 3. Aereo Austin subscribers will be able to record and watch 19 over-the-air channels, at rates starting at $8 a month.

Klobuchar

After months of fruitless discussions with cell phone carriers, the U.S. Senate is moving closer towards legislation that would stop phone companies from blocking “kill switch” technology that could disable lost or stolen phones, discouraging would-be thieves.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent letters this week to Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile asking the carriers to do more to protect customers from phone theft.

Klobuchar is concerned wireless companies may be blocking cell phone manufacturers from enabling anti-theft technology customers could activate to disable missing phones and prevent unauthorized access or reactivation without the customer’s consent.

“Mobile devices aren’t just telephones anymore – increasingly people’s livelihoods depend on them,” Klobuchar said. “That’s why we need to do more to crack down on criminals who are stealing and reselling these devices, costing consumers billions every year. The wireless industry needs to step up to the plate and address these thefts, and make sure consumers have the most advanced security technology at their fingertips.”

The technology is already widely available internationally and has dramatically reduced smartphone theft by eliminating most of the resale value of the expensive devices, which are rendered useless once the phone is disabled.

Apple has contractual control over its products unlike most cell phone manufacturers.

But American carriers have so far refused permission to allow manufacturers like Samsung to introduce the feature in North America. Apple has successfully introduced a “kill switch” on many of its latest devices thanks to favorable contractual language that limits outside interference with the software Apple develops for its wireless devices. Other manufacturers are generally required to bow to carrier demands.

“I think that this is motivated by profit,” San Francisco district attorney George Gascon told CNN. Gascon reported he had seen e-mails from carriers that rebuffed Samsung’s efforts to introduce the technology in the American market.

Companies like AT&T claim that a “kill switch” feature could be exploited by hackers and make restoring service extremely difficult. But manufacturers and proponents of kill switch technology dismiss that argument, claiming the process is easily reversible once a customer enters a correct name and password. Critics believe carriers are motivated by the potential loss of millions from the sale of insurance plans, replacement phones, and the increased revenue earned from the reactivation of stolen phones.

With more than 1.6 million smartphones stolen or lost annually, carriers sell more than $800 million of replacement phones worth at least $500 each. Wireless phone companies also profit selling insurance plans priced at $7 or more monthly that offer free or discounted, typically refurbished cell phone replacements. Most customers never use the insurance plans, earning providers an extra $84 a year in revenue per customer.

Without kill switch technology and other theft prevention measures, the incentive to steal valuable smartphones continues to increase. As the price of sophisticated smartphones continues to increase, they are a prime target in street crime incidents. In San Francisco, 67% of robberies are related to mobile devices, according to the police department. Ten percent of phone owners have had a phone stolen, according to a Harris poll.

For now, the industry has only agreed to develop a voluntary database of phones reported lost or stolen. But participating carriers are largely American, allowing crooks to bypass the list by exporting phones overseas where they are quickly reactivated.

Klobuchar wants carriers to go on the record about kill switch technology, and her letter requested a formal response to three questions:

• Whether companies received offers from handset manufacturers to install “kill switch” technology;
• Have companies introduced the technology and, if not, why not;
• How companies will introduce such technology in the future.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Kill Switch Smartphones 11-20-13.flv[/flv]

CNN reports American cell phone companies aren’t interested in allowing customers to remotely disable their lost or stolen cell phones. (0:43)

TiVo Roamio DVR

The newest entry in the should-be-more-competitive world of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) might have gotten five stars from reviewers willing to play down the device’s asking price, but the biggest hurdle of all isn’t its cost, it is the complexity of getting it to work properly with your cable provider.

TiVo’s new Roamio was designed to declutter your viewing experience. It’s a DVR that can record shows you missed, an online video device that can stream content from Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Spotify, Pandora and YouTube right on your television, and perhaps most powerful of all — it will soon stream it all to you on any mobile device located anywhere there is an Internet connection.

That puts TiVo’s Roamio well ahead of the behind-the-times set-top boxes and DVRs rented out by the cable company. Customers have clamored for a device that can properly record scheduled programs and allow those recordings to be viewed anywhere the customer wants to watch. Comcast’s box doesn’t work that way. Neither do boxes from Time Warner Cable, Cox, Bright House, and the rest.

