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4 edits | Much Ado About Nothing AT&T's and Verizon's current broadband "business models of the future" are already flawed and outdated. U-verse and FIOS involve proprietary access to telephone and TV services via fiber, in addition to internet service. The phone companies need to realize that ultimately, perhaps within 10 years, they must exit the "tethered" hard-wired local phone and TV business and implement them entirely via the internet. In other words, IP-based telephone and IP-based TV. The goal in today's deployment should be to provide as wide a pipe as possible into the internet and to design internet routers to support "broadcasting" instead of individual virtual connections all the way back to originating servers. i.e., a local TV station could "broadcast" (one-way) HD TV via the internet and require 6 MHz of bandwidth for each customer connection to their server(s). An intelligent router system, however, would recognize there is no need to duplicate, say, 5000 simultaneous 6 MHz one-way feeds of the same program to 5000 viewers whose internet service is provided in the same central office. Telephones have the same issue: FIOS provides a standard RJ-11 interface to try to convince customers to keep their phone service with Verizon. Verizon should instead design sophisticated, proprietary, IP-based phones that one merely plugs into an IP switch. AT&T and Verizon must get over the idea that there is no virtue in running a "dumb pipe" business.
Ten years from now AT&T and Verizon will bemoan the fact that they have designed such antiquated "broadband of the future" systems. TV content will eventually be sold by the content originator in a totally internet-based system. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast at that time will, of course, insist that regulations be put in place to prevent such a thing from happening!
My theory may explain why the phone companies want to define "broadband" in the narrowest possible terms. Look at the state of radio. The RIAA has fought true "high-definition" radio: what we have in HD radio today is not true high fidelity but a semblance of it--often not even quite mp3 quality--and that is far from "high fidelity." The RIAA does not want radio stations to broadcast high-bit-rate digital signals because it would encourage people to "tape" off the air i.e., make digital copies (even though it is perfectly legal for people to do so)--if people could make copies of high quality broadcasts they would not need to buy CDs, SACDs, or even mp3s. The phone companies have a similar tiger they do not want to let out of the cage. That is one of the reasons they desire "usage caps" and usage-tiered pricing. If they truly provided an "always available" 100 Mbit/sec pipe into the internet for each subscriber, IP-based TV would become commonplace. Both cable companies and phone companies who have invested heavily in video infrastructures would then have their infrastructures become dinosaurs. No--best to limit the bandwidth and control what people do to preserve their short-sighted business models. The NAB does it in broadcasting--the phone and cable companies feel they should be able to do it also. Real progress will move at a glacial pace.
With true HD IP-based TV, and real high fidelity digital radio for that matter, the content provider would call the shots. What is currently happening with newspapers would then happen with radio and TV (it is already beginning with local TV--witness the current Fox-Time Warner dispute): the advertising dollar would be stretched thin. If anyone is able to create their own internet-based TV station . . . well, you get the picture (no pun intended). The RIAA, with the support of the NAB, has already muted many internet-based radios stations by imposing on them outrageously high "per song" copyright fees. Something similar may happen with IP-based TV. In the end, the stations that will survive will be the ones who provide the best content--or at least the content that the most people desire (not necessarily the "best" but certainly the most dummed-down). Those are the stations to which advertisers will gravitate. You don't think my theory is correct--let's have this discussion again in ten years!
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1 edit | said by Alex G Bell:The phone companies need to realize that ultimately, perhaps within 10 years, they must exit the "tethered" hard-wired local phone and TV business and implement them entirely via the internet. In other words, IP-based telephone and IP-based TV. This, from a guy whose company's model was based on owning everything end-to-end and only leasing services to customers? 
How are they going to make money on that model? In other words, "virtue" isn't much of a business plan. That seems to be the fear of all carriers. Do tell.
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dak70
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Warminster, PA | reply to Alex G Bell
said by Alex G Bell:The phone companies need to realize that ultimately, perhaps within 10 years, they must exit the "tethered" hard-wired local phone and TV business and implement them entirely via the internet. How do you get Internet? Last time I checked my Internet connection is a "tethered" service. Delivering a cable system with 200+ HD channels, 50+MB of broadband and a voice line will require a tether for a long time. Yeah, I know WiMax is coming of age but it will not be able to supply the the bandwidth needed for the aforementioned services. | |
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