Time Warner Cable is on target to upgrade at least half of its more than 10 million residential video subs to an all-digital platform by the end of 2015, the MSO said in this blog post about its progress.
TWC, following a path blazed by MSOs such as Comcast, is trying to accelerate the upgrade by using Digital Transport Adapters, simple one-way boxes that convert digital video signals to analog. TWC said it has deployed nearly 2.4 million new DTAs for far in 2015. TWC is shipping those devices at no cost and providing them free to customers for the first year (as of January 2015, the price on TWC DTAs is $2.75 per month).
Those all-digital upgrades factor into the MSO’s larger TWC Maxx initiative that will use reclaimed analog spectrum to offer more digital channels, expand its video-on-demand library (30,000 titles by end of year), and enable broadband speed upgrades, including a new 300 Mbps (downstream) DOCSIS 3.0 tier. TWC is also introducing an “enhanced DVR” outfitted with six tuners and 1 terabyte of storage in its upgraded markets.
TWC has completed the all-digital conversion in Los Angeles; New York; Austin/Central Texas; Kansas City; and Dallas; and expects to wrap it up this summer in Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C; and in San Antonio by the end of the year. TWC Maxx work will be underway in San Diego this year, with a plan to complete it in “early 2016.”
TWC is in the process of being acquired by Charter Communications, which completed its all-digital transition last year ahead of its expected broad deployment of a new cloud-based interface that will run on all classes of set-top boxes.
