Roku and Time Warner

Interesting to note that Roku will be able to make available 300 channels to Time Warner Cable subscribers. This means that Roku is becoming a defacto replacement for a normal TWC set top for TWC subscribers.

I have beaten this drum before - a move like this is good for all involved. TWC doesn't have the opex or headaches involved in supporting additional STB's. Actually expenses should reduce as some existing STB are replaced - plus there is no truck roll costs involved when a subscriber adds a Roku box. Roku gets a great revenue opportunity as they get to market to millions of TWC subscribers. For the customer - there are a number of advantages of owning a Roku box that they will now be able to take advantage of. A win-win-win situation.

I also firmly believe that Apple will eventually announce both a new Apple TV box and a relationship with larger operators like TWC. They won't let Roku have all the fun (or all the market)

How to Move from MPEG2 STB to IP Consumer Boxes

Once upon a time if a business wanted phones to make calls they had to buy a proprietary system and handsets. Whether it was a PBX, hybrid or key system from Lucent, Mitel, Ericsson, Nortel or others - it was proprietary. And expensive. Then came VoIP.

Anyone who was around at that time can recall the key word that was always attached to anything IP - "ubiquitous".  As pretentious as the word and description was it did come true. IP has become "ubiquitous". Well for everything except cable set top boxes.

MSO's and smaller cable companies have invested billions in MPEG2 set top boxes. They don't want to go to the expense of switching out those boxes just so the customers can enjoy MPEG4 HD programming and other IP based services. And the customers don't seem to want to foot that bill either. Surprisingly the answer to this conundrum may turn out to be relatively simple.

If a game console or box like Apple TV or Roku can accept the encryption client from the MSO to insure content protection as well as accepting the EPG and data - then the switch-over from proprietary MPEG2 based STB to IP based consumer product could be for the most part painlessly achieved.

I think Apple understands this which is why the next version of Apple TV will probably more closely resemble a traditional STB (but with cloud based DVR functionality). This is not much different than Cisco back in the day getting into the VoIP handset market. It should be noted that the VoIP handset didn't replace the traditional TDM-based phone overnight but the VoIP handset market was much more profitable.

How many people do you know selling PBX's today? In ten years the same thing will be said about people selling QAM based systems and set top boxes.