Cisco Patents the Triple Play

Aditi.Tuteja writes, "Cisco was recently granted a patent on a 'system and method for providing integrated voice, video and data to customer premises over a single network.' Sound a lot like 'triple play?' Yes it is. The patent, which was filed back in 2000, describes a system that would allow consumers to receive all of their home services through one service provider instead of two or three. The patent's wording seems broad enough to cover nearly all existing implementations of triple play, and some are worried that Cisco will try to wield the newly granted patent against such providers as AT&T and Comcast. If such a thing were to happen, progress on AT&T's Project Lightspeed could slow even more."

Not in a million years

[TubeSteak]

Will Cisco try to use the patent to stymie AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc.

What Cisco will do is force them to pay an arm and a leg in licensing costs, because Cisco rightly figured out (in advance) that the 'triple play' is where things are heading.

Cisco deserves a retroactive +1 Insightful mod

Re:Not in a million years

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT, for customers (e.g. AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon) who use Cisco equipment, the licensing fees will be waived...

Re:Not in a million years

[Spasmodeus]

Insightful?

Who *didn't* think we were going to get all our services over one wire once digital bandwidth became great enough?

It's all just data. They might as well have patented a "novel method" for sending HTTP, FTP and SMTP data over the same wire.

Re:Not in a million years

[cgenman]

Generally speaking, in business when you figure out in advance where the market is heading, you get a head start on all of your competitors putting yourself in a much better position to take advantage of the change. You do not, however, generally get to tax all transactions. I knew that online purchasing was going to take off years ago. Does that mean that I deserve to get paid once everyone else figured this out too?

Cisco figured this out ahead of time and positioned their product line to take advantage of the burgeoning communications infrastructure market. They deserve the financial success they've seen from this shrewd business accumen. They don't, however, deserve 5 dollars of every 50 I send to Comcast simply because they realized the obvious first.

Don't look for a big fight.

[postbigbang]

Think about it: Cisco going after their biggest customers-- Verizon, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, TW/Brighthouse?

Nope. Not going to happen. And therefore, despite the fact that this patent needs to be thrown out on its ass, it's useless to even have the first tiny tort sent. It's a nihilistic sort of patent to start with....

Networks don't transport voice or video--only data

[KonoWatakushi]

The absurdity of this patent is mind boggling. All a network does is move data. Voice and video may be encoded as data, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the network.

Why don't I just patent moving web pages over networks. Or, moving mp3s over networks. (Now there's an idea for the RIAA...) Just how obvious does something need to be for the folks at the patent office? Moving DATA over a NETWORK? How novel...

This just goes to show that everything should be encrypted. Only then can fairness, and the end-end nature of the Internet be restored. As soon as the ISP's can peek at your data, you may as well bend over.

RCN does this

[l0ungeb0y]

They offer $90.00 a month for 10mbps DSL, VOIP phone and HD/Digital cable.
Sweet deal, but here in SF they seem to be quite spotty as to what buildings have it.. to the point of being a joke.
But I'm just bitter because the building across the street has it and my lofts I live in doesn't.
Instead I have Earthlink DSL which gives me 8mbps and VOIP phone for $70.
So I guess 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Re:Cisco = Scientific Atlanta

[supersat]

The reason Cisco is patenting this is because they now own Scientific-Atlanta ... except the patent was applied for in 2000, and the acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta was only announced in late 2005.

Re:I got yer prior art right here...

[TheSHAD0W]

That's cool, that's a start, but it doesn't detail a

• service provider

hosting these services. That's what Cisco's patent is for.

Re:Hmmm

[Hemogoblin]

You'll realize there's a problem when they pass the cost onto you, the consumer.