Riffy
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It looks like the FCC is unhappy with Cox’s rollout of switched digital video (SDV) that prevented cablecards from working.
Dollar amount of the fine was trivial though.
See article:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081017-fcc-fines-cable-for-anticompetitive-switched-digital-video.html
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HDedmond
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Is Cox using SDV in Oklahoma?
If so, which channels?
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Riffy
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No, I don’t think Cox had rolled it out here yet, but they did have plans to implement it in all their markets.
It’s not a per-channel thing as much as a per-area thing. The idea is to monitor each cable box in an area for each digital channel being viewed (digital only, analog is unaffected). If no household in a neighborhood was watching Hallmark-HD for example, Cox wouldn’t waste the bandwidth sending it from the hub to that neighborhood. That way they could use the freed-up bandwidth space from all the unwatched channels for something else. Who knows what they had planned for it.
The fine was because Cox didn’t use a scheme that allowed current cable cards to work, so you would have to rent a Cox cable box instead of using your TiVo with a cable card you got from Cox, for example. I imagine SDV will still happen but Cox may have to offer to replace the existing cable cards. Just my opinion.
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ralfthedog
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“…That way they could use the freed-up bandwidth space from all the unwatched channels for something else. Who knows what they had planned for it.”
With any luck, it will be used for higher bandwidth HD and more HD channels.
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