There is a dirty little secret in the cable industry. Its being kept secret not by the cable distributors, but by the big cable networks. End this practice and the United States goes from being 3rd world by international broadband standards, to top of the charts and exemplary.
Make this change and Net Neutrality becomes a non issue. There is plenty of bandwidth for everyone.
What is the dirty little secret ?
That your cable company still delivers basic cable networks in analog. Why is this such an important issue ? Because each of those cable networks takes up 6mhz. That translates into about 38mbs per second. Thats 38mbs PER NETWORK.
USA Network, 38mbs. ESPN, 38mbs. MTV 38mbs. VH1 38mbs.etc, etc, etc.
If we want to truly change the course of broadband in this country, the solution is simple. Just as we had an analog shutdown date for over the air TV signals, we need the same resolution for analog delivered cable networks.
Transition basic cable networks from analog to digital over the next 3 years and all of the sudden there will be hundreds of megabits available on the smallest cable systems and more than a gigabit of bandwidth available on the largest.
Of course the cable networks themselves would fight this. It could reduce their subscriber counts. God forbid that USA Network and other basic cable nets do not reach every household that doesn't have a digital set top box. That is of course far more important than the upside to our entire country that plentiful bandwidth creates. Right ?
So for all of you netizens out there, drop all the Net Neutrality efforts and focus on pushing analog cable networks to digital and you kill two birds with one stone. You eliminate any issue of Net Neutrality with bandwidth a plenty, and you immediately make our nation bandwidth competitive with every nation in the world. In fact, done right, we become the envy of every nation in the world. All without a single backhoe or blade of grass in a yard harmed.
I might even have to change my stance on internet video reaching broadcast quality !
How to Make US Broadband Competitive - Quickly and Cheaply
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(Page 1)2. Mark good idea, but the red tape and lobbyist would kill any movement towards it immediately
Posted at 12:11PM on Apr 10th 2008 by pdr tools
3. There's a danger in trying to convince the companies to do this. When the companies are reluctant, some busy-bodies will want their legislators to force companies to do what's best for the country!
Posted at 12:57PM on Apr 10th 2008 by SoftwareNerd
4. Um, Mark, you're usually dead on, but in this case you've betrayed a fundamental lack of understanding of the internet and the network neutrality issue. Network neutrality is about transmission of content within and between internet backbones, not along the so-called last mile.
Further, to the extent that network neutrality involves the ISP I pay for delivering everyone's content to me, it's about attempts to monetize things on both ends. I pay for my ISP connection; it is crazy that my ISP can then turn around to Google and say that if they want me to receive Google.com unimpeded, Google has to pay my ISP as well. That's the scenario that net neutrality people are hoping to avoid. And increasing last mile bandwidth has no bearing on that issue at all.
I'm all for removing analog transmissions from cable, and the effect could be improved even more by moving digital transmissions to a switched format, where a channel is only put on a cable subnet if a device is actually tuned to it. So yeah, good ideas. But leave network neutrality out of it; it's a completely separate issue.
From MC>Not quite. You have it wrong on two counts
There is no shortage of bandwidth on the backbone. Variable bandwidth pricing, the issue behind neutrality, comes from scarcity. There is scarcity in the last mile. Not on the backbone.
2nd, once bits leave one network through a peering point, to another, the originating ISP/Network loses control. So they cant charge. Comcast cant say they will charge google or end users for how they receive bits on Verizon's network
Posted at 12:59PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Brooks
5. "E-mails reveal Sonics owners intended to bolt from Seattle "
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004339103_sonicsheds.html
This is more evidence that the PBC group did not make an honest effort to keep the SuperSonics in Seattle.
Would this be someone who you prefer to do business with?
Posted at 1:02PM on Apr 10th 2008 by John_S
6. I'm going to have to disagree with you, Mark. First, variable bandwidth pricing comes from ISPs ability to control the user experience. If Google search suddenly seems slow compared to Live search, it will have an effect on where users and therefore ad revenue goes, so ISPs will be able to double dip by selling my the connection, and then selling Google my "premium user experience". Network neutrality is largely about preventing that scenario.
While it's true that the bits can't change once they leave a peering point, the problem is that without network neutrality, each peering point has the potential to extort both end points. And that's why network neutrality has nothing to do with speeds at the last mile, and why improving last mile speeds won't solve the neutrality issue.
Second, while the backbone today is more or less not running at capacity, give lots of people your 100mbps+ connections and it will require huge investment to keep up. To the extent that there is scarcity in the last mile, and I'm not sure I buy that at all, upping household speeds by 10? 100? times would absolutely produce massive scarcity on the backbone.
Posted at 1:22PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Brooks
7. This transition is happening, and it's for competitive reasons. No need for government meddling. In fact, the FCC needs to get out of the way.
Verizons FiOS is a game changer, and is forcing Comcast to wake up and improve service. The FCC is slowing the migration to all digital by mandating CableCard funtionality for all set top boxes. This slowed cables transition to all digital dramitcally.
It will be expensive, but through switched digital video and digital adaptors, cable will be all digital in the next 3-5 years and the freed up spectrum will go to more HD channels and faster broadband.
Posted at 2:07PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Steve
8. So far, it seems this is anything but simple, not to mention the disagreement on some of the fundamentals. I'd like to understand what is really behind most of the transition digital, and expanded bandwidth. It can't really be that difficult, can it?
