Tim Hermes, BGR CEO

Acronyms. Oh man this industry is acronym-heavy. And just when I think I have gotten on top of it, there’s another one on the list.

EBIF.

What?

Here I am, walking around the show floor at NCTA, minding my own business, when EBIF rears its little profitable head. What the hell is EBIF? It practically ran up and bit me on the leg. I just finished learning about QAM, DOCSIS-with-a dot-not-a-point, GPON, FTTX, FTTH, QoE, QoS, yada yada. Now this one sounds just as important.

OK, so it stands for Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format. A nifty piece of code that seems to make old stuff do new stuff. (Thanks Carl Weinschenk.)

That means a lot of set-top boxes out there won’t have to be swapped out, I guess, which means no truck rolls – or new boxes – necessary to start offering enhanced services. Do I have that right? Man that’s big! Like when caller ID came out and the telcos made a fortune just adding service to an existing infrastructure. GASP. Technology driving profits. Who’da thunk! Which means – drum roll, my favorite acronym – less CAPEX to start turning a profit on enhanced voice video and data.

Got it. EBIF. Good.

Moving on to other things. What would you do if you had your cable disconnected at your seasonal rental property only to find out – via a bill, no less, that not only had they re-connected you, but had upgraded you to premium triple play package without your OK? When I got a bill for $91.25 for services I never ordered, not to mention a re-connect fee, well let’s say my eye just stopped twitching this morning. Fortunately the CSR (good acronym) was understanding and courteous. Maybe some things are improving. Or maybe CSRs can smell rage. Not sure.

Maybe I just need to stay QAM.

Tim Hermes is CEO at Broadband Gear Report. Email him at timhermes@broadbandgear.net.