that the reason that so many people are switching to FiOS is not single-ended.

If it was simply a matter of the number of television channels, the ploy just might work. However, the TWC customer is more likely interested in the internet capabilities of the provider, so television becomes much less a priority  - 57 channels and nothing on!

Time-Warner is making a big push in New York City, where they are going to offer 100 channels of HDTV service. Verizon does not yet have that many channels, but will eventually work up to well over that figure, as the bandwidth and quality available over optical links is much higher than that possible with coaxial cable, older cable, in many cases. Few know that coaxial cable becomes degraded in as little as 5 years, and always suffers significant degradation by the 15 year mark.

Optical fibers, besides being newly installed, will suffer much less degradation over time, and thus have a two-fold benefit to the prospective customer – less signal problems over time, and fewer, if any, outages due to replacement. Scheduled outages are a fact with cable due to the necessity of the coaxial cable over the 5 to 15 year period.

Speed is the motivation here, with fiber optics beating coaxial cable under the most favorable circumstances. There is also the matter of network policy. Who would choose capped and slower, over unlimited and faster?

from Betanews

Time Warner Cable now plans to boost its high-def TV line-up to 100 channels by the end of 2008 in New York City, its COO said. Yet elsewhere — including Los Angeles, where it’s currently being sued — it has no similar plans.

Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecommunications conference this week, Time Warner Cable COO Landel Hobbs said that, by the end of this year, his company will almost double its current HDTV capacity in New York, in addition to launching two other services in that city by then: Start Over and “price-lock guarantee.”

The new Start Over service will let TV viewers go back to the beginning of a show in progress. The price-lock guarantee package will allow customers agreeing to a two-year contract to lock in an established price for video, voice, and data service.

“HD in vast numbers. Start Over will be launched in Manhattan before year end. Price-lock guarantee throughout the entire market, scouring the market ahead of anybody before the competition moves in,” Hobbs told the conference attendees.

By “competition,” Hobbs unmistakably meant Verizon, a rival that recently cleared the first regulatory hurdle it needs to pass before beginning to install FiOS TV throughout New York City.

However, Hobbs made no mention of expanded HD rollouts for any TWC city other than New York City. That doesn’t mean similar rollouts won’t happen elsewhere, though it’s noteworthy that the COO’s focus was limited to just that one area.

Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles — where Verizon’s FiOS is not a competitive threat — last week launched a lawsuit against TWC, accusing the cable provider of spurring “major havoc and distress” due to poor service and billing problems.

Now, the city of Costa Mesa, California is reportedly pondering its own lawsuit against TWC.

“In response to [the Los Angeles] suit and a history of complaints from local residents dissatisfied with the cable provider, Costa Mesa City Attorney Kimberly Hall Barlow wants to find out whether similar actions might be in Costa Mesa’s best interest,” according to an article in the online edition of Costa Mesa’s local newspaper, the Daily Pilot.

More than that, don’t people in New York City eschew television for the superior pleasures of the theater?

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Quote of the day:

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination. - Bertrand Russell

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