[opendtv] Re: Competition
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:35:03 -0400
On Aug 9, 2015, at 9:02 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
It's amazing how you haven't thought these things through Craig, in all these
years. With radio and TV broadcasting, what I described is EXACTLY what the
technology constrained us to do. If you wanted to catch that news item, you
might be lucky if they repeated it in the evening news, hours after it first
aired. If you wanted to catch some TV show you missed, after it had aired,
you might have to wait months, until summer reruns season. Yes, there were
also the print media. That changes nothing. I'm talking about broadcast
protocol. And sure, the VCR changed a lot of that, except that the broadcast
protocol still limited what information people could access, compared with
distributed storage. There's simply no comparison.
What is amazing is your insistence that the ability to access content on demand
means all that came before must die.
And the actual broadcast delivery protocol, with the arrival of 2-way IP
networking, is one that has very little reason to continue to exist.
There are many reasons for it to continue to exist. But I'm tired of trying to
convince you that broadcasting will survive.
Again, the fact that broadcast protocol requires very little infrastructure,
**WHEN OTA**, is its major advantage by far. But the advantages of the 2-way
net, with distributed servers, in terms of the amount of content available,
EITHER live OR on demand, are pretty hard to deny. Craig doesn't seem to ask
himself, if the 2-way net can do what the one-way broadcast does, and a whole
lot more, why would the one-way broadcast net survive long term??
Because there is a market for both.
First, validate your claim. We already saw that your claim is false,
exception of some sports.
Not even close. Watching the linear nets still dominated by a significant
margin. You just grabbed onto one analyst report that proved to be untrue.
Second, accept the fact that people are moving away from by-appointment TV,
simply because on demand is more convenient in every way.
I have accepted this, I even accurately described this trend long before it
became possible. There are some types of content that will move to on demand,
but not for 100% of the audience. There are still tens of millions who will
watch the live linear network premieres. I keep showing you the numbers, but
you ignore their reality.
Third, **even if** you want to use "linear streams," for the dwindling number
of luddites, the 2-way network can do that too, Craig! What's hard to
understand? You don't need any broadcast-only delivery anymore, except again,
that advantage I listed above. (Which doesn't even come in play for those
like yourself, already dependent 100 percent on a physical umbilical
connection.)
Yes Bert, the Internet can and does support linear streaming services, both for
live events and for pre-produced content. That is why we are starting to see
VMVPDs compete to sell such services.
I can access streaming music services on my phone while driving. But radio
still exists.
And I am far from dependent on a physical umbilical. I can access the Internet
via my broadband umbilical, via my wireless cellular data, and via thousands of
WiFi hot spots. I watch TV via my MVPD package, Netflix, and a wide range of
Internet portals.
I wrote:
But the portion of the proprietary network dedicated to broadband
service cannot offer the same guarantees;
Wrong. That's an old canard that has been dealt with many times over.
The easiest way, the most credible way, of guaranteeing any sort of QoS, in
fast and efficient **packet-switched networks**, is to provide plenty of
excess bandwidth. If bandwidth is cheap enough, providing excess capacity is
usually a better approach than trying to develop fancier networks with QoS
knobs. Take a lesson from ATM, Craig.
But that excess capacity does not exist in many cases. It costs money. And even
then congestion does occur. You do not have excess capacity on your DSL service
- it is not capable of providing you with full HD quality most of the time.
So, recoup all that bandwidth, now dedicated to the broadcast MPEG-2 TS
streams, bandwidth that is now hogging much of the precious last-mile links,
and you'll be making some non-trivial improvement in the QoS of your neutral
IP service. Easily to the point where households can get all the supposed QoS
they need, for multiple streams, over the neutral broadband service. Yes,
CDNs also have to play their role.
Yes, there are many ways to improve QOS. There are huge investments being made
to do so. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Akamai, Cogent et al are
spending billions on this infrastructure. The geographic constrained MVPDs are
spending billions installing fiber and risers to increase capacity. And the FCC
must agree with you, as they now define broadband as 25Mbps.
What you seem to miss, Craig, is that the Internet can now fulfill all of the
functions that broadcast cable and DBS was essential for in the past. All of
those functions. Technology has a way of moving on, even if luddites find it
hard to swallow.
To be accurate, the Internet is beginning to take on a portion of the delivery
of TV bits to the masses. The infrastructure is nowhere close to being ready to
completely replace the dedicated linear TV networks. The transition will take
at least a decade, probably two to three.
Do horse-drawn stagecoaches still need to exist? No. There might be a few
amusement rides, for tourists or what have you, but there was truly no reason
for the stagecoach industry to continue. So guess what, it didn't.
Irrelevant. I cannot say how long TV broadcasting will survive. We may get some
clues with the auction next year. But there is not indication it is going to
disappear just because technology is enabling new ways to deliver bits.
Web sites, operating over a neutral pipe, can also "bundle multiple
services," Craig. So guess what? They do! The only meaningful concept here is
that the business that owns the physical cable, the medium that connects to
your home, is no longer, by technical necessity, the same business that sells
you the services on that wire. It's that simple.
Agreed. But the old businesses survive. Not many years ago all of the services
you could use on a cellular phone were controlled by the telco selling you the
service. Now there is a thriving industry selling Apps and services for your
smart phone. But the telcos are still thriving. Obviously the wired MVPDs will
survive as broadband providers. Whether they will also sell you TV content is
very much open to debate. I personally would not bet against that portion of
their business surviving.
But only if constrained to your welfare-program, "the bundle." And now
instead, they also distribute without geographic restrictions, and without
the welfare program mandate, over cabled connections.
Where?
Show me how to get ESPN without buying a bundle of linear streaming channels.
So, as I've said a ton of times, it **is** the owners of content that I'm
listening to. Not luddites.
You do not listen. You try to put words in their mouths, and stick your fingers
in your ears when they say something that runs counter to your beliefs.
Regards
Craig
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