Cable operators face bandwidth crisis

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New research published this week has warned of a looming crisis in bandwidth capacity for cable operators looking to offer more rich media content and services to customers.

Escalating demand for bandwidth-hungry services such as high definition television (HDTV) and online gaming is gradually leading to a critical lack of capacity in cable operators' networks, according to a study from analyst ABI Research.

"The fact that cable companies are increasingly focused on competing with the telecom operators to provide more interactive or high-definition services means they face a real crisis in capacity in coming years," Stan Schatt, ABI Research vice president and research director told IT PRO.

He said the advent of more rich media services would see customers using more bandwidth as they download far more data than ever before. But historically, cable operators have concentrated bandwidth capacity on uploading content to their customers.

"The increasing bandwidth demands on cable operators will soon reach crisis stage, yet this is a 'dirty little industry secret' that no one talks about," said Schatt, adding that upgrading networks to carry heavier traffic downstream to customers will account for some $80 billion (£40.37 million) worldwide in investment over the next five years.

The study suggests cable operators have a number of options open to them to head off the crisis during this forecast period. These include rate shaping and expanding the bandwidth spectrum beyond 750 MHz, which Schatt said have already been undertaken by some operators, particularly in the US.

It also says a number of other options will come into play during its forecast period, including spectrum upgrades coupled with node-splitting, switched digital video, passive optical network (PON) overlay, MPEG-4 compression and home gateway bandwidth management solutions.

But Schatt warned that all these options involve tradeoffs associated with balancing costs versus benefits and that some are more applicable in certain circumstances than others. "Laying new fibre, as Verizon is doing in the US, is expensive," he said.

It is a similar problem to that faced by Virgin Media, the company created by the merger of UK cable operators NTL and Telewest. The high cost of laying fibre as well as laying conventional cable to the doorstep saddled the business with heavy debt, curtailing its ability to expand further and address future capacity issues early.

And of the new infrastructure being laid in the UK by the likes of BT's next-generation 21st century network, he said: "That will go directly to helping upgrade bandwidth requirements, but if they think that will be enough, they are whistling in the graveyard."

He suggested that cable operators would look to share the cost of extra bandwidth provision with content providers, as well as passing it onto customers.

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