MSOs Increasingly Embrace Internet Protocols For Video
Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 9/25/2009

Cable technology executives used to recoil at any mention of the term "IPTV." Back a few years ago, Internet Protocol television was exclusively an architecture championed by telcos--as a competitive threat to cable's core video services.

IPTV is no longer a four-letter oath in cable circles. Increasingly for operators, the evolution to delivering video over an all-IP infrastructure is not a question of if, but when. "IP hasn't lost many battles," said Scott Hatfield, Cox Communications' executive vice president and chief technology officer. "The old joke is that the score is IP 398, everything else 0."

There's now an expectation that cable providers will, at some point in the future, deliver all video services over IP. A move to IPTV would cut costs on the set-top side--by eliminating the need for tuners--while providing more capabilities, said Ken Lowe, senior vice president of strategic marketing at Sigma Designs, a manufacturer of chips for set-top boxes.

"It's become more and more apparent that IPTV is being looked at as a business decision by the cable operators, rather than a religious decision," Lowe said.

Cable operators are starting to move beyond lab trials and actually deploying IP video gateways in the field. Earlier this month, U.K. cable operator Virgin Media announced a plan to migrate its legacy digital video delivery infrastructure to IP, using Cisco equipment. When completely deployed, the new TV platform will be capable of serving more than 12.6 million homes across Virgin Media's footprint in the U.K.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/3554...

This is the big future opportunity for SIGM. They're investing heavily so that they can provide a complete solution for this market. Each quarter they're increasing the number of cable companies that they're engaged with. They expect to see trials begin in 1H10 and then deployments in 2H10. I'm going to continue to hold my shares until the cable revenues start to come in.
Byron