Comcast 2Gbps? EU is Coming After YOU! AppleWear! What’s an MVPD?

A new chapter of my book “The Revolutionary Evolution of the Media” will be released next week. In the meantime, read the previous chapters here.

Comment : We’ve got to admit it. 2Gbps is a very big deal. Leapfrogging Google, Comcast says it will begin deploying the symmetrical superfast service in Atlanta next month and (eventually, maybe someday) then roll it out to some 18m homes. It’ll cost, of course (how much isn’t known yet), and the business or household will have to be pretty close to the Comcast fiber backbone to receive the service which will require upgraded, professional equipment. I’d sign up, but I don’t imagine it’ll roll out to Summit County, Colorado before 2050. Still, impressive.

Speaking of Google, the European Union is about to make some serious allegations against a variety of American tech companies and issue some serious fines. Things are different over there, but some of the complaints against Google and others are more than a bit of a reach, at least from an American data privacy perspective. And the new European head of antitrust, Margrethe Vestager, is spoiling for a fight with Google over its’ almost 90% market share for search … no settlement in sight. Next up? Apple streaming services?

Speaking of Apple, how soon before HBO streams to your new watch?

The Federal Confusion Commission is mulling the definition of an MVPD … and thinking about stretching the concept to include anything video that moves, or something. Interestingly, the FCC, belatedly of course, reported the first ever drop in MVPD subs for the year ending 12/31/13 of about 100k. Easy to make that up by redefining OTT as MVPD. Or is it OVD that gets redefined? In any event dumb -- like redefining water to include soda. Okay, for the cable acronym-challenged among you, OVD equals “online video distributor” while OTT means “over-the-top.” MVPD implies, for now, real owned or leased physical linear (and maybe other) distribution.

In Other Items of Interest :

RIP Jones International University. Glenn Jones, one of the cable industry’s most interesting characters (and an all-around good guy) founded the Mind Extension University cable channel in 1987. It later became Knowledge TV. The channel broadcast advanced placement courses for free. It developed into JIU and became the first online-only degree-granting accredited university. Today, online is taken for granted and free MOOC courses have taken their toll on JIU enrollment, which has only 2000 or so students, down significantly in just the last couple of years. Typical of Glenn, though, JIU is finding continuing solutions for students with, among other options, Trident U. Int’l in California. And Trident is renaming its business school the Glenn R. Jones College of Business Administration.

Eleanor Winter: She’s one of those people behind the scenes who accomplishes more than the rest of us all the time. A former Senate staffer, she joined NCTA 25 years ago and took over a somewhat moribund CablePAC that had 163 members and 30 corporate members and raised $185k/year. Today 2,800 cable execs and 100 corporations send checks annually and since ’99 CablePAC has been the No. 1 telecom PAC raising $2m+ every year. She’s an Ole Miss alum and is active on the board of the Nat’l Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. A WICT mentor, too, check out her bio here as she joins the Hall of Fame in May.

The 18^th Annual Cable Center Hall of Fame dinner is set for Tuesday, May 5^th at the Navy Pier (600 East Grand Avenue in Chicago) during the INTX (nee: The Cable Show) that week.

In an almost 50-year career writing and reporting on media, Paul S. Maxwell started and/or ran some 45-plus publications ranging from CATV Newsweekly to Colorado Magazine to CableVision to Multichannel News to CableFAX and The BRIDGE Suite of daily newsletters and research publications. In between publishing stints, Maxwell served as an advisor and/or consultant to a number of major media companies and media start-ups including running a unit of MCI and managing a partnership of TCI and McGraw-Hill.

Send any and all criticisms, suggestions, rants, threats, corrections, etc. to him at cablemax@mac.com. He has a new Web site coming soon!

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