One of the biggest impediments to freeing up space on cable television systems is the amount of analog television programming viewers still watch over televisions not connected to set top boxes.  Time Warner Cable customers, already weary from paying $7 or more a month per television to rent digital boxes could eventually be in luck, if they own certain televisions made by Sony or Samsung.

The cable operator announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show it would begin testing delivering cable television directly to some television sets equipped to receive the Internet.

Time Warner Cable’s test of IPTV would deliver the cable lineup over its broadband network, which removes the need for an expensive and unsightly cable box.

Since the cable company would only deliver the channels customers were authorized to receive, boxes with complicated digital tuners and encryption schemes would be unnecessary.  For the first time in years, consumers could once again get the full cable lineup just by plugging a single cable into the back of their television.  No boxes, no TV set remotes rendered useless, no cableCARDs, and no more tangled cables behind the set.

The company could also eventually dump their DVR boxes, which require regular service to maintain and replace worn out hard drives.  The future of DVR’s is “cloud storage,” — your recordings would be stored at the cable company on their equipment, ready for on-demand access.

Could the days of the set top box be numbered?

The new IPTV service can also deliver advanced graphics and provide better on-screen programming guides, and even open up the potential to integrate Internet applications with the television experience.

IPTV already exists today with AT&T’s U-verse, which delivers all of its video programming over the same bandwidth their phone and broadband services rely on.  But U-verse still has a box attached to each television in the home.

Consumers could end up saving plenty if they got rid of expensive rented cable equipment.

But there are some downsides — the biggest being the currently limited number of televisions equipped to handle Time Warner’s proposed implementation of IPTV.

IPTV has often also opened the door to concerns from content producers about stream security — could a consumer capture perfect digital copies of movies over the cable company’s IPTV network?  And what happens politically if the cable company tries to deliver unlimited cable TV over the same broadband network it tried to limit in the past.

Cable providers and phone companies are trying to keep video subscribers happy in hopes they won’t drop service.  Comcast and Time Warner Cable both announced last week they are trying to build virtual cable systems that would deliver their channel lineups live to tablet computers, starting over home Wi-Fi networks.  Verizon and AT&T are also working on similar features.

Two years after Time Warner promised upgraded speeds for Rochester, they finally arrive this spring.

After much of upstate has already been upgraded for DOCSIS 3 service, New York’s second largest economic center — Rochester, will finally see speed upgrades for cable broadband service this spring.

Time Warner Cable, which promised Rochester would be among the first cities to see faster speeds if they accepted the company’s Internet Overcharging experiment instead took their upgrades elsewhere (like Watertown) when the community collectively said “no.”

Two years later, the upgrade other cities including Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, and New York received last year will finally make its way to the Flower City this spring.

“Time Warner Cable delivers cutting-edge products that speak to the growing needs of both the tech-savvy user and multi-media families who simply want the fastest speeds right now,” said Terence Rafferty, Regional Vice President of Operations for the Northeast communities of Time Warner Cable.

That “right now” part may true as long as you don’t live in Rochester.  With anemic (at best) competition from also-ran Frontier Communications, which delivers DSL service that long since forfeited its position in the broadband speed race, Time Warner wasn’t exactly pressed by market conditions to deliver upgrades in a hurry, and they didn’t.

Instead, Verizon service areas where FiOS, the company’s fiber-to-the-home network loomed got the fastest service, without threats of Internet Overcharging schemes hanging over their heads.

As elsewhere, Time Warner will bring two tiers of DOCSIS 3 service: 30/5 service for $20 more than Road Runner’s Standard service (10/1Mbps) or 50/5Mbps service for $99.  The “sweet spot” will be 30/5 service, which is just $10 more than Road Runner Turbo customers currently pay.

Rochester and Finger Lakes area customers interested in the service can pre-register and get notified when the service becomes available in your area.  A new cable modem is required, but since Rochester area customers do not own their own (the modems are provided free with the service), the swap is a minor inconvenience.

The new cable modems include wireless connectivity, so up to five devices can share your broadband connection without wires.

WSYR-TV in Syracuse

One television station in central New York has helped provoke Time Warner Cable into fixing flaws with its Digital Phone service and how it handles emergency calls to 911.

WSYR-TV in Syracuse shined a spotlight on several failures by the cable company to properly route 911 calls to the appropriate local agencies, instead diverting some 911 calls to a call center in Colorado.

The cable company also had problems with the accuracy of its customer database, which could leave emergency responders with incomplete or missing address information.

After several New York State county 911 managers brought the matter to the attention of the station, it ran a series of reports that have gotten results.

The cable company told the station it has made significant progress in resolving 911 problems, and several of the county 911 managers the station spoke with tentatively agree — noting they’ve seen improvements from the cable operator.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Time Warner Solving 911 Problems 1-10-11.flv[/flv]

WSYR-TV aired two follow-up reports on the Digital Phone-911 problems.  (Warning: Loud Volume) (4 minutes)

In case you forgot, Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcasting only agreed to extend talks for two weeks on reaching a long term retransmission consent agreement that will keep 33 Sinclair-owned stations on the cable lineup.

On Thursday night, the latest deadline will expire, and Time Warner Cable is signaling negotiations are continuing, but do not look too promising.

