4 Top Cable MSOs Say They Plan to Launch OCAP
LAS VEGAS -- More than 5 years after CableLabs wrote technical standards for digital cable set-top boxes and cable-ready DTV sets that can work on any cable system, top MSOs finally are preparing to introduce such devices. Of the top 10 cable operators, 4 -- Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Bright House - described Sun. how they soon will be equipping their systems with interoperable TV sets and set-tops. The operators are upgrading system headends to support digital boxes embedded with OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) middleware from CableLabs, a key element in the retail drive.
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Executives from Time Warner, Cox and Bright House said their companies will start shipping OCAP-enabled digital set-tops to their cable systems for deployment in July. Comcast plans to begin shipping OCAP set-tops early in 2008.
Cable programmers familiar with unfulfilled MSO pledges about OCAP remain skeptical about the latest vows. Speaking at the first OCAP Developers Conference before the start of the Cable Show here, Richard Doherty of consulting group Envisioneering said some programmers may delay developing OCAP-related interactive TV applications until someone shows that the technology actually works.
But cable operators and their main gear suppliers told several panels that this time OCAP is coming. “It is absolutely real,” said Jeff Seebeck, vp-product strategy & development, subscriber networks, for Scientific-Atlanta: “It'd better be real or I've got a lot of explaining to do.”
“This is as real a product as just about anything you'll see in the cable space,” said David Hausman, vp-strategy initiatives for Vidiom Systems: “The Vikings have landed. There’s nothing left to do but burn the ships.”
Time Warner leads, with about 70% of systems, all served by Scientific-Atlanta headends, able to support OCAP-equipped digital set-tops. Mike Hayashi, TW senior vp-advanced technology & engineering, said he hopes to start a trial in one of its Motorola headend systems by year-end.
Cox seems to be 2nd; CTO Chris Bowick said the company is testing OCAP in 2 markets. Bowick aims to upgrade 5 cable systems for OCAP by the year-end and be supporting middleware across Cox markets by the middle of 2008. In 3rd place, Bright House said it, too, has 70% of its cable systems OCAP- ready. Like Time Warner, Bright House mostly uses S-A headends.
Comcast, which mainly uses Motorola headends, said it’s testing OCAP middleware in 4 markets - Boston, Union City, N.J., Philadelphia and Denver. Plans call for making 80% of its cable systems ready for OCAP by the end of 2007. “There’s some tweaking of the specs going on and the specs will continue to evolve,” said Mark Vickers, CTO of TV Works for Comcast. But, he noted, “hundreds of engineers are working on this full-time and millions of dollars are being spent.”