By William Fellows
Scientific-Atlanta Inc CEO Jim McDonald says he expects cable operators to have installed 10 million digital, interactive set- top boxes within 12 to 18 months, representing some 15% of the cable population. The average household will have 1.5 boxes, he says.
McDonald believes that cable is poised to deliver applications that consumers currently have to buy PCs for, including email, IP telephony, word processing and web access. He says that rather than buy a PC with dozens of applications, of which only a small number are ever used, cable operators will install these applications at headend servers and supply them over cable to customers. They’ll come at virtually no cost beyond a cable subscription either, he claims.
DirectTV CEO president Eddy Hartnestein also believes that TV will become the primary consumer vehicle for getting online. He says that DirectTV is getting an average monthly spend of $60 from subscribers even without interactive services, versus $40 a month average spend on ordinary cable access.
Nice idea, but there’s little to suggest the cable/satellite companies can move quickly enough top outpace or out maneuver PC and telecoms companies also coveting these consumers, especially in geographical markets where they enjoy virtual monopolies.
