December 19, 2006

Pipeline Profile: Craig Smithpeters

Title: Manager, advanced technology and standards, Cox Communications

Broadband Background: Smithpeters joined Cox in 2003 and is currently leading the Interactive Services Engineering group at Cox that is working to develop and deploy iTV, OCAP/OpenCable, VOD, next generation client navigation, and cross-platform video services. He has been an active participant in the development of the OCAP and MHP standards since 2000.


In regards to OCAP, what do you hope to learn in the December trial with Scientific Atlanta and then the January trial with Motorola?

For both trials, we hope to learn that our end-to-end OCAP architecture, as deployed, is field ready, scalable and solid from a maintenance standpoint. 2006 has been a very architecture-focused year. The focus for 2007 is shifting much more toward refining the architecture based on trial deployment lessons learned and preparing for initial market launches in late 2007 and early 2008. We are also eager to learn from the 2007 trials how well the new OCAP Host 2.0 devices perform over the medium term in the field.

The December and January trials are slated to have a three-month duration. However, we expect to be ready to begin field trials of our next phase of OCAP infrastructure by July, perhaps earlier. Another key component to be validated in our OCAP field trials is the total reliance on DOCSIS and DSG to deliver all OCAP signaling, applications and application data. One possible concern is the potential cost in bandwidth and CMTS upgrades to support this approach in the future when all host devices will be running OCAP. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the DOCSIS pipe is unlimited, just because it's so much larger than the existing legacy OOB pipes.

What's been the toughest OCAP nut to crack?

The toughest nut by far has been the development of a full-featured, high performance OCAP-based IPG. OCAP is definitely capable of supporting such an IPG, but it represents a new software engineering paradigm. The existing IPG vendors have had to learn how to write high-performance Java code. TVWorks, our iTV development joint venture with Comcast, has tremendous Java experience and is helping the IPG vendors.

TVWorks is also providing virtually all supporting OCAP infrastructure for the IPG vendors, including object carousel, the OCAP monitor application and an OCAP services layer. The TVWorks OCAP services layer can be thought of as "guide guts." By "guide guts," we mean APIs for the guide database, VOD session setup/control, parental control, PIN control, and other items needed to build an integrated IPG. Using this approach, the IPG vendors can focus on the performance of the onscreen user interface (UI). This approach also makes changing IPG UIs a reality. In fact, we expect to see exactly that type of UI change as we offer alternative user experiences like Tivo to our customers. Bottom line: We are not just building an OCAP IPG; we are also building a new and better foundation for rapidly evolving our user interfaces to meet competitive threats.

Where is Cox with On Ramp, and what iTV services are proving to be the most popular in the places where On Ramp is currently deployed?

Cox has deployed OnRamp in two markets. We are in the process of installing all the remaining Cox Scientific Atlanta-based markets. When fully launched in April 2007, we will have iTV in almost 60 percent of our footprint.

The mostly popular service to-date has been the Cox Digital Cable Application suite, now commonly referred to internally as "Cox iTV." The focus is on a core set of applications designed to more tightly tie the customer to Cox. Key areas include customer care (bill view and pay, ordering new services, install upsell to premium video services, scheduling install visits, and customer FAQs); information delivery (news, weather, sports, movie reviews, etc.); digital phone tools (callerID on screen, call forwarding, messaging settings); and email viewing/deleting. Mosaics and interactive games are on track to be deployed in early 2007.

iTV launches using OnRamp in our Motorola markets are scheduled to begin in late 2007/early 2008. In the meantime, Cox has worked with Aptiv to add many interactive features, such as mosaics, premium service upsell, weather and a few classic games, to the Aptiv Passport IPG we use in Motorola markets. The first OnRamp trial on Motorola set-tops is scheduled to occur in the second half of 2007. This trial would include the Tivo IPG, built to the OnRamp.

What is Cox working on terms of its VOD platform? Are addressable ads on the horizon?

Presently, our focus is to get our distributed library architecture VOD platform deployed in 100 percent of our markets. We will complete that activity during 2007. In 2006, we worked to increase the storage and stream capacity in our deployed markets to ensure we can continue to handle the growth in VOD content and peak simultaneous usage. We are working hard on several new, niche usages of the VOD platform. Expect to see much more in the months to come. One item that will be launched shortly is HD VOD. Customers want more HD content, both linear and VOD. We are continuing to make incremental improvements to the custom Cox VOD client we have deployed. We really believe our existing VOD UI is one of the best in the industry. With regard to VOD UI, we continue to explore new ways for end users to search VOD listings. The next generation unified IPGs (linear, VOD and DVR in one UI) will make finding content much easier for the customer.

We are working on several ways to leverage our existing VOD advertising platform called "FreeZone," including VOD content linked to interactive advertisements ("link to long form ads"). Addressable ads are not yet in our deployment plans.