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Viodi View

Viodi View – 02/25/13

Is there a chance the smart devices we are coming to rely on will control us? That is one of the questions posed in a provocative article in this past weekend edition Wall Street Journal. With forks that tell us how many calories we are consuming, scales tweeting our diet progress and trash cans snapping photos of our garbage to identify whether we are being good eco-citizens, the amount of data being collected is enormous. Hopefully, that data will help us live smarter, frictionless lives, instead of ones that become increasingly controlled by ubiquitous sensors and the algorithms that manipulate the data into actions.

Stuart Sikes of Parks Talks of Content & More

Stuart Sikes discusses developments he saw at International CES 2013.It will be good to hear Parks Associates’ thoughts on the Wall Street Journal article at their Smart Energy Summit this week in San Antonio. Smart devices, connectivity and low-cost sensors are pivotal to energy efficiency and management. In this interview at International CES, Parks Associates’ president, Stuart Sikes suggests that home monitoring and control and energy management have moved beyond standards and are moving towards commercialization. Click here to read more and hear Stuart’s comments about the set-top and its days being numbered.


Technologies to Monetize Data by Kshitij Kumar

Pictured is a collage of graphs depicting the concept of Big Data.[The collection of data and the analysis of it is a big task. In part three of this three-part article, Kshitij Kumar discusses technologies that allow service providers to monetize the data, either through more efficient operations or allowing the potential customization of an offer to meet an individual customer’s needs. Click here to read Part 2 of this three-part article.]

So far, we have learnt the basic definitions of Big Data from a Broadband Service Provider’s perspective and have understood what kinds of actionable insights may be obtained from such data. However, before we do that, the data must be stored and acted upon. There are some well accepted technologies that allow us to do so, and we shall understand those next. Click here to read more.


Infonetics Optimism on Service Provider Router/Switch Market contrasts with Cisco’s Cautious Outlook by Alan Weissberger

2012 Global Revenue Share of Router and Switches to Service Providers according to Infonetics.Market research firm Infonetics Research recently released vendor market share and preliminary analysis from its 4th quarter 2012 (4Q12) and year-end Service Provider Routers and Switches report. Infonetics is quite upbeat about this market segment for 2013, despite the cautious outlook from market leader Cisco Systems. It will be interesting to see if there’s a movement away from big iron switches into commodity based packet forwarding engines, as dictated by Software Defined Networking and the Open Flow protocol. Click here to read Weissberger’s post and commentary.


Efficient Multi-Channel/Multi-Screen Video Encoding

Image of iPhone playing video encoded from a TVS Multi channel, multistream video encoder.TVS president and CEO, Norman Gillaspie, describes an application whereby off-air channels, encoded at approximately 20 Mb/s, proved too much for the CPUs of legacy HD-DVR, IPTV set-top boxes. The TVS solution transcoded these channels to approximately 6 Mb/s, allowing the set-tops to record and stream multiple programs. Click here to read more and view the video.


BYOD Supreme – The iPad Meets SIP Phone

An image showing an iPad docked into the Mocet SIP Adaptor.What happens when the iPad meets a SIP Phone? Marc Abrams of Mocet explains in this interview at CES 2013. Abrams provides an overview of Mocet’s new SIP phone, which integrates with and synchronizes to the data in an iPad. By simply downloading an app, the management challenges associated with Bring Your Own Device are eliminated; all the switch configuration and account information is within the app, so when the iPad is docked into the phone, the iPad becomes an extension to the VoIP service. Click here to read and see why Service Providers product might this find product of interest.


Data Center on Wheels

Xi3 Data Center on wheels is shown in this image.Xi3, which has been producing pint-sized, high performance computers for years, is taking their low power consumption, compact devices to the data center. At CES 2013, Xi3 launched their portable data center that incorporates their modular computers into a self-contained, motorized rack. This unit is useful for disaster recovery or temporary data center needs. Click here to view.


Some Tweets and Short Thoughts:

  • Diane Smith, co-founder of Auroras Networks that eventually became Avail-TVN, has a new organization and newsletter that will appeal to anyone interested in rural issues, American Rural.
  • Interesting study from IAB demonstrates that TV and Online video advertising are reinforcing, “Research demonstrated that planning and running video ads online prior to TV boosts brand recall for that same ad playing on television by 33 percent.” 

The Korner – The WiFi Washing Machine

An application that works with a WiFi washing machine.Several years ago at a Parks Associates’ event, a recurring comment was the need for a text-sending washing machine and dryer. The idea being that one would know when to change the laundry. Fast-forward several years later and a WiFi connected washing machine was demonstrated at Pepcom’s Digital Experience during the International CES 2013 event.

Warwick Sterling of Whirlpool explains  how the integration of WiFi into appliances will also provide consumers more  control of their energy management with less effort. This type of development and its associated business model, could be a no-cost competitor to service providers’ efforts to offer home energy management systems. Expected to introduced in the first half of 2013, WiFi in the appliance could be a long-term game changer. Click here to view.

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

By Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

Ken Pyle is Marketing Director for the Broadband Forum. The mission of this 25+-year-old non-profit “is to unlock the potential for new markets and profitable revenue growth by leveraging new technologies and standards in the home, intelligent small business, and multi-user infrastructure of the broadband network.”

He is also co-founder of Viodi, LLC and Managing Editor of the Viodi View, a publication focused on the rural broadband ecosystem, autonomous vehicles, and electric aviation. He has edited and produced numerous multimedia projects for NTCA, US Telecom and Viodi. Pyle is the producer of Viodi’s Local Content Workshop, the Video Production Crash Course at NAB, as well as ViodiTV. He has been intimately involved in Viodi’s consulting projects and has created processes for clients to use for their PPV and VOD operations, as well authored reports on the independent telco market.

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