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Wednesday, January 07, 2004
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Ooooh - I was quoted by a well respected national industry journal - Cable Datacom News. My pithy quote is in the middle of an article recapping the Western Show panel dicussions focusing on IP.
Stephanie Kesler, senior manager of research and analysis for GCI, boasted that the Alaska cable operator, phone company and ISP is doing quite well with its six tiers of cable-modem service. GCI, which has 40,000 [actually we have 43,000] cable modem subscribers, offers tiers ranging from its latest $24.99 per month "LiteSpeed" service, designed as a "dial-up beater," to its "Gold," "Platinum" and other higher-speed, higher-priced levels for heavy data users. Kesler said the tiers offer customers "a more consistent experience," send a "rational economic signal" that subscribers get what they pay for, provide upselling opportunities, ensure network stability and predictability, cut network congestion, and lower or postpone capital expenditures because of fewer customer demands on the broadband network.
Plus, Kesler said, GCI's tier subscribers rarely try to exceed their maximum allotted bandwidth. "The group that goes over is usually the lower-rate ones," she said. "The higher-rate ones are usually hip to what's going on."
GCI introduced the idea of tiering when it launched cable-modem service in Alaska nearly six years ago. The company also bundles all of its data tiers with long-distance and other phone services to hook consumers. Indeed, Kesler said, 85% of the MSO's high-speed customers sign up for its long-distance service too.
I'm somewhat chagrined at the boastful adjective...
8:05:15 PM 
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Great analysis on TiVo's lackluster marketing efforts.
I'm a huge a giant TiVo fan - definitely in the evangelist category. But I am worried - if they don't get on the ball, they're going to be ground into oblivion by the oncoming cable juggernaught.
For example, GCI is just starting to roll out HDTV. We've decided to use the Motorola DCT 6208 combination HD tuner and DVR (digital video recorder a la Tivo). The 6208 can record in high definition - I think an HD tuner packaged with an HD capable DVR is compelling. Of course, HD recordings take up a huge amount of storage space - storage capacity is 7 hours of HD versus 80 hours of non-HD - which is a bit of an issue.
Anyhoo, I think the threat to TiVo is three fold:
- TiVo does not have a product with HD recording capabilities. They had better get to market with an HD product ASAP. Granted, it's a niche product right now. But the cable companies are all over HD. The niche will explode wide open within the next year.
- Cable companies have their own channel/tv guide. TiVo's guide and programming abilities are fabulous. However, digital cable programming guides are probably good enough for most folks who have not experienced TiVo and its phenomenal programming abilities - i.e. season passes, record all movies in which a particular star occurs, etc. If TiVo does not evangelize their capabilities, consumers won't know what they're missing
- And finally, cable's huge installed customer base. Tens of millions of customers. By deploying HD combined with DVR's to even a small subset of existing customers, the cable companies can grab gargantuan DVR market share in a very short period of time.
TiVo needs to get on the ball and start evangelizing. Now.
7:48:54 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Stephanie A. Kesler.
Last update: 3/5/2005; 8:40:07 PM.
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