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ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch to FFH5

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to FFH5

Re: Lets face it

said by FFH5:

said by AnonPerson:

TV is too expensive and too littered with commercials. Who still wants to pay for that garbage?

But will the total monthly cost to obtain content for the home really drop with these changes? I don't think so. Streaming may replace QAM cable feeds, but internet access costs will rise. You may be able to drop Cable TV, but you will be paying subscription fees to streaming providers. Mobile streaming may replace some fixed wire access but those costs will be even higher. And the content companies will STILL get their cut one way or another. The changes may be coming, but the costs won't go down, though who gets what % of the pie between content and delivery may shift around some.

You're assuming that the people who are cutting the cord still want the same TV but from another source. Yes, some do, but I think that others are turning away from TV as their primary entertainment medium. Honestly, I don't need 250 channels; I just need one channel that shows stuff I want to see. I know that's an oversimplification, but the reality is that many people consider the number of channels they're getting as irrelevant when all they show is junk. I can be happy with far fewer if they actually had quality programming. I know that many folks have complained that Netflix streaming leaves a lot to be desired, but, at around $8/month, is it really that much worse than what's on cable at 10 times the price?
travelguy
join:1999-09-03
Bismarck, ND
Asus RT-AC68
Ubiquiti NSM5

travelguy

Member

said by ISurfTooMuch:

Honestly, I don't need 250 channels; I just need one channel that shows stuff I want to see.

Exactly... The cable industry is built around the idea that more choice is better. The fact is that most people have a certain number of hours per week allocated to TV. Adding more channels does not increase that number, so the price hikes just raise the cost per hour.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5 to ISurfTooMuch

Premium Member

to ISurfTooMuch
said by ISurfTooMuch:

said by FFH5:

said by AnonPerson:

TV is too expensive and too littered with commercials. Who still wants to pay for that garbage?

But will the total monthly cost to obtain content for the home really drop with these changes? I don't think so. Streaming may replace QAM cable feeds, but internet access costs will rise. You may be able to drop Cable TV, but you will be paying subscription fees to streaming providers. Mobile streaming may replace some fixed wire access but those costs will be even higher. And the content companies will STILL get their cut one way or another. The changes may be coming, but the costs won't go down, though who gets what % of the pie between content and delivery may shift around some.

You're assuming that the people who are cutting the cord still want the same TV but from another source. Yes, some do, but I think that others are turning away from TV as their primary entertainment medium. Honestly, I don't need 250 channels; I just need one channel that shows stuff I want to see. I know that's an oversimplification, but the reality is that many people consider the number of channels they're getting as irrelevant when all they show is junk. I can be happy with far fewer if they actually had quality programming. I know that many folks have complained that Netflix streaming leaves a lot to be desired, but, at around $8/month, is it really that much worse than what's on cable at 10 times the price?

But you are assuming internet fees will remain around the same. My expectation is that as users stop buying cable TV, the fees for high speed broadband internet will go up significantly to make up the difference.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Oh, I don't doubt that they will, but I don't see them going up to the same levels that are now being charged for Internet and cable. They could, but there's a danger in the cable companies raising them too much: at a high enough price, it becomes profitable for someone to come in and lay their own cable and offer competing service. If companies keep the price low enough, then it isn't as attractive for someone else to invest the capital to enter the market.

I'm still waiting for broadband from the sewer. Actually, a company proposed doing just that a few years ago, and it makes lots of sense. You've got a pre-built series of conduits that reach every location in a city, often with shorter routes than utility poles. All you need is the equipment to pull the fiber through the pipes.

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

1 recommendation

SpaethCo

MVM

said by ISurfTooMuch:

Oh, I don't doubt that they will, but I don't see them going up to the same levels that are now being charged for Internet and cable.

Changing from broadcast TV to unicast delivery over IP will vastly increase the costs. The only way to get this done in any kind of efficient manner with IP is to leverage multicast, and that requires engineering by the ISPs to accomplish that. It could be something simple like making encrypted multicast feeds available from all the various channel providers, but again -- that's going to be realtime video (no timeshifting), and by the time you work out all the agreements with the content producers to handle the distribution it's going to be back to the same setup you have now with channelized video services... only you will have invested billions of dollars just to arrive at the same point.
said by ISurfTooMuch:

I'm still waiting for broadband from the sewer. Actually, a company proposed doing just that a few years ago, and it makes lots of sense. You've got a pre-built series of conduits that reach every location in a city, often with shorter routes than utility poles. All you need is the equipment to pull the fiber through the pipes.

You know that was an April Fools site from Google, right? »www.google.com/onceupona ··· all.html
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Yes, but there was a real company that proposed it as well. I can't remember the name.

I do understand your point about the cost of outfitting networks for multicast video. Still, I wonder if a mix of OTA and Internet video may still work. TV stations are rolling out digital subchannels, and they seem to offer some interesting choices. Also, many areas have several unbuilt construction permits for LPTV or Class A digital stations, and, if OTA viewership continues to rise, I could see those being profitable enough to build. Many stations are running an HD feed and maybe one or two SD subchannels, so, if you dropped HD, I think you might be able to fit in three or four SD channels total. If they offered what people wanted to see, I think maybe you could see OTA being attractive enough for more people to switch. Cable came in promising more choice, but it's recently turned out to be a false promise, since 250 channels of crap isn't really that much choice.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to FFH5

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to FFH5
Yea, with caps...
jjeffeory

jjeffeory to SpaethCo

Member

to SpaethCo
Agreed. This is a pretty well understood problem. The technology may be there to do this, but the business processes and multi-company agreements are NOT.