Bresnan Communications, the nation’s thirteen largest MSO with 300k subscribers, is preparing for DOCSIS 3.0, but is in no rush. Speaking at Light Reading’s Cable Next-Gen Broadband Strategies Conference, Bresnan VP of strategic engineering Pragash Pillai said DOCSIS 3.0 “is an insurance policy right now.” According to Jeff Baumgartner’s blog, Bresnan is installing a Cisco cable modem termination system (CMTS), the uBR10012, in some of its larger markets with DOCSIS 3.0 capabilities already on board. Pillai cited the high cost of wideband modems as one contributing factor to their cautious approach. Bresnan’s current top broadband speed is 15 Mbps and they seem content with that for now. But competitors beware – they’re baking in the capability and will launch it when the time is right.
Modems are about $20 to $25 more expensive at this time and once the volume picks up this is expected to drop. Based on the way the MSOs are pricing DOCSIS 3 type products this is less than a one month payback … I will take this all day.
The bigger issue is that Bresnan (and many other in the US) feel that they have no competitive reason to offer DOCSIS 3 type services to their customers. If they did, the modem price really becomes a red herring.
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