[opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2016 09:18:41 -0500
On Jan 23, 2016, at 7:18 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
Sling TV may be a good deal for a single Millennial, but when they
start a family it comes up short. A traditional MVPD bundle ...
You did it again, Craig. You seem to think that the options are Sling or the
old school walled garden. Any number of OTT sites allow multiple users,
Craig. Who cares what *a* particular OTT service does?
You still don't get it Bert.
Sure there are many OTT options. What is missing is the content that most
American viewers watch. The audience for broadcast TV programming is now down
to about 30% for the best shows, much less for non-prime time. A HUGE portion
of what you can access via OTT sites is just current or old broadcast library
content. Hulu is primarily a catch-up service for current broadcast
programming. Netflix relies on older broadcast library content with a few
original shows.
If you want ESPN, Fox News, A&E, TBS, FX, HGTV, and many others you subscribe
to a MVPD service. Sling offers some, but it all of the most popular MVPD
networks. And families view many different networks that are targeted at
various age groups and demographics. You simply cannot duplicate this with
multiple OTT services...
Yet.
I already did the numbers for you, Craig, to estimate what an individual
household would need, in Mb/s, for several streams of H.264, eventually
H.265, HDTV. And it is easily managed for the PON. A bigger concern might be
edge servers.
And your point is?
The family still needs a faster service with a bigger data bucket than an
individual or couple without kids.
It is OBVIOUS what will be needed to fully transition to 100% IP delivery via
the Internet, although it is less obvious that this will ever happen. Anyone
can do the calculations.
We will still have broadcast, at least for the foreseeable future. We will
still have packaged media sales and rentals. And we will still have MVPD
services selling content that will be delivered "in-band," even if the traffic
is identical to streams delivered OTT.
The only issue here is how fast the transition takes place, and how the wired
MVPDs manage the required upgrades to handle the vastly increased streaming
video traffic.
They ARE NOT going to "throw the switch" as you suggest.
At at another level, much will depend on when Les and his buddies decide we
stop paying for channels we do not watch. I think it is reasonable to believe
that the cost of the future "customized" MVPD bundles will DECREASE to the
range of $30-40/mo that Moonves has talked about. When this is allowed to
happen, the biggest reason for cord cutting may be rendered moot, or we could
see a shift from cable and DBS to new services from Apple, Amazon, or Google,
delivered as hybrid Live/SVOD bundles.
Congestion may be caused when you have a bunch of homes on a node
all streaming video simultaneously;
Even that isn't necessarily true. If all people on a PON headend are
streaming the Superbowl live, the ISP will know to use IP multicast, and no
congestion occurs. If all people on a headend stream multiple different shows
which use multiple different CDNs, again, the problem won't be severe, as
long as the PON can manage the aggregate capacity required. If worse comes to
worst, perhaps not everyone will get a completely legitimate "HDTV" stream,
and the streaming protocol will dial quality back a little (until edge server
capacity is improved).
Again, all of this is obvious.
And it is obvious that it is going to happen over a number of years, as the
various broadband providers build the requisite infrastructure.
Hate to burst your bubble, Craig, but I've been over this multiple times. The
very vast majority of that PON's one-way broadcast capacity is utterly
wasted, 24/7. Once you have installed a two-way network, your last-century
descriptions of what's going on become totally irrelevant. You have to update
your arguments.
It is not wasted when 7% of the program's consumed are delivered in-band, and
more than $100 billion in annual revenues are at stake.
Really? If that were true, MVPD subscriptions would not be inflating faster
that the average inflation rate.
MVPD service is provided by two oligopolies working hand in hand to inflate the
rates. It is not a competitive market.
Let's see. MVPDs continue to increase their rates, and they are losing
customers. Okay.
The loss of subscribers has been minimal - profits have increased. And now
cable and FIOS are feasting on broadband as well.
I've been watching Moonves' content online for a decade. I could even watch
more of it online, for a small monthly fee. Amazing how Craig thinks this
will "happen someday."
I stopped watching Moonves content more than a decade ago.
So explain to us, Craig, why you think that the households fed by a single
DSLAM are NOT sharing their Internet bandwidth, every bit as much as
households that share a single PON headend do. There's absolutely no
significant difference, in how bandwidth has to be shared.
There is a huge difference.
The only similarity is that both need adequate bandwidth to the Internet. If
the upstream provisioning is adequate, then yes, there will be congestion.
But the PON has finite bandwidth. If this is exceeded it does not matter how
big the pipe to the Internet is. For DSL, the only limit is the bandwidth of
the connection to the CO. EVERY home connected to the DSLAM can receive the
theoretical limit if the telco provisions the DSLAM properly. Whether the
telcos do this or not is a legitimate question, but it is a simple problem to
address, while more bandwidth for a congested PON requires a new PON to reduce
the number of subscribers.
And PLEASE don't tell us again that they could free up spectrum dedicated to
other services to increase the Internet bandwidth in a PON. This is part of
their announced strategy along with migration to DOCSIS 3.0.
Content owners can decide who to sell to for how much to maximize their
revenues.
MVPDs can decide how to assign their spectrum to various services to maximize
their revenues.
So you do not have Verizon FIOS in you neighborhood, only Verizon
twisted pair telephones service?
Like I said: two companies to choose from: Verizon and Cox. With dialup,
instead, the choice was virtually unlimited. Verizon's DSL is being phased
out, and IS NOT AN OPTION for any new subscribers. Two companies for me, only
one for you. Now explain why such lack of credible competition is not an
issue.
Thanks for not answering my question.
Is Verizon your wireline telco provider or AT&T?
Does Verizon offer FIOS services (TV and Broadband) in your neighborhood?
Regards
Craig
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- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Craig Birkmaier
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- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Manfredi, Albert E
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Craig Birkmaier
- » [opendtv] Re: Congress to cable customers: Stop your whining | InfoWorld- Manfredi, Albert E