Cox TV Connect brings in-home iPad TV streaming
Cox TV Connect relies on local link for live TV — Cox on Monday tried its formal hand at a live TV streaming app with the formal rollout of Cox TV Connect for the iPad (free, App Store). As with those from most other cable providers …
Context & Ripple Effects
Cox is the latest cable operator to put live TV on the iPad, following Comcast's Xfinity iPad streaming launch in February and Cablevision's Optimum for iPad rollout in April — a wave that by mid-2011 had GigaOM declaring cable company iPad apps were killing it. The pattern traces back further still, to Dish and Verizon's 2010 announcements to stream live TV to the tablet.
What distinguishes Cox TV Connect is its constraint: the free app streams live TV only over the customer's own in-home network link, making it a whole-home extension of the set-top rather than an anywhere service. That places it behind the more ambitious framing rivals used, even as it confirms the tablet as standard pay-TV equipment.
First-order effects
- Cox video subscribers with iPads gain live TV viewing anywhere in the house without extra hardware or fees, closing a feature gap against Comcast and Cablevision customers who have had equivalent apps since early 2011.
Second-order effects
- The remaining large cable operators without an iPad app face pressure to match, since the tablet is becoming table stakes for retaining video subscribers against satellite and telecom rivals — a competitive fight Cox has been in for years.
Third-order effects
- If every major operator ships an in-home tablet app, the pay-TV bundle's value proposition shifts from 'channels on one TV' to 'channels on every screen in the house,' while the in-home-only limit keeps the harder question — authenticated streaming outside the home — unresolved across the industry.
The trend: US cable operators are racing through 2011 to make the iPad a default second screen for live pay-TV, with in-home network streaming as the common first step before true out-of-home rights are settled.