[opendtv] Re: News: LTE Tempts With Advanced Services

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:01:15 -0400

At 5:05 PM -0500 6/10/12, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
You still don't get it, Craig. *If* they want to watch the show live, chances are, they are doing so from home or from a hotel room. Chances are, they ain't doing it on their cell phones, while on the go.

Stop trying to weasel out of this Bert. On 6/7 you wrote:

So, I think what this whole switch-over will really mean going from broadcast to unicast.

Then you continued to defend this  position is subsequent posts.

The reality is that there will continue to be a large audience for Prime Time TV, if for no other reason than the congloms not allowing other forms of first run access to these shows. As is the case today, most of this viewing will take place through an MVPD infrastructure.

The rest will take place via OTA broadcasts. Just because the broadcast infrastructure "may" change to LTE, does not mean that fixed receivers will be disenfranchised; if anything it will be easier to receive OTA broadcasts using simple antennas. And don't fret about losing access to your favorite shows in HD - the LTE infrastructure will support this easily. It just means that during prime time, when most shows will be in HD, there will be fewer bits available for "other" services.

I just posted a story that talks about the huge increase in viewing during prime time on tablets. Guess what - these tablets will be able to receive LTE broadcasts in your home, or when you are mobile.

The story also noted a huge increase in viewing video on cell phones. Clearly, Broadcast LTE will enable people who are mobile to watch programming (especially sports) when they are mobile.

Just a small aside here Bert:

Do you know what is one of the most lucrative markets for OTA TV today?

Tailgate parties outside of stadiums.

There are no cable connections here - perhaps a handful of motor homes equipped with satellite receivers. Walk around any college or professional football stadium and you will see a bunch of flat panel TVs using antennas...

People WILL watch video on their cell phones when it is important. And much of this content does not need to be program length. Short news capsules, weather reports, and individual stories of interest are all markets that broadcasters could play in successfully...

if only they could get receivers in those tablets and cell phones.


All of which says, there's absolutely no imperative to dismantle the truly efficient broadcast infrastructures, but at the same time, one could consider doing so. If broadcasters and/or TV networks want to go the 2-way network route, the only thing they really need to do is, make those live streams available over the Internet NOW. That's it. No need to do a single other thing. (Oh, and be prepared for most OTA broadcasters to go out of business in the process, of course.)

The imperative is that the OTA audience is small and declining, and TV broadcasters are NOT participating in the emerging mobile markets.


 You seem to forget that the congloms still tightly control FIRST
 ACCESS to their most valuable programming, especially sports.

So your thesis is, the broadcasters should create an isolated LTE infrastructure, just for their own and conglom content? Because what, congloms are going to remove all their non-live stuff from the fox.com and hulu.com and netflix.com sites?

My thesis is that broadcasters need to reach all of the screens where people watch TV content. It is not a question of the LTE infrastructure being isolated. The broadcasters did a great job of isolating themselves with the3 ATSC infrastructure - the OTA audience continues to decline. If broadcasters can piggyback on mobile devices using Broadcast LTE, they will have the opportunity to re-invent themselves. Some will survive, some not; and quite possibly a new medium will be created, as was the case with the transition from Radio to TV dramas and sitcoms in the '50s.

And NO, the congloms will continue provide delayed access to their content via streaming services. But as the article I just posted points out, you will need to subscribe to an MVPD to access these services; OR pay a premium to access them (e.g. Hulu Plus).

You might possible have a point, however my bet is, the congloms wouldn't go for this anyway. Know why? Because any 2-way computer-friendly network is going to make it that much easier to forward content from one net to the other, over the smart appliances that use LTE/WCDMA.

This is not going to be economically feasible, since the telcos are going to price bits at a level that is prohibitive for viewing program length content.


And no, you say, the LTE networks would NOT be 2-way capable. Purely a broadcat-only LTE network. Well then, the idea is even more ridiculous, more like the existing ATSC network, far less likely to change a thing.

The reasoning here is that there is little need for broadcasters to use "their" spectrum for the return path, since all LTE enabled devices will already have the telco return path. As you have pointed out, it is already easy for mobile devices to access TV station web sites; it is equally easy to use the telco return data path to request bits that will be delivered via LTE Broadcast.

THat being said, I do not see much use of the LTE broadcast infrastructure for unicasts. It make far more sense to build apps that let people subscribe to their favorite programs and use the Broadcast LTE spectrum to deliver the bits to local cache.

That's shows the weaknesses in your logic, right there. First off, if the LTE net for TV were truly TV-only, there would be no incentives for the cellcos to support it in their cell phones, more than ATSC MH. Simply because, it detracts from their own TV-carrying revenues. Secondly, the congloms wouldn't get their seond revenue stream, so they wouldn't push it any more tan ATSC MH. Thirdly, ATSC MH is not power hungry as you pretend, since it operates similar to DVB-H, so incorporating it into cell phones is not more or less attractive to the cell bean counters than what you propose.

Uh Bert. Last I looked, the Telcos have largely lost control over the apps that run over their networks, and the features of the phones they are selling. If broadcasters want support for Broadcast LTE they will find much more willing partners in Apple and Google and the legions of app developers for these platforms.

First of all, ATSC, cable broadcast spectrum (as opposed to cable's VOD spectrum and Internet broadband spectrum), *and* DBS spectrum, all fall into the same broadcast-optimized model. None of these use LTE or anything else that is 2-way capable.

That's why it is called BROADCASTING Bert.


And more to the point, broadcasters and networks can make the ATSC option as attractive and valuable as they feel like. Nothing about switching to an isolated LTE spectrum would make a lick of difference, to the congloms. If ABC would allow ABC Family to be transmitted as a subchannel, just one example, and other networks did similar, demand for ATSC would go WAY up. If they DON'T do so, because they want dual revenue streams or what have you, then they wouldn't do so just because the OTA uses broadcast LTE.

Chances are VERY GOOD that you will be able to access virtually everything available on the MVPD infrastructure via LTE Broadcasts...

As long as you are a subscriber to an MVPD service.

What this means is that the LTE broadcast infrastructure may resemble an MVPD. You will be able to access the primary broadcast networks streams free, just as you can today with ATSC. But the rest will be under conditional access control, available only to MVPD subscribers or as a paid service.


If they WANT that dual revenue stream over ATSC, that's doable too. Just develop conditional access. It's far easier to do that than to change out the whole OTA infrastructure.

Your logic just doesn't hold, IMO.

Your getting warm. But the ATSC infrastructure is mostly worthless because they chose poorly nearly two decades ago, deciding to replicate the big stick infrastructure that was ALREADY irrelevant thanks to the growth of MVPDs. Frankly the industry didn't care about the future - they were protecting the past and trying to keep the telcos from getting more spectrum.

It worked.

If broadcasters want to reach the screens people will be using in the future they need to build the infrastructure they SHOUD HAVE built in the first place. The good news is that we are now at a point where wireless technology has matured and the devices we predicted nearly two decades ago are a practical and economic reality.

Regards
Craig


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