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Here are some notable tech events and developments we’ll be following this month. Check back for coverage as they occur.

The first 3D TVs go on sale, mid-March. We expect Panasonic and Samsung to roll out their first 3D TVs onto retail floors later this month. We'll get them into our labs as soon as they become available. (Over here in edit, we can't wait for our tech colleagues to start sporting those 3D specs.)

The Federal Communications Commission unveils it's broadband plan, March 17. The FCC has already given us a teaser of its plan for providing a better high-speed, national Internet network, and the advocates at Consumers Union, our parent organization, have responded. On St. Patrick's Day, they'll present the full report to Congress.

New cell phones unveiled at CTIA, March 22-25. The annual CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas promises product announcements and technological innovation from the mobile industry.

iPads hit the market, late March. Although Apple isn’t yet accepting pre-orders for their new tablet computer, the company says they'll begin shipping the first iPads toward the end of March. We'll get one as soon as we can, and have our review shortly thereafter.

Cablevision, which has been testing a “remote DVR" service for several months with some employees, says it will start rolling out the service to customers beginning next month.

Unlike a conventional DVR, which stores programs on a hard drive in the cable box in your living room, Cablevision’s planned remote DVR service lets you store programs on the company’s servers. Because the technology resides within the cable system’s network, subscribers who want recording capability can use a regular cable box instead of renting new equipment with a hard drive. During a recent conference call with financial analysts, the company said it would stop deploying physical DVRs by year’s end, when the service would be available to all subscribers.

The company originally wanted to offer the remote DVR technology back in 2006, but was sued by programmers and movie studios, which alleged the service infringed on their copyrights. A decision in favor of the content owners was reversed on appeal in 2008, and last year the Supreme Court decided not to hear a final appeal.

We still have a lot of questions about the new service—such as how much the service will cost, whether Cablevision will impose storage caps for each user, and whether those with current DVRs can continue to use them—so stay tuned for a follow-up post as the service gets closer to launching. And we'd love to hear from anyone who signs up for the service once it's offered.

—James K. Willcox

Another network is playing chicken with a cable company over money—this time, it's ABC Disney and Cablevision. ABC’s Channel 7 could go dark this Sunday, just after the stroke of midnight, leaving 3 million-plus Cablevision subscribers in the New York metropolitan area wondering who took home the Oscar for Best Picture.

In a nutshell, ABC wants the cable company to pay for WABC, carried on Channel 7. Right now, the cable company pays nothing to retransmit the station’s free over-the-air broadcast. The network argues that Cablevision then turns around and charges viewers for that content as part of a basic tier costing as much as $18 a month.

Cablevision fires back that Channel 7 is free via antenna or online, and points out that they are already paying ABC Disney $200 million a year for programming on the Disney channel and ESPN. ABC is now asking for another $40 million for Channel 7.

After lengthy but fruitless negotiations, the fight has gone public, with both parties blaming the other for the impasse. You can see ABC’s viewpoint
and the Cablevision position online. (Go to the bottom of this post to see comments from other readers or to add your own.)

This situation is the third such case in the past few months. Fox and Time Warner went to the brink of a blackout but settled their disagreement in the nick of time, while Cablevision stopped running the Scripps' channels, the Food Network and HGTV, for several weeks in January.

The networks are obviously looking for more revenue sources at a time when advertising is soft and the broadcast business is generally down. Cable companies, meanwhile, are paying steadily more for content yet could lose subscribers if they pass those costs along in the form of higher rates. That’s a real concern in the face of growing competition from satellite and telco rivals, and the ability for viewers to switch to a la carte instant streaming video or to watch TV online at sites such as Hulu, Fancast, and more.

No matter how this is resolved, the viewers caught in the middle are likely to foot the bill. How does that sit with you? Will it affect your TV service decisions?

In the meantime, if you’re a Cablevision subscriber who enjoys Channel 7, you’d better prepare a backup plan. Find a friend with satellite or FiOs, dig out your old antenna, or figure out how to watch TV online. Otherwise you could be left in the dark when Oscar takes center stage and Jack and the Others square off on Lost.

—Eileen McCooey