Posted at 3:10PM on Apr 10th 2008 by BawldGuy Talking
9. A very thoughtful and innovative solution for the short term.
Long term, the ownership of internet access needs to belong to the community.
Access to fast internet should be treated as infrastructure - the local communities should invest in data transfer just as they have in fire and police protection, roads, waste water, potable water, etc.
It should be a local decision. Some communities may decide they don't want to spend a lot of tax dollars for fast access, while others may decide to invest heavily in fast access for the long term growth of the community.
Access to the internet should not be controlled by teleco's or cableco's.
Posted at 3:47PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Mark Van Patten
10. Hey Mark-
a couple of questions...
I am wondering what are your thoughts on David Stern and Clay Bennet and the situation with the Sonics? Admittidly I am a die hard Sonics fan I would like know from an owner's perspective how do you see the future for they boys in green and gold?
Lastely what would it take for you to make an offer and keep my the sonics in seattle???
thanks and I love the blog...
11. I have a dirty little secret too.
I just read this blog and tried my hardest (even made the squinting face) to understand what you guys are talking about.
Is this internet and TV cable companies sharing the same something or another? At first I thought it was about Analog cable, but I thought I saw a TV ad talking about analog delivery changing in 2009. Then it started sounding like something else. Yeah I am really busy.
Posted at 4:12PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Billy Gamble
12. Who needs fiber-to-the-curb? Now, to get around the Cable Box requirements, we could legislate requiring QAM Tuners with the analog cable cutoff. This is just like requiring ATSC Tuners for the analog OTA cutoff, only it actually affects more than 10% of the population.
Posted at 4:59PM on Apr 10th 2008 by John Ramseur
13. You don't seem to understand what net neutrality is. It's more an issue of censorship (or legalized extortion) than one of Quality of Service. QoS is merely the ISPs way of deflecting the issue.
Posted at 5:11PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Matthew Maroon
14. I was unaware of this. Does this mean that my analog TV will still be able to tune in channels without any converter box after the cutoff date if the input is Coax from the cable company? The cable ads have been implying that they are handling the "digital conversion" for us, but this sounds like they are simply converting the signal back to analog!
Posted at 5:31PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Jeff
15. Dear Legendary Mark Cuban:
HUGE,huge fan here.
Just wanted to know if you will be attending the Seattle Sonics last home game with a Save our Sonics t-shirt on.
We need someone powerful as the great Mark Cuban to let it be known world wide about you opinion on the Supes.
Love your enthusiasm and your passion. Keep living the great life. Bless you my man.
Signed,
Larry Wonder The young 1/4 century old Sonics FAN.
P.S. Holla!
Posted at 5:43PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Larry Wonder
16. Well looks like problem solved come 2012 (RE: ArsTechnica article linked earlier). And that's good since they didn't start including the warning when selling non-DTV TV's till March 2007.
Posted at 5:44PM on Apr 10th 2008 by tankilo
17. The Chicago Comcast system has already dumped every analog station except for the broadcast channels http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/04/07/comcast-begins-digital-transition-in-chicago/ The problem is they aren't rolling out pre-DOCSIS 3.0 gear fast enough to take advantage of the new bandwidth avail.
Posted at 6:38PM on Apr 10th 2008 by MavsFan
18. Based on this Ars Technica article, the cable companies are free to begin reclaiming analog non-local-broadcast channels at any time, but have to keep analog locals until 2012: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070912-fcc-to-cable-you-must-support-analog-tvs-until-2012.html
What we really need here is a pledge from the cable companies to send digital versions of the previously-analog stations in a format that's compatible with DTV converter set-top boxes that could be purchased with the government's DTV subsidy: http://www.dtvtransition.org/. At some point analog cable users will have to deal with the transition. I'm surprised that the DTV Transition marketing doesn't make mention of the fact that new digital TVs (which are mostly non-tube-based) are more power-efficient than their CRT-based analog counterparts.
19. Wow. I had never thought of this but it makes perfect sense. Must explain why my cable Internet connection is slow. The bandwidth is being hogged unnecessarily.
Hopefully something will happen in the near future but I highly doubt it since they have kept this secret hidden this long.
Posted at 7:29PM on Apr 10th 2008 by homes
20. first of all. i challenged you to a dance off at SXSW and you declined, so i just want people to know that :)
second, the cablecos ARE switching to digital. do you know how hard it is to get an old analog, basic-only cable service? Time Warner actually prices that HIGHER than a digital service in some markets. they'd love to get people all on digital so they can upsell them to on-demand and HBO7. not sure where you get the idea that this is some "dirty little secret."
there are factors that inhibit broadband deployment (lack of real competition, selective zipcode deployment, lack of unbundling), but the cableco's desire to hold onto analog is NOT one of them.
Posted at 1:13AM on Apr 11th 2008 by Baratunde Thurston
1. But Mark, that frees up bandwidth within the cable provider's network. What about bandwidth on the Internet itself? If all that bandwidth was available for use from every home (38Mbps, or 76, etc.), the connections between each cable operators network would be completely over-saturated.
Well, that's what they'd like for us to believe anyway. Maybe this is just a case of telecoms not wanting to shell out money to build out a bigger Internet backbone the same way oil companies refuse to build refineries, thus driving up prices.
I still think the point you're making is a great one. Now if only cable companies would stop discriminating against users of Cable Cards, insisting that everyone use their appointed cable box.
Posted at 12:10PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Armen