Cue the lawyers.

The reason these common sense portability features are not available on the box you rent in perpetuity from the cable company is that programmers won’t allow it and many pay television providers don’t consider it a priority. Time Warner Cable only recently filed a patent to deliver customer-recorded content to portable devices. The patent application is an exercise to placate litigious programmers that cannot sleep nights knowing someone is offering a service they failed to monetize for themselves through licensing agreements. Feel the legal fees piling up:

“Because of the increasing popularity of home networking, there is a growing need for a strategy that enables a user to perform authorized transfer of protected content, e.g., transferring content from an STT [set-top terminal] to a second device in a home network, and at the same time prevents unauthorized distribution of the protected content,” Time Warner writes in its patent application.

While TiVo is selling a device that allows consumers to record programming for private viewing purposes, a cable operator with deep pockets that only rents DVRs cannot do likewise.

The Roamio comes in three versions, none of which are compatible with satellite television services:

• Roamio Pro ($600): Six tuners allow customers to record up to six shows at one time and has storage capacity for 450 hours of HD programming. Includes built-in Wi-Fi. Stream TV to mobile iOS devices coming soon (as is Android support);
• Roamio Plus ($400): Same as above except storage capacity is 150 hours of HD programming;
  Roamio ($200): Four tuner basic version omits built-in streaming to mobile devices but can record four shows at once and store 75 hours of HD programming. A good choice for cord-cutters as it includes an over-the-air broadcast television antenna input.
• All Roamio devices require TiVo service, which costs $15 a month or $500 for a lifetime subscription. All boxes support external hard drives with an eSATA interface to backup or store more recordings. All Roamio devices support 1080p and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.

This Comcast DVR is only available for rent.

In contrast, cable operator-provided DVR service can often add $20 a month to your cable bill… forever. But is there real value for money paying TiVo $15 a month (or a $500 payment for the life of the device) for “service” on top of hardware that can cost up to $600?

TiVo thinks so: “Once you bring together all your favorite shows, movies and music into one place, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.”

Unfortunately, getting there is one heck of a battle according to Bloomberg’s Rich Jaroslovsky, who got his hands on a test unit that simply refused to get along well with Comcast.

“The cable industry is standing in the way,” Jaroslovsky writes.

That may not be surprising, considering the lucrative business of renting DVR equipment to customers eager for time-shifting and commercial-skipping. The cable company’s concept of DVR service includes a set-top box, decoder, and recording unit into one, relatively simple integrated device.

TiVo’s persistent monthly “service fee” as well as a steep purchase price made marketing the cable company’s “no-purchase-required” DVR easy, and the cable industry quickly won the lion’s share of the DVR business. Another strong argument in favor of the cable company’s DVR is the lack of a complicated set up procedure to get competing devices to reliably work with the cable company’s set-top box.

Motorola’s M CableCARD

Thanks to Comcast and other cable companies, setting up Roamio managed to confound even a tech reporter like Jaroslovsky, and Comcast was not much help.

The Roamio requires a CableCARD, a plug-in card-sized version of the cable company’s set-top box, to unlock digital cable channels.

The CableCARD was Congress’ attempt in the 1996 Telecom Act to give consumers an option to avoid costly and unsightly set-top boxes. Originally envisioned as a plug-in device that would offer “cable-ready” service without a set-top box in future generations of televisions, the CableCARD never really took off. The cable industry opposed the devices and dragged its feet, preferring to support its own set-top boxes. The CableCARD that eventually did emerge was initially often difficult to obtain and had huge limitations, such as one-way-only access which meant no electronic program guide, no video-on-demand, and no access to anything that required two-way communications between the card and the cable company. Newer CableCARDs do offer two-way communications and support today’s advanced cable services.

The only place most cable operators mention the availability of the CableCARD in detail is in a federally mandated disclosure of pricing, services, and a consumer’s rights and responsibilities — usually provided in a rice-paper-thin, tiny-print leaflet included with your bill once a year, if you still get one in the mail.

Roamio is likely to frighten technophobes right from the start with this important notification:

CableCARDs are made by one of four manufacturers: Motorola, Scientific Atlanta/Cisco, NDS, or Conax. You need one multi-stream CableCARD (M-card). Single-stream CableCARDs (S-cards) are not compatible.

