Maintaining lifeline service. In the event of a power outage, cable operators need to find a way to reduce power consumption in order to maintain service so customers can contact police, fire and other vital services. Until this issue is solved, cable telephony lines will continue to function as a secondary line for most subscribers. Need for incremental and time-based billing. Cable operators have historically billed their customers at a monthly fixed rate, while telephony service requires customers to be billed via a time-based method.
Several vendors are in the process of developing or modifying billing systems.
Hampered by these issues, the cable industry has rolled out telephony services a lot slower than many observers expected. Still, cable is the best way to bundle telecommunications services in a flexible, cost-effective package that promises rapid growth for the industry. It also provides forecasts for worldwide cable telephony subscribers, worldwide total installed cable telephony lines through 2004 and cable telephony service revenues over the next five years. The report features an examination of the challenges facing cable telephony providers, profiles of major cable operators' telephony strategies, and a look at leading equipment vendors. CED is a registered trademark of Cahners Business Information .