[opendtv] Re: Amazon Warns FCC About OTT Redefinition | Multichannel
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2015 22:48:14 -0400
On Sep 15, 2015, at 9:48 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You want to stream CBS content in your OTT site? Go directly to Moonves! Just
as you'd do for A&E, ESPN, or any other channel.
Name ONE service (other than MVPDs) that has been able to license the live
linear feed from CBS. Ditto's for ESPN and A&E.
Even CBS All Access is only streaming network O&Os and affiliates in the
markets where the live linear streams are available.
You can get ESPN and A&E from Sling, as part of a $20/mo bundle. You can't get
CBS.
Clearly, all of these content owners are willing to discuss new distribution
options; but they have all stated that they will only do this as part of a MVPD
bundle.
I see the FCC going this VMVPD route as part of that same phenomenon. It's
people who can't think beyond the way they used to do things. You know, can't
make that "paradigm shift."
It's called cronyism. They will protect the status quo.
No, we can't. Reason being, the same (potential) problem exists now over the
Internet, as existed 100+ years ago on telephone nets. The MVPD model is not
needed over an unwalled 2-way network. It's just pointless.
So you say. But it already exists WITHOUT government intervention. Sling is a
MVPD. Sony Play Station Vue is a MVPD. Apple is going to create a MVPD service.
Apparently the people who own the content disagree with you.
Any content owner can peddle his wares to everyone in the country, or world,
as he chooses. No need for the govt to ensure that the citizens have access
to this stuff, by managing the inevitable collusion between content owner and
monopoly distribution pipe. That monopoly link in the chain is gone.
You are correct. And some are trying, like CBS. How's that working out for your
buddy Les?
There is a damn good reason that MVPDs exist and will continue to do so. It is
a lucrative business model that the content owners want to protect.
BUT, neutrality of the infrastructure is MANDATORY, if we are to avoid
recurrence of exactly the same problems. You have yet to explain what
intrinsic market-based mechanism would prevent the recurrence of the old
walled garden issue, if the Internet were NOT mandated to be neutral.
Anyone can create a website. There has not been a legally enforceable mandate
for neutrality until the Title II report and order, and it is being challenged
in the courts, as were the previous attempts by the FCC to mandate net
neutrality.
And I might add that we are only talking about the U.S. In many parts of the
world the Internet is not neutral, as is the case in China for example.
And just because the infrastructure is neutral, it does not prevent the
operation of walled garden services - the Internet is full of them, like your
Amazon Prime video service.
You are hung up on one particular kind of walled garden - the kind that sells
bundles of linear TV channels.
I repeat: as soon as the Internet became fast enough to offer competition for
TV services the ISP/MVPDs offered separately, *that's* when the problems of
neutrality first appeared. It was not by accident, Craig. It was entirely
obvious that this would happen. You need to explain EXACTLY why you don't
think this was obvious. Not vague words.
There have not been any documented cases of the blocking of OTT services in the
U.S.
There have been some reports of bit rate throttling and poor QOS because of
congestion. But these appear to be legitimate contractual squabbles not
intentional degradation of service. For example, an OTT service not
provisioning adequately for a large ISP like Comcast, or disputes about
compensation when an interconnection deal becomes highly asymmetrical. All of
these disputes have been worked out WITHOUT government intervention.
In most cases any throttling is related to specific contractual provisions in
the ISP agreement. For example, early AT&T iPhone contracts offered unlimited
data; AT&T still honors these contracts, but starts throttling the bit rates
when a user exceeds a data cap. Many Cable ISPs do this as well.
You can't have it both ways Bert. Either the marketplace is allowed to work, or
the government decides to protect us, and regulated oligopolies charge monopoly
rents.
Regards
Craig
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