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Cable
On February 1, the FCC Chairman and Commissioners made their first appearance in front of the new Democratic-controlled Congress, during an oversight hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. While senators had wide-ranging questions in many areas of telecommunications, no topic was mentioned as often, or seen as so critical to our nation’s future, as broadband deployment.
The good news is that cable has been a leader in bringing broadband services to most of America. This is a story we need to keep repeating.
When Members of Congress think “broadband,” they usually think of high-speed Internet access. Cable of course was first to market with residential high-speed service. While the telephone companies kept DSL technology on the shelf, the cable industry took risks and deployed affordable cable modem service to homes across the country. Now, cable is the nation’s leading broadband provider of high-speed Internet access, serving almost 29 million households.
The cable industry has spent $110 billion to upgrade facilities and deploy broadband services in American communities, both urban and rural and everything in between. At the end of 2006, cable’s Internet service was available to 94% of all U.S. homes and featured access speeds averaging 5 to 15 megabits per second — much faster than the 1.5 to 6 megabit speeds that DSL offers.
But there’s more to “broadband” than high-speed Internet. Let’s not forget cable’s digital video services, which also ride on, and depend upon, the upgraded broadband plant. Cable’s investment in a hybrid fiber-coax network allows significant bandwidth for the latest video technologies. High-definition television service is now available to 97 million homes passed by cable where customers can watch some of the 28 channels now transmitting in HD. Eighty-four percent of cable homes are VOD-enabled, and one in four households reports using free VOD programming at least once a week.
And with our broadband connections, cable’s digital phone service is taking off. About 8.5 million households were enjoying highly affordable digital phone service at the end of 2006. Fully featured with voicemail, call waiting, caller ID and unlimited local and long-distance service, consumers now enjoy real competition in phone service.
This success story — the birth and growth of cable’s “triple play” — has been driven by cable’s investment in infrastructure, spurred primarily by a deregulatory environment. It didn’t take government mandates or government subsidies for cable to extend its services to homes near and far. It’s been our goal to make certain that consumers across America have access to advanced digital technology. We took the risk and invested private capital in order to provide broadband services to communities everywhere.
Now, we are looking beyond the convergence that greets us in 2007. We have already created a broadband platform that delivers digital video, high-definition television, digital telephone service, and an array of additional interactive services.And wireless connectivity for cable’s services is just around the corner.
We’re on an exciting path.I hope Congress and the FCC continue to support policies that encourage capital investment and network innovation.
