Do Cableco’s Need More Fiber?

Will the Cablecos Need More Bandwidth? I’ve got just the solution.

The Wall Street Journal broke a front page story this morning revealing that the cable industry’s leading technologists predict that cable operators will need another major network upgrade to compete in their “triple play” battle with telcos.

GigaOm has some comments, taking the view that, even if cable operators are faced with this upgrade, they still are in a stronger position financially and strategically than the telcos.

Although I’ve got my share of battle scars from trying to do business with the cable companies, I think I agree with Om on this one.

In full disclosure, though, I have to ‘fess up that one of our portfolio companies, Narad Networks, will benefit tremendously if the WSJ report is right: Narad sells network equipment that allows cableco’s to get fiber-like capacity out of their existing copper pipes, without having to rip up streets to lay new fiber lines.

So, at least in this instance, I’ll be cheering for the cable guys to give it to the telcos, buying Narad equipment all the way…