Time Warner Cable has introduced TWC TV, its first app for Android tablet owners.

The cable operator envisions the free app will eventually be as robust as its more feature-rich version for Apple’s iPad, which has been available for months.  But for now, the Android version leaves out one important feature — streaming live television.

Time Warner is calling its TWC TV app “the ultimate remote control.”

The app is only certified to run on a handful of Android tablets (smartphones are excluded entirely), including the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab.  Other Android tablets may or may not work, depending on the version of Android installed and the resolution of the screen.  For now, Time Warner anticipates the app will work on Android 3.x (Honeycomb on up) tablets with a resolution of 1280×800.

Features include:

• Change the channel on your TV from anywhere in your home;
• Interactive program guide – view program listings for up to 7 days and change channels on compatible set-top boxes;
• View a filtered guide showing favorite channels or HD channels only;
• Search for programming by title or episode;
• Schedule and manage upcoming DVR recordings on compatible DVRs.

Customers must subscribe to a Time Warner Cable video package at the Standard (Expanded Basic) level or higher and have registered for an account and password at the Time Warner Cable website.

Want to turn your Xbox into a glorified set top box for Verizon FiOS TV?  Soon you can.

Through a collaboration between Verizon and Microsoft, customers who are Xbox LIVE Gold members and who subscribe to both FiOS TV and Internet service will be able to view select live channels through their Xbox consoles.  No extra hardware is required.  And for the first time, these customers will be able to integrate their TV experience with voice and gesture commands through Kinect for Xbox 360.

FiOS TV customers will have access to an app on their Xbox consoles, which will become available for download next month.  Once customers download the Verizon FiOS TV app on their console, they can begin watching live streaming FiOS TV channels – without the need to pay for another set-top box.  Customers must subscribe to both FiOS TV and Internet services.  Initially, 26 FiOS TV channels will be available, depending on the customer’s TV package.

A special discount offer for new customers also accompanies today’s announcement.

New customers who sign up online for FiOS TV service can take advantage of a special offer that includes triple-play service with FiOS TV, FiOS 35/35 Mbps Internet service and Verizon voice service, starting at $89.99 a month.  In addition, the offer includes a 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership and the “Xbox Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary” game.  The discounted offer is available through Jan. 21.

Verizon did not disclose any restrictions that could limit where you can watch.  Some providers limit online and console viewing to the home address where the account (and broadband gateway) is registered.

Tiny Ringgold Telephone, which serves 122 square miles of northwestern Georgia, has pulled the plug on the company’s own video IPTV package and is encouraging customers to watch all of their television shows online or through a satellite TV package offered by DISH Network.

Ringgold was in the IPTV business long before AT&T began offering U-verse, having launched video over phone lines back in 2003.  The phone company invested heavily in producing local programming for their customers, including local sports, issues in the news, health and fitness, and educational shows for and about the region.  The hope was that the phone company would give cable subscribers enough reasons to cut the cable cord for good.  They’ve invested heavily to remain on the cutting edge, something uncommon for traditional wireline phone companies.

In 2000, Ringgold announced they would deliver a High Speed Internet connection to every single customer who wanted it throughout their entire service area.  The company has continuously upgraded their facilities, offering traditional copper wire customers bonded DSL service up to 25Mbps and their growing number of fiber customers speeds up to 50/50Mbps.  That’s an enormous difference over other nearby providers, including AT&T, Frontier Communications, and CenturyLink which deliver customers 1-3Mbps DSL with no fiber in sight.  The other alternative is service from Charter Cable, among the worst-rated cable companies in the country.

But that level of innovation isn’t unusual for Ringgold, which has outpaced traditional Bell System phone companies since it was first founded in 1912 with just eight telephone lines.

In 1950, Ringgold was among the first independent companies in Georgia to switch from manual to dial telephones.  By the 1990s, Ringgold realized the future was in fiber optics, and planned to replace a significant amount of copper wiring that had been on phone poles for decades.  The phone company thought it had mastered the ultimate triple-play fiber-optics package of voice, broadband, and television, until their small size got in the way.

Ringgold discovered that “bigger is better” in the pay television business.  The largest cable operators enjoy the best bargaining power for just about everything.  Companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable can use their enormous customer base to negotiate cut rate pricing on programming and equipment and stand-up to greedy programmers that demand excessive payments for programming.  Ringgold discovered they can’t.

