[opendtv] Re: News: Analyst Predicts IPTV Takeover
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 09:29:54 -0400
The Internet is oversubscribed but I think the relevant costs of
Internet TV depend upon the marginal effort of getting it, for any new
individual at any given point in time. People will try it in ones and
twos and see if it works. As it starts working providers will gradually
provide more bandwidth on some pricing model that sells. As it fails to
work people will use less Internet TV until it does.
This process will cycle but likely grow since it is possible to
gradually provide the bandwidth and service and one could imagine some
demand for it.
On a good day with a tailwind I can now download huge files from the
news groups using my standard issue home Comcast broadband at close to 6
mbps. On other days or at busy times I get closer to 3 mbps. But those
numbers are gradually growing and already sufficient for downloading
video files.
As more people download video it will first slow down and then extra
bandwidth will be sold due to the obvious demand. It's a natural market
evolution and the bandwidth is getting ever cheaper to provide.
- Tom
John McClenny wrote:
> When one buys an Internet/IPTV service, you are really getting two different
> services over the same pipe.
> The Internet part has Internet limitations, the largest of which is the
> massive oversubscription of bandwidth. The average bandwidth allocation is
> 20 kbit/s per subscriber. Since the vast majority of users are either not
> using the connetion or just surfing the web, the occasional bandwidth hog
> can pig out and use a lot more.
>
> If Internet TV became popular, the current bandwidth budgets don't work and
> we will start seeing accounts sold by both max bandwidth and total transfer
> bytes/month. This would drive up the costs to acquire Internet TV to
> something closer to the cost of getting it through an IPTV subscription or a
> MSO.
>
> The only place this may make sense would for for a subscriber who only
> watches one (non-sports) show, where it can be trickled down during the
> night and viewed later.
>
> For the the average American household viewing 8-9 hours/day, Internet TV
> isn't going to happen anything soon. I would expect to see more specialized
> content available inside the IPTV walled garden, since the flexibility of an
> IPTV system has a slight cost reduction versus cable and the cost of
> experimentation is reduced because of the last-mover advantage in STB and
> middleware platforms.
>
> Doc
>
>
>
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