The Telcos Could Revolutionize TV... But They Won't
from the why-bother-with-IPTV? dept
Martin Geddes has written up a post about how the telcos are wasting their money on IPTV, and reminds us of our own post on the subject from last summer. In that post, we wondered why the telcos were wasting so much money trying to build out a huge IPTV infrastructure and simultaneously trying to get TV franchises across the country while convincing the government that they don't even need local franchises. Instead, it seemed like they could do a complete end run around their cable competitors, by simply setting up a new kind of television -- where the shows get downloaded over their spiffy fast fiber lines. We noted two huge hurdles to that happening: (1) the telcos had to actually think creatively and (2) the TV execs would have to buy into such a vision -- both of which seemed laughable at the time. However, reading that post now, it may be worth adjusting the story. With Disney suddenly pushing online downloads (in a limited way, but it's a start), perhaps that second huge hurdle just got lowered. If the Disney experiment proves successful (possibly a big if), others will quickly follow -- and if the telcos were smart, they'd be banging down doors suggesting a "new" kind of television -- only it would be the model that plenty of techies were suggesting television should adopt years ago. It would save them a ton of money while potentially delivering something a lot more powerful and useful to everyone. Which, of course, is why it probably won't happen.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Can't wait for LOST on the web
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Re: Can't wait for LOST on the web
A HD broadcast at current compression standards takes up 8-12 Mbps. It's true you might need to upgrade your connection.
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Re: Re: Can't wait for LOST on the web
This is why! Downloading shows is all fine and great but sometimes you want a reliable, made-for-TV setup. You want the service for many reasons. It's legal, you get LIVE TV, and it adds competition to the market.
How is video downloading better then this? Personally, I don't think one trumps the other. I would love to download TV shows like Lost Season 1 which you won't see on live TV. However, some things like sports, new releases, news, and a handful of other things, are best seen live.
Personally, I will jump right on Verizon's IPTV when it comes out. If FiOS is any sign, they'll price it very competitively and offer more then the competitors could even dream to offer.
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Reminds me of???
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RE:IPTV is not video streaming over the web
...And about downloading each show. Currently cable companies just push every channel through your pipe and you select the one channel you wish to view. This wastes A LOT of bandwidth. IPTV would only push the show you would like to watch over the line, freeing up lots of bandwidth for other services like VOIP and VDSL. I know there is also lots of talk of making completely On Demand (I know this is a Comcast term, but its the best term I could think of). No More network time slots. You can watch the show whenever you want as soon as it becomes available.
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Live? Watch Live TV? How strange...
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Place Shifting
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would prefer to be my own personal Network Programmer and a p2p network mitages any bottlenecks and storage costs because the network operator only needs to keep the seed file .
http://www.peerimpact.com/nbc.html
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FIOS Internet and TV
Love my internet connection. Prices for FIOS TV are competitive with cable and satelite if you don't count the rental box. Depending on the box you select it can add another $5 to $12 a month. Which is not huge in the scheme of things but it does remove some of the competitive edge
And when I looked, they don't state that extra cost on their website with their rates plans, if it was there it wasnt easy to find. I got that from the rep I called.
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Telcos and Phone Service
The law is rather murky and AT&T is claiming they're not a cable operator or a cable service based on the way they have structured their plans. Technically, under the odd definition of cable service as a one-way delivery of video, it's not clear that the cable companies are cable services anymore.
Second, cities may still require a franchise. If the telcos will use public rights of way (which local governments control) to build a network for the purpose of delivering 'a new kind of video service', they're still covered by the franchise laws at the local level. Cities are suing the telcos over exactly that issue.
The way the video is delivered is not the issue. It's the telcos use of public rights of way to provide a video service and the compensation of the local government for that privilege.
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we can only pray....
Still, we can hope.....
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It was a bright and glorious future for DSL.
Until they actually got around to deploying it and discovered it wasn't really suited for video at all. Too slow, nobody actually wanted interactive TV or video on demand, and nobody at the telcos had any idea how to provide those things anyway.
If computer use hadn't come along as an afterthought, DSL was going to be just another ISDN, a curiousity on a back shelf.
Now they're once again making what sound like the same promises, and they say they're REALLY going to make good on it this time. It WILL work, and nobody will need to be nailed to a tree for anything.
You know what happened next, right?
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