TWC's new wireless cable modem will send Web content to TV

Time Warner Cable -- an entity now being completely spun off from Time Warner Inc. -- is readying a new wireless cable modem aimed at offering Internet-based video as one of its "channels."

"Right now, it's pretty hard to get Internet stuff on your TV," said Time Warner Cable President and CEO Glenn Britt, during the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York on Friday.

Britt said that Time Warner plans to ease that process by providing a new wireless cable modem to subscribers that will "allow you to network everything in your house."

Other approaches already exist for displaying Internet video on TV. Some TiVo subscribers are choosing Web video from certain Web sites for download and later playback on TiVo set top boxes. But as some see it, existing Web-to-TV technologies can be cumbersome, as well as ineffective at displaying Web video at high resolution.

In mid-May, Time Warner Inc. and Time Warner Cable announced their their respective boards of directors have approved an agreement that will lead to "the complete legal and structural separation of the two companies."

Also during the Bernstein conference last week, Jeff Bewkes, president and CEO of Time Warner, Inc. defined his company's AOL arm as a "branded content company that goes across all platforms," when asked to describe AOL's future direction.

"That's what it is, and that's what it will continue to be," according to Bewkes.

But Bewkes also said Time Warner, Inc. is open to merging AOL with an outside company -- if that opportunity presents itself -- if the deal would create the kind of "scale and value" that would drive more "efficiencies and traffic."

Meanwhile, said Bewkes, Time Warner will continue to operate AOL "as vigorously as we can."

The execs from Time Warner Inc. and Time Warner Cable made their remarks at the Bernstein conference just days after Verizon announced it has passed its first regulatory hurdle in gaining approval to add TV services to the Internet services now offered in New York City on FiOS.

FiOS is an emerging technology from Verizon, also available in some other US markets, that competes against offerings of traditional cable providers as well as AT&T's U-verse service.