Does TV Over The Internet Actually Reduce Last Mile Bandwidth Requirements?
from the to-some-extent dept
It looks like Tom Evslin is kicking off another interesting series of posts. This one is about the bandwidth requirements needed for next generation internet offerings, with a specific focus on video over the internet. This has obviously been something of a concern to many, with various warnings that the internet faces near certain collapse if changes aren't made. While Evslin does admit that there's backbone capacity that needs to be dealt with (on which he promises more details in future posts), he points out something that many people probably haven't realized. When it comes to the last mile, routing TV over the internet could actually decrease the amount of bandwidth needed -- at least when it comes to cable systems (which is part of the reason you don't hear cable companies complaining as much as telcos these days). Current cable systems deliver 200 or so channels to your TV system simultaneously. In other words, all that bandwidth is already there -- just not using the internet. If you switch to delivering the content over the internet, you no longer need to deliver all 200 channels all the time, but can simply deliver the content more "on demand." That decreases the bandwidth needed towards the end of the network. Obviously, there are still concerns about other parts of the network (as well as what it would take for cable providers to shift existing infrastructure to support TV over the internet), but it's still an important point as people discuss whether or not the rise of video online is a huge threat to the overall internet.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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Good Job
I wish more people would use simple logic like this when examining "supposed" problems of the internet.
Another point I was thinking about was how so many people are worried about Sexual Predators on the internet. In all actuality that's exactly where we want them. I would much rather predators spending time "virtually" practicing their habits. If they happen to cross the line and act on their thoughts in real life then we have a perfect way to track them with their internet history.
A win win situation no?
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you know..
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AS it stands
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Re: AS it stands
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helping other things
If its switched over to IPTV, and it bypasses the download cap, I wouldn't have any of these problems. No more digital signal running on top of analog. But we all would need cable boxes.
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Re: helping other things
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Re: Re: helping other things
I think I already know the answer to this but I'll ask anyways. How can a digital and analog signal occupy the same cable without overlapping and causing interference? I asked a tech at Comcast but they couldn't answer me.
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Re: Re: Re: helping other things
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Re: Re: helping other things
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Can't possibly do it all
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Re: Can't possibly do it all
Paying into infrastructure is a great idea, however who do we pay? I don't think charging content providers (voip, youtube) is the right idea, charge the end user by charging the ISPs more. The ISPs will pass this to the user.
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COMPLETELY WRONG -->Tech Freak
The idea that anyone other than the pipe providers should pay for the pipes is just silly.
If you use lots of power, does that mean you also have to pay for the power lines from the generation plant to your house? Of course not you pay your power bill and the electric company pays the rest.
Network providers will continue to upgrade their networks to provide more bandwidth because they have to. If they don't someone else will...and that's what sucks about being a network provider, they are a commodity utility nothing more. The only real leverage they have is last might right of way and government sanctioned monopolies.
If ISP really though this was going to be a problem they would allow and implement multicasting across the internet to reduce the bandwidth load. But they have not, do you know why? because they like you using more bandwidth. They do not want you to use less, but they do want you to think there is this huge crisis so that they can scare people and government into allowing them more money for a service they already provide.
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Re: COMPLETELY WRONG -->Tech Freak
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Fair enough
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Re: Fair enough
I only think it's right that the users help support our infrastructure, umm, I mean the internet. Yeah, forget about all the money that the government gave us to build out infrastructure, that went to executive compensation packages and other 'important' investments, I mean it's not like anyone really wants fiber to the home, right?
While we are at it, we could also charge the content providers that provide the majority of the traffic that flows over our pipes, umm, I mean the internet (boy, tough keeping those things seperate, paid for by govenment subsidy, but we did build some of the infrastructure we were supposed to, so technically they are 'our pipes' and we should be able to prioritize and charge accordingly for the information flowing over them, right?
Network neutrality? Bah, who needs it, let us telco's have the control, and we'll make sure that you get the information from the content providers who pay us the most (that's 'quality of service' prioritization for those of you unfamiliar with the issue - he who pays the most will be seen/heard the most, while those providers who don't want to pay for 'quality of service' will still be available (with delays and dropouts added of course, since they aren't paying the 'quality of service' enhancement fees that we charge).
Ok, I gotta get back to work reforming our monopoly. We had a good thing until the government broke us up, good thing they are letting all these mergers fly back thru without proper review... We'll have our monopoly back in no time, and the people won't even know what happened, but once we are back, they will know by the increases in cost and decreases in service as we prioritize all traffic using our patent pending 'quality of service' routing techniques... here is an example, but remember this is patent pending.. Priority ratings (1 = highest): Our network traffic or info we want users to se = 1, 5 highest paying content providers (those who pay the most for 'quality of service' guarantees) = 2, next 5 highest paying providers = 3, .... All other 'regular' internet traffic = 99)
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Math doesn't add up
So you will need a rebuilding of the cable infrastructure to handle this.
Also if you look over DSL - the individual line speed becomes problematic especially with HD.
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Re: Math doesn't add up
If all a cable company did was to eliminate analog channels and use every channel (but one) for digital video, that would give them 810 channels.
Because the cable system is broadcast, every STB gets every subchannel, and picks the one (or two) to decode.
So your 875-1750 TVs could all be on and watching at the same time - as long as they're not watching more than 810 different programs.
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Re: Math doesn't add up
Wrong again. You should quit trying to play engineer now.
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Re: Math doesn't add up
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I have been told that only 5% of the capacity is used by internet, so that would make the average home capable of downloading at a speed of 100 megabits ps if the entire network was devoted to IP. (correct??) If thats true then the cable companies can send 4 HD signals, several SD signals, internet, and phone all over the same line, all on-demand, all simultaneously; If they so chose to make the infrastructure upgrades, and consumer upgrades.
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Re:
With 500 households on a node, 60% subscribing, that would be an allocation of 17 Mb/s per household.
Which doesn't sound like a lot, until you do the math for what's there currently - 38 Mb/s shared among 50% of those 300 households that are cable customers gives an allocation of about 250 kb/s per household, but that's enough for cable companies to offer (and usually deliver) 6Mb/s service.
Ah, the wonders of overbooking.
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Bandwidth Buyers Guide
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what if they sell me only the channels I want?
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