Light Reading highlighted the challenges Phil Erli, executive vice president of Ringgold, spoke about recently:

• Ringgold could not cut a deal with equipment vendors that would deliver DVR and HD functionality at a level above that of the local cable company.  Large set top box manufacturers deal in volume, and smaller players like Ringgold are often left with inferior technology at prices higher than large cable companies pay for the most advanced equipment available.  Erli tried to innovate a new approach using Microsoft’s Mediaroom, but discovered that required a large number of servers too costly for a small phone company to consider;
• Programming costs were completely out of line.  Volume discounting delivers enormous savings, if you are a large-sized national provider.  Large cable companies pay a fraction of the prices independent providers pay for programming, and local broadcast stations held the company hostage on retransmission consent agreements.  Erli noted the local NBC station, presumably in nearby Chattanooga, demanded an incredible $5.25 a month per subscriber.  That rate was so high, it would turn the company’s video venture unprofitable.  Even worse, Erli relates, “these weren’t negotiations, they told me what we would pay.”  Erli realized that just one programmer could make or break Ringgold’s video service profits;
• The company’s video lineup, due to wholesale costs, was inferior to that offered by the local cable company.

Ringgold's broadband network is superior to anything the competition offers in northwestern Georgia.

With these challenges, the phone company decided enough was enough and dropped its video package, redirecting customers to DISH Network for satellite-TV, and more recently to online Internet video as an alternative to pay television.

Something you won't likely see from your cable company.

While most broadband providers treat online video as a parasite, Ringgold sees it as the ultimate business opportunity to reinvent themselves through their broadband service — selling super high speed access to content that someone else provides and has to worry about.

They’re considering a new customer promotion that includes a Roku, Apple TV, or Clearleap-powered set-top box to integrate broadband connections with television sets.  The company is even educating customers about the growing number of programs available for free (or with a low cost subscription) online with an interactive web tool.

Ringgold’s new solution for online video also includes some small revenge on high programming costs, giving subscribers an integrated over-the-air antenna system that can pick up nearly a dozen HD channels, including that NBC station, for free.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Internet TV.flv[/flv]

Here is something you don’t see every day: Ringgold Telephone encourages its customers to get online and watch TV shows for free.  (1 minute)

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Daily Local New cable TV programming guide on display 10-5-11.mp4[/flv]

Comcast has been showing off changes to the company’s set top boxes, which have been effectively “dumbed-down” by removing internal processing power for box-based program guides and other content functions and moving it to the cloud.  Comcast’s newest generation of boxes offer a slimmed-down “browser” experience which relies on stored content at the cable company office, delivered over the cable to the set top box. 

In Denver, Xfinity representatives demonstrated the new products to groups of media and local radio personalities.  Among the most visible improvements is the program guide, which is starting to come closer to Netflix and farther away from the TV Guide Channel of years-past.  Among the features includes box art from movie titles, online reviews, social networking tie-ins, and instant recommendations for other similar programming to watch, either concurrently or in the future.  Subscribers can program shows for recording, alert friends to upcoming shows, and even submit their own review for other subscribers to see.

It’s a significant improvement over older technology, like that still used by Time Warner Cable and other cable operators, which requires extensive delays before incremental improvements are made, and operates on expensive set top terminals.  Video courtesy of: The Daily Local.  (2 minutes)

Cable Montana is now Optimum West, Cablevision’s marketing name for the cable systems it acquired from Bresnan Communications.

Earlier today, customers in Billings, Laurel, Park City and Columbus were able to start using upgraded cable, phone, and broadband equipment on the updated cable system.  More than 2,200 Montanans were introduced to the Optimum name in a mailing sent to neighborhoods where service has been upgraded.  But all of the new equipment that comes with the service has created considerable confusion for long-standing Bresnan customers who have been using older Bresnan equipment for years.

The changes have been overwhelming for those used to Bresnan’s modest level of service for more than a decade.  Cablevision, best known for its Optimum service in suburban New York City, Connecticut, and New Jersey, has brought an enormous increase in programming, and improvements in broadband service, for many customers.

“All existing customers in Laurel, Park City and Columbus will be upgraded to Optimum TV by July 20, which will deliver many more channels, including access to more than 100 channels of free HD (high definition), thousands of titles of video on demand and other benefits like faster high-speed Internet and a better phone service with lower prices and more features than are available from any other provider,” says a Cablevision spokesperson.

When it works properly.

The Laurel Outlook reports some customers frustrated with the changeover have found themselves at local cable stores trying to sort out all the problems:

One Laurel customer installed his modem, but was not receiving service. A visit to the Laurel office did not provide answers to his satisfaction, so he drove to the Billings office on Monad Road, where he received two telephone numbers to call for tech support. He called one of the numbers, followed a menu, and was able to troubleshoot with a technician to get his Internet up and running.

A second customer installed her set-top box but was not receiving Optimum TV channels. She called the 1-800 number provided in the mailing packet, but technicians were unable to walk her through the necessary steps to receive service. Frustrated, she drove to the Laurel walk-in center on West First Street and made an appointment for a technician to come to her home. She discovered that not only must she program her television with the new Optimum channel numbers, she must also program the TV-top box with the correct numbers. After doing so, she was able to receive the new channels.

Many customers are likely going to need to reprogram their televisions more than once.  When the upgrades are complete, Cablevision says it plans to unify channel lineups across the area.