Cox Plans to Launch Live TV Streaming Service for iPads

Cox will roll out the new multi-screen video service, known as Cox TV Connect, sometime next month, said Cox President Patrick Esser in a keynote at the SCTE conference. Cox introduced an online video service for the PC, known as Cox TV Online, in May.

Speaking separately at the convention, Steve Necessary, Cox vice president-video product development and management, confirmed that Cox is targeting the iPad first for the new service. It also seemed likely that Cox TV Connect will appear soon on tablets using Google’s Android operating system because Cox already offers several Android smartphones for a mobile service running on the Sprint Nextel network.

Cox intends to debut with about a 35-channel service, Necessary said, which is similar to the lineup that Time Warner Cable launched on the iPad last spring before expanding to 140 channels today. “We'll start with a certain number of national channels, then expand with local and more national networks,” Necessary said. “The coolness factor is pretty high.” He said the Cox TV Connect service will eventually add such other features as DVR management and remote-control functions, which it now makes available via a separate app.

Several major programmers have complained that such live TV streaming apps on the iPad violate their programming distribution agreements with cable operators. The cable operators counter that they are covered under their existing carriage deals because the apps provide TV programming to subscribers only in their own homes. So far, Viacom has been the only programmer that has actually brought the issue to court, suing both Cablevision and Time Warner Cable this spring for copyright violations and breach of contract. Since then, Viacom has resolved its dispute with Cablevision but has not settled with Time Warner.

Necessary said gaming consoles are “clearly on our roadmap” as well. Although the lack of programming license rights keeps Cox from distributing video outside subscribers’ homes now, he indicated that he expects the situation to change. “Those issues will work themselves out,” he said.

In his keynote, Esser also said the cable industry must slash its product-revision cycles from years to months, so it will be agile enough to meet the changing expectations of the next generation of consumers. He said cable’s innovation cycles historically have taken five to seven years, but in the consumer electronics market, product cycles are measured in months -- if not weeks.

Esser cited Cox’s push to launch the new iPad app this year as a prime example of moving more quickly. He said Cox has been able to develop the Cox TV Connect service in “about nine months from the day we said ‘go’ to when consumers are going to see it.” Previously, “that could have taken our industry three years to get out the door,” he said. Motorola Mobility’s product-revision cycle for mobile devices takes only about six to nine months, said Chairman Sanjay Jha. Jha quipped that the wireless industry is a “bucking bronco” in terms of its ability to change. “The last time I saw this [pace of change] was when PCs were at the top of their cycle, in the late ‘80s,” he said. “That’s not to say that is sustainable over the long term."

Motorola believes consumers will buy about 1 billion smartphones in 2013, and “my expectation is that nearly all of them will be video-enabled,” Jha said. “This revolution is going to be driven by the consumers, and they want access to all their services at all times. They want to connect through content."

But don’t believe the hype that people will start consuming all their content over wireless networks, Jha said. He noted that the cost to deliver data over wireless is 30 to 100 times the cost of wireline delivery on a per-bit basis. Esser said 80 percent of video streaming takes place in one of three places: the home, the office or at school. “Our network naturally exists in those three places,” he said.

With industry observers generally expecting social networking to play a growing role in video services, Jha suggested that the TV set of the future will show pop-ups indicating what friends are watching and letting viewers interact about the show. “It’s amazing to me that people want you to know what they're doing in their home,” Esser quipped. “Would you like to know what [Time Warner Cable Chief Technology Officer] Mike LaJoie is watching on TV?” Jha responded affirmatively: “I would absolutely love to know. It would help me find out what to watch."