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Actually, I'm willing to believe that a large cable monopoly's IT department is so incompetent and poorly run, that implementing this successfully is not likely

Actually, I'm willing to believe that a large cable monopoly's IT department is so incompetent and poorly run, that implementing this successfully is not likely for them. That's not a valid excuse though. A landlord ordered legally to fix a broken heater cannot avoid their duty by complaining "But I'm so BAD at working with heaters! They're confusing!"

grecy 10y ago
I worked in IT at a telco, and you are spot on. The IT department was incompetent and poorly run, and they couldn't implement anything new for less than 400% of budget (time and money) and it usually didn't work very well. Although, that's not the reason to not do something like this. The reason not to do something like this is because the bottom line is more important, and impacting that is not good.
- devonkim 10y ago
  Bad IT is standard and expected for enterprise, period. I've spent years going around to different companies that fail to do some of the most basic best practices from 1995. Retention of decent engineers is impossible.
iaw 10y ago
I know someone who worked on the team to develop one of the 'next-gen' Comcast DVR units. The company is exactly what you'd expect but they apparently did have quite the competent engineering team. Not talking about IT here but the people that actually build the hardware and firmware for their proprietary boxes. That being said it is absolutely not in Comcast's financial interests to adhere to the FCC regs on this and I also suspect that Comcast isn't fully lying when it says the FCC regs are hard to comply with.
- narrowrail 10y ago
  I thought the Arris Group supplied the hardware? I haven't had Comcast in a while, but when I did, Scientific Atlanta was the manufacturer. Has Comcast switched to internal HW development?
  - op00to 10y ago
    Yes, the X1 platform is internally developed.
CaptSpify 10y ago
I'd actually argue that's why this is so important. Companies like this get so slow/incompetent that we need outsiders to come along and say "Hey, this isn't that hard. Here's how ya do it" to keep tech industries innovative.

grecy 10y ago

I worked in IT at a telco, and you are spot on. The IT department was incompetent and poorly run, and they couldn't implement anything new for less than 400% of budget (time and money) and it usually didn't work very well. Although, that's not the reason to not do something like this. The reason not to do something like this is because the bottom line is more important, and impacting that is not good.

devonkim 10y ago
Bad IT is standard and expected for enterprise, period. I've spent years going around to different companies that fail to do some of the most basic best practices from 1995. Retention of decent engineers is impossible.

iaw 10y ago

I know someone who worked on the team to develop one of the 'next-gen' Comcast DVR units. The company is exactly what you'd expect but they apparently did have quite the competent engineering team. Not talking about IT here but the people that actually build the hardware and firmware for their proprietary boxes. That being said it is absolutely not in Comcast's financial interests to adhere to the FCC regs on this and I also suspect that Comcast isn't fully lying when it says the FCC regs are hard to comply with.

narrowrail 10y ago
I thought the Arris Group supplied the hardware? I haven't had Comcast in a while, but when I did, Scientific Atlanta was the manufacturer. Has Comcast switched to internal HW development?
- op00to 10y ago
  Yes, the X1 platform is internally developed.

CaptSpify 10y ago

I'd actually argue that's why this is so important. Companies like this get so slow/incompetent that we need outsiders to come along and say "Hey, this isn't that hard. Here's how ya do it" to keep tech industries innovative.