CABLE CONGRESS 2013 – LONDON. Operators are increasingly being forced to deal with consumer hardware choices and how it connects to their own networks.
“The current situation is that there is already plenty of hardware in the home,” said Philippe Le May, CTO, Numericable told the session Installing Cable’s Future – Evolving Connectivity Solutions in the home. “We think to fulfil the promise there should be no intermediary between the cable operator and the screen to deliver a high quality of service”.
Micha Berger, vice president next generation DTV program delivery, Liberty Global agreeing adding that operators needed to look at the part they wanted to play in future services. “Once we step into that area and want to provide a managed service we have to do it from end to end and choose what specific service we want to provide.
“There are services we have no control over, but we see ourselves as supporting the customer, so an additional part is that they will call us up if there is something wrong even if it’s not relayed to our infrastructure.”
Berger said it was common for more than 10 devices to be connected to a home Wi-Fi network. People were becoming smarter, helped by the kind of set up in UPC’s Horizon, that amongst other things is an all in one box.
However, Charles Cheevers, CTO, customer premises equipment, ARRIS argued in part against the self install. “There is a positive reason for having a call for the first install to clean up and never visit that home again because its MOCA or Wi-Fi.”
Cheevers said the problem was with previous install that may have been made in the home.