“That costs an extra $1.50 a month from Comcast, and in my case, required three trips to its nearest office because the first card didn’t work,” Jaroslovsky writes.

On the second trip, Comcast handed him two cards in the hope at least one would work, requiring one last trip to return the card that didn’t.

Time Warner Cable and certain other cable operators use Switched Digital Video, incompatible with the Roamio without a Digital Tuning Adapter, available from the cable company.

The second hurdle was to get Comcast to recognize and authorize that CableCARD. Comcast’s technical customer support staff was lacking. Jaroslovsky found his call bounced from department to department attempting to authorize the card and diagnose why it simply refused to work at first.

After finally overcoming those problems, Jaroslovsky discovered he was out of luck getting Roamio to stream premium movie channels like HBO and Cinemax. The encryption system Comcast supports prohibits streaming the movie networks outside of the home. The Slingbox works around the issue by bypassing the encryption system’s permission settings with extra cables between it and your cable box.

Time Warner Cable subscribers will need still another piece of equipment — a Tuning Adapter compatible with Switched Digital Video (SDV). To conserve bandwidth, cable companies like Time Warner limit certain digital channels being sent to each neighborhood unless someone is actively watching.

Before you can view or record a program on an SDV channel, your box must be able to send channel requests back to the cable headend. Roamio is a one-way device and cannot send the required channel requests. Cable providers who have deployed SDV technology will provide a Tuning Adapter to customers who have HD TiVo boxes. A Tuning Adapter is a set top box that provides two-way capabilities, so your box can request SDV channels. There are two Tuning Adapter brands: Motorola and Cisco. Motorola CableCARDs work with Motorola Tuning Adapters. Scientific Atlanta and NDS CableCARD work with Cisco Tuning Adapters. Without the Tuning Adapter, a Roamio user will find error messages on several digital channels indicating they are “temporarily unavailable.”

Other cable operators offer varying support for Roamio. Cablevision has been learning how to support the device along with customers. Prior customer experiences make it clear front-line service representatives are not going to be very helpful managing the technical process to properly configure, update, and authorize CableCARD technology for the new TiVo device, so prepare to have your call transferred to one or more representatives.

After all this, Jaroslovsky was finally watching his Comcast cable channels, able to access on-demand services, and found TiVo’s interface and program guide more satisfying than the one offered on Comcast’s DVR.

Roamio Plus and Pro have built-in support for video streaming away from home that will be fully enabled this fall.

Jaroslovsky found in-home streaming smooth and satisfying. Programs launched quickly and looked terrific on an iPad with Apple’s high-resolution Retina display, with none of the blockiness or stuttering sometimes associated with streaming video.

His review unit allowed him to test streamed programming outside of the home and video quality on the go was much more variable. The current software prohibits video streaming on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, a problem with a resolution now in the works. Public Wi-Fi hotspots often delivered poor performance, even when they could supply up to 2Mbps. Blurred pictures and pixel blocks often broke up the video on slow Internet connections. A faster connection supporting more than 10Mbps is capable of delivering a better viewing experience, especially if that connection comes without usage caps.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TiVo Roamio DVR Demo Video 8-19-13.flv[/flv]

An introduction and demo of the TiVo Roamio DVR, produced by TiVo. (3 minutes)

This article was updated with a clarification about Tuning Adapters, required by some cable operators using Switched Digital Video. Thanks to reader Dave Hancock for helping clear things up.

The three companies that control 90 percent of Canada’s cell phone marketplace have set what they argue is ‘cut-throat’ competition aside to team up in a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to discourage Verizon Wireless from entering the country.

Bell, Rogers, and Telus have maintained what critics charge is a “three-headed oligopoly” in the wireless business for years, leading to findings from the OECD that Canada is among the ten most expensive countries in the world for wireless service in almost every category and has among the highest roaming rates in the world.

Americans also pay high cell phone prices, and customers of both countries will find somewhat comparable pricing when comparing prices north or south of Lake Ontario. A shopper in Niagara Falls, N.Y. can find the Samsung Galaxy S4 from a Verizon reseller for $120 with a two-year contract. A shared data service plan runs as little as $80 a month for 500MB of data and unlimited domestic calling and global texting. Travel across the Rainbow Bridge to Niagara Falls, Ontario, walk into a Rogers store and the same phone runs $199 with a two-year contract (most Canadian carriers used to offer three-year contracts until the government banned them earlier this year) and a service plan running $80 a month offering the same 500MB of data and unlimited domestic calling and texting. Rogers charges extra if customers want to text a customer outside of Canada, however.

