From: Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> Commercial trends have been moving farther and farther away from, "How much bandwidth do you want to buy?" to, "How many Tv channels, voice minutes and cloud recording can I get?", particularly in much more developed markets
Internet should be utility, many providing it don't wnat to be a utility and so try doing other services usually best left to specialists
As a transit provider industry, we need to get our act together and play nice, before we all get run over by the content owners
Yes, I like to remind those engaging in peering wars and charging for access users to be careful when creating reasons for others to become their competition As a broadcaster we send our content direct to users over the air, there is opportunity in not making us do so for internet too (though it already happens, here in the UK Sky TV are a large ISP) brandon
Brandon Butterworth <brandon@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
Yes, I like to remind those engaging in peering wars and charging for access users to be careful when creating reasons for others to become their competition
As a broadcaster we send our content direct to users over the air, there is opportunity in not making us do so for internet too (though it already happens, here in the UK Sky TV are a large ISP)
So, out of curiosity, how does BBC's user base split out between: - traditional over-the-air reception, - cable, - satellite (is their a UK equivalent of DishTV), - Internet? I'm pretty sure that in most US major markets broadcasters primarily reach their subscribers over cable these days - with those cable providers also providing subscribers' Internet access. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
On Wednesday, July 30, 2014 12:50:17 PM Brandon Butterworth wrote:
Internet should be utility, many providing it don't wnat to be a utility and so try doing other services usually best left to specialists
When we did FTTH at $previous_employer, it really was the first time an operator (albeit a competitive) was bundling voice, video and data on an end-to-end fibre connection to the home (even the incumbent's solution was FTTB, and then copper (Ethernet or VDSL) to the home. To make the service more utilitarian, we didn't do the selling or marketing. We left it to our partner (the Tv network, primarily a satellite Tv provider) to sell it, brand it their own, e.t.c. We were happy with just a "Powered By" at the bottom of their web site or sales material. Made sense, since they had the customer base, market visibility, back-end after-sales support and cash in the bank to do so. Their bundling made sense to customers: - Tv channels were packaged based on customer demographics. - Voice plans were simple. - Internet access was either 6Mbps, 12Mbps or 24Mbps, with an option to "boost" ("boost" is easier for Joe Blog to understand than "burst") to 50Mbps via a web tool the customer can use at their discretion. - Multi-screen view options inside the home. - How many simultaneous live streams can you view while you record others. And that was it. As a provider, we ensured that there was sufficient capacity delivered to each home to make the above possible. In this case, it was 100Mbps (GPON), but could have also been 1Gbps (Active-E). We realized that customers didn't care how much bandwidth was required to watch their favorite channel in HD. They just wanted to watch their favorite channel in HD. How it all works is not their problem, and they don't want to know or care to be impressed by the details. What would drive network expansion would be what services customers wanted. If customers suddenly wanted 100% of their channels in HD, at 1080p, they would ask for and pay for that. If it means delivering 1Gbps to every home to do that, so be it; it was never going to become the customer's problem. They just want what they want, and more often than not, they don't want bandwidth (which is what ISP's typically know how to sell) - they just don't want video/audio buffering. Sounds like the same thing, but from a customer's point of view, it's not the same thing. If, as service providers, we can get ourselves to that point (either at a corporate level or with external help from policy and legislation), Internet will, thus, have become a utility. Your guess is as good as mine if that will ever happen. And given that content owners are the ones "who appear" most interested in the customer experience, 21st century traditional ISP's need to watch their backs. Mark.
participants (3)
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Brandon Butterworth -
Mark Tinka -
Miles Fidelman