North American cable companies gearing up for battle
The media marketplace is getting crowded with offerings, and cable is looking to stay competitive with fiber and satellite. While we focus on the video programming here at Engadget HD, the landscape is much more involved than that, and all providers are looking to round out their offerings. Closest to our heart is HDTV, and here is where we've already seen the SDV rollout from cable taking off. Clearly, though, the advantage right now goes to satellite. But the addition of VOD, web presence, telephony and even wireless services makes things a lot less clear cut, so it's a mad scramble for various providers to put together the most compelling "value bundles" for customers. Take the "quad-play" video/voice/broadband/wireless bundles that telcos like Verizon and AT&T offer compared to DirecTV's emphasis of the HD video alone, for example. Most likely no one strategy will win out, but it should be interesting as the companies compete for your monthly dollars!
[image courtesy of Hometoys]
