Comcast Introduces Xfinity Signature Support

Comcast Corporation recently announced the launch of a new 24x7 technical support and equipment protection program for the growing number of home electronics devices – like laptops, home networking equipment, gaming consoles, Wi-Fi enabled smart phones and tablets – people are connecting to Comcast’s services. Called Xfinity Signature Support, this service offers customers a single source for troubleshooting and support for their computers, home networks and many other devices and is another step in the company’s focus on delivering an end-to-end exceptional customer experience backed by the Comcast Customer Guarantee.

The new offering enables customers to select an enhanced level of technical support with monthly subscription plans and one-time support options and is offered in addition to the 24x7 support Comcast already provides for its video, high-speed Internet and phone services.

According to a 2010 survey by Parks Associates, more than 50 percent of Americans with Internet service look to their broadband provider as their first or second choice in solving their home computer-related technical issues. Additionally, 75 percent of those surveyed prefer to receive all of their technical support services from a single vendor.

With Xfinity Signature Support, Comcast customers will have access to knowledgeable and experienced IT specialists who can provide supplementary technical support online, over the phone or in the home. Assistance is available either as part of a monthly subscription plan or on a stand-alone basis for one-time fixes, such as virus removal or connecting printers or game consoles to wireless networks. Xfinity Signature Support also offers extended equipment plans covering computers and flat-panel TVs.

For more information, please visit www.xfinity.com/signaturesupport.

Cox: Managed Services Model with gateways?

Cox Communications is adding diagnostic capabilities into its data network that could lead to a managed services offering for some of its home networking customers.

In June, Cox started selling data gateways with DOCSIS 3.0 and 802.11n from Cisco and Netgear directly to its customers. While the nation's third-largest cable operator has a long history of selling home networking gear to its subscribers, the new gateways could lead to Cox dipping its toe into managed services for home networking.

"We're figuring out whether to move to more of a managed services model with the gateways," said Seth Hogan, Cox's vice president of strategy and product development . "We're putting some capabilities into our network that give us the ability to do some remote diagnostics and remote repair. We could offer customers the option for us to manage their home networks for some kind of recurring fee.

read more

Integrators and Home Networking

Each year, Parks Associates surveys installing dealers throughout the U.S. through its ongoing Channel and Consumer Monitor project, and as we launch our 2010 survey this week, we are taking a look at some of the more prominent trends over the past few years and how they are impacting the dealer market and related industries.

One significant trend has been the rising awareness of home networking, specifically no-new-wires networking technologies as valuable solutions for dealers' businesses. For example, based on our last survey, more than one-half of integrators are familiar with Wi-Fi (based on the 802.11n standard), and 19% are familiar with at least one type of powerline connectivity media (e.g., HomePlug, Powerline HD, HD-PLC).

Want to know more? Click here to subscribe to the Home Systems Monthly Newsletter from Parks Associates.

HomePlug, ITU9960, and HomeGrid

Despite work both in the IEEE and the ITU, there is still rancor around the powerline networking space, as Rick Merritt in EE Times writes. HomePlug supporters have indicated that one major problem with the 9960 spec is that it is not currently backward-compatible with HomePlug products already deployed (27 million nodes already). We will have representatives from both HomePlug and G.hn at our CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit on Tuesday, so I imagine that we'll have an interesting conversation.

Some additional notes regarding P1901 and ITU 9960

I followed up with some of the principals involved in the IEEE P1901 and ITU-T G.9960 (G.hn) work last week to clarify a few points. These requests followed a briefing with the folks with MoCA, who have grievances about the ITU process and the decision that was reached in December to approve the foundation document. Here are some of the primary issues that the MoCA folks wanted to air:
1. They note that this is still an uncompleted specification, noting that no MAC agreement has been reached (and contesting the notion that the PHY is 100% solid). For the record, the ITU and the HomeGrid Forum have made note of the need to finalize the MAC specification. This could be accomplished with a companion spec for a media access controller that could be implemented in firmware is expected to be complete as early as September 2009. Thanks to Rick Merritt at The EE Times for that good explanation.
2. The MoCA folks feel that they were largely shut out of negotations in the ITU process, arguing that they had put forth a recommendation to make the ITU backward-compatible to MoCA. Contacts at DS2 and CopperGate note that the ITU specification is not backward-compatible with any current "no-new-wires" standard, and trying to achieve this and please everyone would have resulted in a much slower process. They indicate that it will be up to individual semiconductor companies to build in backwards compatibility.

Were their politics involved in this process? Undoubtedly. I do understand the sense of urgency under which both the IEEE and ITU have been working. It would appear that standardizing on a single powerline solution was really the critical component of the standards process, as this standards mess has held up market development for far too many years. Although MoCA supporters may not like feeling shut out of the development process, one explanation I got from someone privy to the ITU process was simple but probably a critical factor. He indicates that - for the European market in particular - coax solutions will not have the same critical role to play as powerline. Therefore, a solution like MoCA - which is well suited to the U.S. cable industry - simply wasn't going to be considered in the final process.

Home Networking to reach 168 Million Households Worldwide in '08: CONNECTIONS Europe focuses on entertainment & multimedia services in EU markets

Rapid growth in home networking, approaching 168 million households worldwide in 2008, is laying the foundation for expansion of multimedia services internationally and especially in the European markets, according to Parks Associates.

The market research firm will host CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit on August 29, 2008, at the Kempinski Hotel Bristol Berlin, to discuss the implications of this market growth and share the latest findings of its Global Digital Living™ (GDL) project.

Parks Associates launched GDL in 2005 to track and analyze international adoption and consumer attitudes toward advanced digital technologies and services. The most recent survey, GDL: Entertainment 2.0 in Europe, studies the growth of entertainment services in the top European markets. The project includes country profiles and consumer surveys and examines adoption and valuation of DVDs, online video and video-on-demand, DVRs, and high-definition TV services, among other topics.

CONNECTIONS™ Europe will provide attendees with international consumer research and feature interactive discussions on advanced television services, new media and digital content, and value-added services.
Advisory sponsors for CONNECTIONS™ Europe: Cisco, Enure Networks, F-Secure Corporation, Macrovision, the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), Neotion, support.com, Toshiba Electronics Europe, WirelessHD, and Zilog, Inc.

The event agenda features speakers from the following companies and organizations:
ActiveVideo Networks
ARM
Cisco
Deutsche Telekom
Enure Networks
F-Secure
Home Gateway Initiative
HomePlug Powerline Alliance
Macrovision
Makewave AB
MoreTV
NEC Europe
Neotion
Nokia Siemens Networks
OSGi Alliance
Qualcomm
Shiny Media
SiBEAM, Inc.
SPiDCOM Technologies
Sonic Solutions
support.com
Texas Instruments
Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH
WirelessHD
Zilog