Cable Focusing Increasingly on Reliability Over Greater Internet Speeds

Priorities like network reliability are starting to eclipse cable’s focus on faster broadband speeds, according to cable operators and industry officials. Since most cable subscribers aren’t using the capacity available to them on a daily basis, further speed gains are less a way of differentiating from competitors, CableLabs Chief Technology Officer Mark Bridges told us in an interview.

Bridges said cable will continue raising speeds and capacity but is looking elsewhere to distinguish itself. Prospective customers aren't buying based on speeds the way they once did, he said. Moreover, "They feel pretty satisfied in terms of capacity."

Multiple cable operators made similar statements during last week's SCTE TechExpo in Atlanta. Liberty Latin America CEO Balan Nair said cable operators formerly had two levers: price and speed; however, subscribers are increasingly buying quality now. He said service quality can be a route to reducing churn. When subscribers complain about service or disconnect, speed is not the issue. Instead, he said, network error metrics are a good predictor of who will call to complain or end service.

Similarly, said Ron McKenzie, Rogers Communications chief technology and information officer, cable has "speed and capacity covered." Putting more intelligence closer to the customer on the network will enable applications with performance characteristics tailored to each subscriber, he said. McKenzie said subscribers want network reliability and more intelligence at the edge will enable that.

Damian Polz, Rogers' vice president-wireline networks, said reliability rather than speed is paramount as 1 Gbps speeds and higher are increasingly available. Cable marketing, he added, is shifting more toward reliability.

At the same time, Polz said, operators also need a strategy for getting multi-gig speeds.

CableLabs' Bridges told us network infrastructure investments are reaching a point where a growing number of operators will have capacity "that will carry you for a couple [of] decades, at least." Though consumer usage habits are leveling off, Bridges says immersive experiences like virtual reality will become big consumers of data. Networks, he said, will have excess capacity to handle those experiences. "Right now we feel pretty good."

Bridges said cable operators are focusing on maximizing network uptime, with no service disruptions occurring when users move from one network to another, for example from mobile to Wi-Fi. Another example are the "follow-me type services," such as profiles, parental controls and privacy settings, which attach to users regardless of where they connect from. Such seamless connectivity and follow-me services will become more ubiquitous over the next two to three years, he said.