Cable Providers Use Big Data, Adaptive Technologies to Meet Consumer Needs, Engineers Say
Big data helps cable providers give the most comprehensive service to their customers, engineers said at an NCTA panel and in followup interviews Monday. They said through adaptive delivery technologies and cloud computing, engineers are able to meet their clients’ needs most effectively. While the companies have the technology to accrue massive amounts of data, they need to find ways to review it that will be most useful to companies and consumers, said engineers from Cisco, Comcast, CableLabs, Cablevision and Guavus.
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The engineers were asked by an audience member if they plan to release their data to third parties. “We do not store data about individual subscribers. We need to keep consumers’ privacy. We are not looking at monetizing our data at this time,” said Time Warner Cable Chief Technology Officer Mike LaJoie. “We do not offer our data to third parties. Privacy and security are our top priorities,” said Stephanie Mitchko, Cablevision vice president, echoed by the rest of the panelists.
Big data is used to help program set-top boxes to become DVRs using the cloud rather than installing new boxes, said Mitchko. Through the cloud, Mitchko was able to show the general DVR viewing habits, with most people recording during the primetime hours and deleting their programs within 24 hours after taping. Big data can also help determine issues with the networks. Through its systems, Cisco was able to determine if issues were on-net or off-net, localized or broad issues, and persistent or transient issues, said Art Howarth, Cisco director-architecture, video & collaboration group. “We want to be proactive rather than reactive. Whether it’s transient or systematic, we want to make sure that it won’t happen again,” said Howarth.
The cable providers emphasized a need to bring massive amounts of data together to solve problems. “Analytics done by the human brain can be limited, and we need to take the data crunching out of human hands. We need to make subjective decisions at the higher levels, where having humans make the decision is instrumental,” said Howarth in a followup interview. Adaptive technologies can also make the networks and video quality more efficient. “Mobile devices are increasing [in number] and there is a high rate of change. We need to monitor consumer electronics to favor IP,” Mark Francisco, Comcast fellow, told us. Francisco emphasized the need to have singular channels that adapt to suit the needs of various devices.