Recently in Cable Category

Another filing deadline, another blast of press releases about the Comcast "network management" debacle.

To quote the great philosopher Rodney King, "can't we all just get along?"

No, really. This topic gets people in an uproar, whether it's the good and well-meaning people at Free Press and Public Knowledge, who brought the complaint, or the folks at Comcast and their NCTA brethren, who have made a valiant effort at reaching out to the Internet community and explaining themselves. They have a great blog. Seriously.

At first, I think there was some justified anger out there. I know there was some major ranting on this blog about what was, in hindsight was a poor P.R. response on the part of Comcast.

See, Network Neutrality was originally this fear that the owners of the big pipes were going to charge Google and others premiums to have their content carried, despite the fact that GOOG and their ilk already pay. This came out of some rather inartful comments by the CEO of what was then AT&T, who ranted about Internet companies making money using "his" infrastructure.

This whole "network management" issue is totally different, but the Network Neutrality debate shifted from the long-haul to the last mile. And Comcast, bless them, didn't react well. First they said there was nothing going on, then admitted it. Then back in March they announced an agreement to try and work out the technical issues that make Cable so difficult a platform to deliver consistant bandwidth on when P2P applications come into play.

Skip ahead to today. Free Press blasted out a release saying it's time for Comcast to "come clean" on their practices, when we know what they are doing, and have known for months.

"Last month, the FCC found Comcast guilty of violating users' online rights," Free Press said. But let's be honest here. Guilty? Last time I looked, not only was the FCC not a criminal court, but there is even dispute over whether or not the FCC can regulate broadband.

But a Free Press spokesperson said that guilty, which has a specific meaning in criminal law, was appropriate as a term of art, "given the amount of deception involved."

Ben Scott, FP's Policy Director even suggested that Comcast might go "AWOL," and not file. But a spokesperson for Comcast was quite adamant in assuring me that the "highly technical" filings would be in the commission's hands "by close of business." Comcast will also make them available at http://www.comcast.net/networkmanagement after filing them with the commission.

Let's cool off until we see what everyone's cards are, shall we?

After a massive FAIL from Orbitz (which I'll talk about later), I've finally arrived at the NCTA Cable Show in New Orleans. Funny enough, the last time I was here was with my parents when my father attended the exact same convention here many years ago. 

I'm off tomorrow to the National Cable and Telecommunications convention in New Orleans. While I should have some coverage of the policy tracks and other events, the fun part is the new toy. I've been playing with Qik live video and should have brief interviews and clips from the NCTA show floor in addition to the usual panels and talks and photos.

Check here for coverage while Alex herds it all together on the front page and in the Media Center.

Cox Communications is one cable company that is wasting no time and embracing wireless. Cox's wireless subsidiary, Cox Wireless, spent around $304 million and snatched up 14 Block A and eight Block B licenses as part of the recently concluded 700 spectrum auctions. Now, there is word that the company has given the contract to build the network to Chinese equipment maker, Huawei. UBS Research in a note to its clients notes that, Huawei is going to supply CDMA gear for a wireless network.

The good people at the NYT have given me more reason to get excited about next month's NCTA Cable Show in New Orleans: Watching the speculation, rumour and intrigue behind who might try and take over Time Warner's cable systems, which are about to become sort of "up for grabs" as they get spun off.

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner Inc., continued to trim what has for years been the world's largest media company by announcing Wednesday that it would completely spin off its cable company.

The news -- which was not unexpected and follows an earlier transaction in which a portion of the cable unit was spun off into a separate public company -- came as Time Warner reported quarterly earnings that were largely in line with Wall Street's expectations.

This is going to be fun to watch for a number of reasons. Last time there was a major group of systems up for sale was when AT&T sold off their Cable systems, leading to a "friendly" competition between Cox Communications, and the eventual winner Comcast. That victory gave Comcast a huge market advantage in the number of subscribers, but Comcast, which has a reputation for fighting like Rocky, the unofficial mascot of its' home city of Philadelpha, may not be able to benefit from going after TIme Warner without helping Cox, their old Atlanta-based foes.