In a prepared statement, Time Warner says Sinclair has summarily rejected every offer and has repeatedly claimed to “terminate” negotiations over the past three months.

The cable company has spent part of the last two weeks arranging for alternative program feeds from all four major networks should negotiations end without a final agreement.  That could be an important distinction for customers, most of whom watch Sinclair stations primarily for network programming.

“We will provide all available Big 4 network programming in the event that Sinclair takes away its signals,” said Rob Marcus, President and COO of Time Warner Cable. “We want our customers to remember that we’re fighting hard to contain the rising costs of broadcast programming. We are also still working to reach a long-term agreement with Sinclair before our current contract ends tomorrow night, and in fact discussions between the Time Warner Cable programming team and Sinclair have taken place as recently as this morning and are ongoing.”

But the two are still trading barbs.  As recently as today, the two were debating about how many customers would be impacted by a loss of the Sinclair signals.

The cable company said Sinclair was “inaccurately portraying” the number of impacted customers.

“Time Warner Cable has approximately 4 million customers who receive local broadcast stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting,” a cable company statement said.

Seconds count. If your house was on fire, would you wait a minute or more for Time Warner to handle your 911 call?

Time Warner Cable’s digital phone service may be risking lives of the customers who use it to call 911 for emergency services.

That statement from Madison County, N.Y. 911 Director Paul Hartnett comes after the cable company bungled the handling of an emergency call reporting a house fire in the town of Clayton, Jefferson County, causing delays for emergency responders.

Even worse, the problems could be wider in scope, potentially putting many Time Warner Cable phone customers at risk of a delayed 911 response when seconds count.

At issue is an ongoing upgrade of the cable company’s E-911 database, begun after Time Warner dropped Sprint as their 911 vendor in favor of Intrado.  As the slow upgrade continues, customers dialing 911 could end up having their calls routed to a national 911 call center Intrado runs in Colorado.  The process often takes several minutes from the time the caller dials 911, someone in Colorado answers, and the call is eventually transferred back to the originating county, at which point the caller has to repeat information to a local 911 operator they could not reach directly.

Jefferson County’s 911 Director John Pumber told WSYR-TV news they first noticed the problems about a week ago. “I can see this thing escalating extremely fast, in talking to other cohorts around the state, some of the other centers, it’s becoming more and more of a problem,” he said.

Monday, a 911 call reporting a house fire in the Jefferson County town of Clayton was re-routed to the call center in Colorado. The call was eventually forwarded back to Jefferson County’s 911 center, 44 seconds later. By the time the nature of the emergency was given to the local operator, the house was fully involved in fire.

“If your house is on fire, and especially this individual was calling from his house, so we are leaving him in harms way to get the information and get him help [for] whatever the amount of time it took to get through the call center in Colorado and then through our procedures here,” said Plumber.

“Whether it’s medical, fire, law enforcement related – seconds do make a difference,” said Hartnett. “They’re putting public safety in jeopardy because they’re delaying calls. We’ve had medical calls, and other calls. We’ve dodged a bullet so far.”

This call, recorded by Madison County 911 last week, illustrates the problem:

911: Police communication?

Intrado: I’m calling from Intrado, a call center for Time Warner Cable, I have a subscriber on the line that dialed 911. They’re trying to get through to you, they have a medical emergency.

911: Okay, what’s the address madam?

Intrado: They need an ambulance at 4289 Canal Street.

911: Could I speak with them, or?

Intrado: You sure can, it’s going to be a female with difficulty breathing. Do you want their call back or mine?

911: If I’m going to talk to her, I’ll get it from her.

Intrado: You’re going to talk to her husband, his name is John. John your dispatcher is on the line.

911: Hi Sir, how are you?

Caller: Not good, you need to get a f***ing ambulance here right now!

Time Warner Cable Regional Communications Manager Stephanie Salanger released a statement last week addressing the issue:

“TWC has deployed a state-of-the-art E-911 system that offers several key advantages over more traditional systems, including real-time address validation. Our solution complies fully with FCC rules and industry standards, and it also is based on the same technology the federal government is considering mandating for “Next Generation 911″ services, so we will be well-positioned to comply with any new rules as soon as new standards are implemented.

In the very rare cases where errors in routing 911 calls or when errors in the 911 address database occur-which happens from time to time under any 911 system-calls are routed to the Emergency Call Relay Center managed by TWC’s E911 partner in Colorado, rather than to the default or incorrect 911 answering location. This call center allows TWC to determine the customer’s location and route the call to the appropriate emergency answering center. This has happened only in a extremely small number of cases since TWC began transitioning to its new 911 system. TWC has been continually working with local 911 authorities to ensure they understand the details of TWC’s 911 system and will continue to do so.

TWC has always been and remains committed to providing the highest quality E-911 services for its customers. We will continue to work with local E-911 officials and agencies to ensure they are aware of, understand and are satisfied with TWC’s E-911 system and all of its functionalities.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse TWC phone glitch delays emergency responses 1-4-11.flv[/flv]

WSYR-TV in Syracuse ran two reports over two nights documenting more than 40 recent incidents where Time Warner Cable dropped the ball in properly managing 911 calls from their customers.  Warning: Loud Audio! (8 minutes)