Verizon is no discount carrier. Verizon management has repeatedly stressed it offers premium service and coverage and can charge commensurately higher prices for access to that network. So the idea that Verizon’s interest in entering Canada is to launch a vicious price war is suspect, according to many telecommunications analysts.

Keep Verizon out of Canada at all costs!

They are coming.

In June, the Globe and Mail reported Verizon had shown serious interest in acquiring Canadian cellular upstart Wind Mobile with an early bid of $700 million. Wind Mobile, one of the three significant new “no-contract” entrants vying for a piece of the country’s cell phone market, has limped along since opening for business in 2009, unable to attract much interest from customers concerned about coverage gaps and the poor choice of mobile devices.

More recently, Wind Mobile’s new owner — the Russian mobile giant Vimpelcom — has expressed an interest in selling off the carrier because it cannot gain traction against the biggest three, which also control 85 percent of mobile wireless spectrum.

News that Verizon had taken an interest in the carrier leveled shock waves across the Canadian financial markets. Shares in the three largest telecom giants fell sharply on the news. Earlier this month, Bell CEO George Cope reported that Bell, Telus and Rogers have taken a $15-billion cumulative hit on the capital markets since Verizon hinted interest in Wind Mobile.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Verizon takes aim at telecom Big 3 with possible Wind Mobile bid 8-19-13.flv[/flv]

The CBC reported earlier this summer that Verizon Wireless was interested in acquiring the 600,000 customers of independent wireless provider Wind Mobile, which has an insignificant share of the Canadian wireless market. (2 minutes)

Spending a few million, or even a billion dollars, to keep Verizon south of the Canadian-U.S. border is well worth it to the three big players who have launched an expensive campaign to block the proposed transaction and are willing to pay premium prices to keep struggling carriers from being sold to deep-pocketed American telecom companies.

Telus had already done its part, attempting to scoop up another scrappy upstart carrier that wanted out of the wireless business. But the Canadian government rejected Telus’ proposed acquisition of Mobilicity, claiming it would harm efforts to expand Canadian wireless competition. Not to be deterred, Rogers is now attempting a cleverly structured deal to acquire Wind Mobile out from under Verizon with a proposed buyout worth more than $1 billion.

To avoid the anticipated rejection of the deal by Canadian regulators on competition grounds, Rogers has reportedly joined forces with Toronto-based private equity firm Birch Hill Partners that would make that firm the owners-in-name. Although Rogers wouldn’t get a direct equity stake in Wind, it would finance a good part of the deal and win access and control of Wind’s mobile spectrum for its own network. More importantly, it could keep Verizon out of Canada.

“The government is handing out loopholes to Verizon to beg them into Canada”

Cell phone companies in Canada are particularly angry that the government has set aside certain spectrum and guaranteed access for upstart providers to successfully establish themselves without having to outbid the cash-rich big three for wireless frequencies or have to build a nationwide network from scratch. Bell, Rogers and Telus have consistently opposed spectrum set-asides for small carriers, deeming them “unfair.” They argue Canadians’ voracious needs for more wireless service are unending, and it would be unfair not to sell the spectrum to benefit their larger customer bases. But hearing that Verizon, a company larger than Bell, Rogers, and Telus combined, could get preferential treatment and spectrum to enter the country has them boiling mad.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Telecom debate 8-19-13.flv[/flv]

Bell’s CEO George Cope appeared on “The Lang and O’Leary Exchange” to debate the fairness of Verizon’s possible entry into Canada’s wireless market. Cope argues Verizon is getting special favors. (9 minutes)

Cope

The idea of luring a company to move or begin offering service in a barely competitive marketplace is hardly new. Cities have offered preferential policies to airlines to fly in and out of particular cities, local governments have offered tax abatements to get companies to set up shop, and providing exemptions for zoning and infrastructure have been familiar to telecommunications companies for decades.

