This was a good choice in Cisco's part.... (Score 1)

The issue is really only in part what Cisco can bring to the market. Scientific Atlanta is very close to being the first set top box manufacturer to release an MPEG4 HDTV set top box. Of late, the big craze is the "Triple Play" service provider model. Cable companies are selling phone and data services. Phone companies are migrating to GPON and providing TV content and data services. The big challenge for all these triple play providers has been that the bandwidth required to transport 160 channels of service is incredibly expensive. In MPEG2, it takes roughly 4Mbps of bandwidth per channel of standard analogue programming, and almost 20Mbps for HD programming. Assuming a provider is offering 160 channels, say 145 channels of standard and 15 channels of HD, you can see that this would take 880Mbps of transport! MPEG4 will reduce bandwidth requirements by more than half. Reports are in the range of 1.2Mbps for standard and between 6 and 8Mbps for HD content. Purchasing SA is a great way for Cisco to get a little deeper into the home, more-so than just buying Linksys. One issue they'll undoubtedly run into soon though, is that Cisco has been a huge proponent of EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Networks). Many other providers are pushing GPON, which generally utilizes the network layer a little more than EPON, but offers faster deployment of services and more granularity of traffic control, shaping, and security. I was a little surprized at the timing of this purchase, but not at surprized that it happened. They're trying to get deeper into our homes, and cozying up to the utility companies by being the provider who can help reduce bandwidth requirements for these services.