Cord Cutting Explained: Telcos, MSOs and the ...

Cord cutting. Is it real, or just another buzzword? The term cord cutting is commonly used to describe the consumers who cancel their cable and satellite television subscriptions and "cut the cord" in favor of receiving their television programming from Over-the-Top Television (OTT) solutions available through the Internet. While this is a growing trend fueled in part from the wide availability of content from Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and millions of other video sites, there is an existential crisis facing the (telephone companies) and cable companies, also known as MSOs (Multiple System Operators), that could threaten the continued growth of the next generation television industry. I spoke with Roy Peterkofsky, VP of Product Management at Skytide, an Oakland, California-based company specializing in performance analytics for large scale content delivery and digital media providers, to get an inside perspective on the current situation. According to Peterkovsky, this issue came bubbling to the headlines in the mainstream press with the news that Netflix accounts for 20 percent of network traffic at peak times in the U.S. along with the feud between Comcast and Level 3, which is all about the impact of that amount of traffic on the ISPs (Internet Service Providers). Peterkofsky noted that if you look at the historical context of the companies that are ISPs, which tend to be the telephone company and the cable company, you really start to see what a huge existential crisis this may turn out to be. See the full post at: http://bit.ly/fhiUly Distributed by Tubemogul.