In 1880, the National Bell Telephone Company had incorporated, through an Act of Parliament, the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (today also known as BCE), which was given the right to build telephone lines over and along all public property and rights-of-way without compensation to the public or former owners. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Bell would later become the dominant monopoly provider of telephone service across much of eastern Canada.

When the phone companies were handed wireless spectrum to launch their wireless businesses in the 1980s, they didn’t have anything to complain about either.

None of that history impressed Bell’s current CEO George Cope, who took to the airwaves to complain Verizon was being given preferential treatment:

• Verizon could bid on two blocks of Canadian spectrum set aside for new entrants to the market in auction later this year. Because the big three Canadian firms are not permitted to bid on these blocks, they are likely to be sold at a lower price.
• Verizon would not have to build its own networks to remote or rural communities, but would be able to piggyback on existing networks.
• Verizon can bid to acquire small Canadian companies such as Mobilicity or Wind, but Bell, Telus and Rogers are forbidden from bidding on them.

“A company of this size certainly doesn’t need handouts from Canadians or special regulatory advantages over Canadian companies,” Bell said in a full-page newspaper ad. “But that is exactly what they get in the new federal wireless regulations. We’re ready to compete head to head, but it has to be a level playing field,” Cope said in a TV interview, echoing Rogers CEO who also called for a “level playing field.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Is Verizon really the bogeyman Canada’s telecom giants claim 8-19-13.flv[/flv]

Bell, Telus, and Rogers have launched a lobbying campaign designed to make life difficult for Verizon Wireless if it chooses to enter Canada. The CBC reports Verizon will be able to bid on more spectrum than Canadian carriers and will have the right to roam on Canada’s incumbent wireless networks. (2 minutes)

Industry Minister Moore

Telus went further, claiming Verizon’s entry into Canada would result in a “bloodbath” for Canadian workers, laid off by the three largest Canadian providers to cut costs to better compete with Verizon.

But Cope said at least one Canadian carrier won’t be able to compete at all, because preferential treatment for wireless spectrum will result in at least one of the big three to lose at a forthcoming spectrum auction, guaranteeing degraded wireless broadband speeds and worse service.

The three companies have found little sympathy in Ottawa, particularly from Industry Minister James Moore, now on a road tour across Canada to promote the government’s wireless competition policies. He called the big three’s loud campaign self-serving and announced a new website sponsored by the Conservative Party of Canada to prove it.

“I think that the public instinctively knows that when they have more choices that prices go down and more competition they’re well served by that,” he told CBC News in Vancouver on Monday. “The noise that we’re hearing is about you know companies trying to protect their company’s interest. Our job as a government is larger than that, our job is to serve the public interest and make sure that the public is served in this so that’s one of the reasons why I’m pushing back a little bit.”

Industry Minister James Moore appeared on CBC Radio this morning to contest the wireless industry’s claims that Verizon is getting special treatment and will bring unfair competition to the Canadian wireless market. (7 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Oppose Verizon Wireless. Do it for Canada!

But the wireless companies show no signs of backing down and have turned towards appealing to Canadian nationalism and fairness.

“The U.S. government is not giving Canadian wireless carriers any special access to the U.S. market,” says a website launched by the big three cell providers to drum up support for a “level playing field.” “Then why is it that our own government is giving American companies preferential treatment over our own companies?”

This week, a Reuters report citing unnamed sources suggests Bell, Telus, and Rogers are about to target Verizon directly with a new campaign warning Canadians the American giant has been implicated in allowing the U.S. government open access to network and customer data, which would represent a profound privacy threat to Canadian customers.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bell Rogers Telus Ad 8-13.flv[/flv]

Bell, Telus, and Rogers paid to produce this ad calling on Canadians to protest unfair competition from an American wireless company.  (1 minute)

So far, Canadians’ hatred of their telecommunications providers has trumped the companies’ public relations and scare tactics. The Conservative government in Ottawa is winning support for its wireless competition war, even from unlikely places.

“Someone mark the date,” Tweeted one Halifax woman not inclined to vote Conservative. “Stephen Harper has done something I mostly support.”

“Eat it Telus/Bell/Rogers,” wrote a Calgary man fed up with the lack of competition in Canadian wireless.

John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa, says opposition from the big three telecom companies is obvious because they don’t want to face a fourth, powerful competitor.

