Many of the small carriers, who are doing IPTV in the U.S., have
acquired their content rights through a consortium, which has since
closed its doors to new membership.
I cannot stress this enough: content is the key to a good industry-
changing business model. Broad appeal content will gain broad
interest. Broad interest will change the playing field and compel
content providers to consider alternative consumption/delivery models.
The ILECs are going to do it. They have deep pockets. Look at how
quickly they were able to get franchising laws adjusted to allow them
to offer video.
Gian Anthony Constantine
Senior Network Design Engineer
Earthlink, Inc.
On Jan 10, 2007, at 2:30 AM, Christian Kuhtz wrote:
Marshall,
I completely agree, and due diligence on business models will show
that fact very clearly. And nothing much has changed here in terms
of substance over the last 4+ yrs either. Costs and opportunities
have changed or evolved rather, but not the mechanics.
Infrastructure capital is very much the gating factor in every
major video distribution infrastructure (and the reason why DOCSIS
3.0 is just such a neato thing). The carriage deals are merely
table stakes, and that doesn't mean they're easy. They are
obtainable.
And some business models are just fundamentally broken.
Examples for infrastructure costs are size of CSA's or cost
upgrading CPE is a far bigger deal than carriage. And if you can't
get into RT's in a ILEC colo arrangement, that doesn't per se
globally invalidate business models, but rather provides unique
challenges and limitations on a given specific business model.
What has changed is that ppl are actually 'doing it'. And that
proves that several models are viable for funding in all sorts of
flavors and risks.
IPTV is fundamentally subject to the analog fallacies of VoIP
replacing 1FR/1BR service on 1:1 basis (toll arbitrage or anomalies
aside). There seems to be plenty of that. A new IP service
offering no unique features over specialzed and depreciated
infrastructure will not be viable until commoditized and not at an
early maturity level like where IPTV is at.
Unless an IPTV service offers a compelling cost advantage, mass
adoption will not occur. And any cost increase will have to be
justifiable to consumers, and that cannot be underestimated.
But, some just continue to ignore those fundamentals and those
business models will fail. And we should be thankful for that self
cleansing action of a functioning market.
Enough rambling after a long day at CES, I suppose. Thanks for
reading this far.
Best regards,
Christian
--
Sent from my BlackBerry.
-----Original Message-----
From: Marshall Eubanks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:52:06
To:Gian Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc:Bora Akyol <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"Simon Lockhart"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day,
continuously?
On Jan 9, 2007, at 8:40 PM, Gian Constantine wrote:
It would not be any easier. The negotiations are very complex. The
issue is not one of infrastructure capex. It is one of jockeying
between content providers (big media conglomerates) and the video
service providers (cable companies).
Not necessarily. Depends on your business model.
Regards
Marshall
Gian Anthony Constantine
Senior Network Design Engineer
Earthlink, Inc.
On Jan 9, 2007, at 7:57 PM, Bora Akyol wrote:
Simon
An additional point to consider is that it takes a lot of effort and
$$$$ to get a channel allocated to your content in a cable network.
This is much easier when TV is being distributed over the Internet.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Simon Lockhart
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 2:42 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a
day, continuously?
On Tue Jan 09, 2007 at 07:52:02AM +0000,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Given that the broadcast model for streaming content
is so successful, why would you want to use the
Internet for it? What is the benefit?
How many channels can you get on your (terrestrial) broadcast
receiver?
If you want more, your choices are satellite or cable. To get
cable, you
need to be in a cable area. To get satellite, you need to
stick a dish on
the side of your house, which you may not want to do, or may
not be allowed
to do.
With IPTV, you just need a phoneline (and be close enough to
the exchange/CO
to get decent xDSL rate). In the UK, I'm already delivering
40+ channels over
IPTV (over inter-provider multicast, to any UK ISP that wants it).
Simon