| Why IPTV? Perhaps someone can explain this to me. What's the point of offering, basically, cable TV over IP? I can see the logic of doing it this way if the customer gets to choose whatever video stream they can find on the Net. In fact, that makes pretty good sense, assuming the originating provider has the bandwidth on their end, and multicasting is set up and working well so you don't have tons of duplicate streams. However, if the telco/DSL provider is basically feeding programming from a headend, so there are a finite number of channels to be had, then why not just broadcast them as cable TV does, or team up with a satellite provider? Sure, IPTV allows things like VoD, but I can see no good reason to stream a feed of CNN from what's essentially a cable headend using IPTV.
And they think they can offer two HDTV feeds? That's enough for two HDTV sets in the house, or one and a DVR. What if I want to watch an HD program in the den, someone else wants to watch one in a bedroom, and I also have my DVR recording a third?
And they think 25/5 is enough? For now, it's fine, but when I got DSL a little over five years ago, 1.5/128 was fast, and now I have 6/768 on Comcast's lower tier. Unless the telcos can get this completely rolled out in the next year, they may never recoup their costs as speeds continue to increase.
Who's the genius who thinks this is a good idea? It's idiotic on so many levels. Laying fiber will cost more, but sometimes doing things on the cheap only gets you headaches down the road. But since I have no love lost for either BellSouth or SBC, I won't feel sorry for them when they spend so much money for so little return. |