“They should be scared because chances are they’re going to have more competition in the Canadian market if Verizon comes in and they are going to have to lower their prices and compete harder,” Lawford told CBC News. “It’s pretty rich of them to be talking about unfairness” when they already control 90 per cent of Canadian spectrum, he added.

Iain Grant of the SeaBoard Group, a telecommunications consultancy, said government policies to open up more competition are designed to shake things up.

“[The new rules weren’t] meant to be a level playing field,” said Grant. “[They were] meant to give a leg up [to new competitors].”

“To talk of loopholes, as some do, is to not understand that the same companies who complain most loudly about loopholes in 2013 were the recipients of even greater public largesse in 1985 when the government gifted their initial spectrum as an incentive to build a wireless business in Canada,” said Grant.

Few companies have taken on the Canadian big three telecom providers because of their enormous market share, at least inside Canada.

Nine out of ten Canadian wireless users are subscribed to Bell, Telus or Rogers. Trying to convince a banker to extend capital loans to effectively confront a wireless oligopoly in a country with an enormous expanse of land but not people and find enough airwaves among the 15% not controlled by the big three is an uphill battle.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Wireless war heats up 8-19-13.flv[/flv]

CBC reports Industry Minister Moore believes increasing competition is the best way to cut Canadian cell phone bills. Regardless of whether Verizon enters Canada, the current government will continue to push for more competition. Even the threat of Verizon coming to Canada has already reduced prices. (2 minutes)

Why does Verizon want to enter Canada?

Analysts suspect Verizon’s interest in Canada has little to do with wooing Canadians to Big Red. Many suspect Verizon’s true interest is to make life easier for its traveling American customers who head north for business or pleasure.

Chief among the possible benefits is the elimination of roaming charges for Verizon customers.

“Verizon’s customers come into the country every day through all the bridges and ports of entries and they want to roam where they want to roam, whether that’s fishing in Saskatchewan or hunting in northern Ontario or wherever,” said Grant.

There are other apparent impediments that could limit the usefulness of Wind’s mobile network to Verizon. In addition to only operating in the largest Canadian cities, Wind’s infrastructure is built by Chinese firm Huawei and is not compatible with Verizon’s technology.

Huawei has been the subject of significant controversy because of its reported ties to the Chinese military. Fears that data could be intercepted by the Chinese government have kept many North American firms from doing business with the company.

Verizon also lacks bundling options for Canadian customers. The biggest three Canadian providers can offer telephone, television, and wired broadband service to their customers. Verizon can only offer wireless service.

Verizon has second thoughts

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Verizon doubts 8-15-13.flv[/flv]

CBC reports Verizon may be having second thoughts about entering Canada. Verizon may not be interested in entering a political battle to win licenses to provide service and may want to acquire its own spectrum before considering buying either Wind Mobile or another competitor like Mobilicity. (2 minutes)

Time Warner Cable is seeking a patent for technology to let cable subscribers watch DVR recordings on mobile devices including tablets, smartphones, and computers outside of the home.

The patent application, obtained by FierceCable, shows most of the cable company’s efforts are directed at preserving licensing agreements for content viewing and managing restrictions on copying television shows and movies to external devices.

Time Warner Cable has proposed a three level security system for customer recordings. Level 1 would prohibit the customer from accessing DVR recordings, Level 2 would permit limited viewing and perhaps no copying, and Level 3 would allow open access to recordings and allow them to be shared with other devices.

The company theoretically could also use its security system to secure customer use, charging extra depending on how a customer wants to view DVR recordings remotely.

“Because of the increasing popularity of home networking, there is a growing need for a strategy that enables a user to perform authorized transfer of protected content, e.g., transferring content from an STT [set-top terminal] to a second device in a home network, and at the same time prevents unauthorized distribution of the protected content,” Time Warner Cable wrote in the patent application.

Time Warner could be the first cable company to allow remote viewing of DVR recordings if its patent application is approved. When working with InventHelp Invention Company, the chances of your patent application getting approved is higher. The company already offers a “whole home” DVR system that permits customers to start recorded shows on one television and finish them on another, but this enhancement would extend viewing outside of the home.

The company offered no comment about the patent or an estimate of when the service might become available.