Whither TelcoTV
IPTV, TelcoTV and InternetTV are confusingly similar terms used to talk about delivering video entertainment over copper telephone lines.
InternetTV is a different animal than IPTV and TelcoTV. All three use the IP protocol, which is GENERAL PURPOSE and has become UBIQUITIOUS. IP video content can be transmitted over telephone copper loops, (hybrid fiber coax), wireless (WiFi now, WiMax soon), or even fiber to the home.
IP for video has trounced Asyncronous Transfer Mode (ATM). While some legacy access systems continue to use ATM, they have been forced to layer IP on top of ATM, adding complexity and cost. It’s not pretty, which is why IP has in the past few years achieved dominance for video (and other) content delivery.
InternetTV can be streamed in real time, assuming it’s heavily compresed at reduced quality. But real time delivery is not the sweet spot for Internet TV. The beauty of InternetTV is background transfers of files that are stored on a hard drive in a special set tp box (STB) or a PC. Using bandwidth that otherwise would go unused, hugh quantities of movies and other video can be pumped down the wire, to be viewed later.
This is a form of video on demand. You might create queue of things you’d like to watch. Naturally there will be movies, TV programs, a video of your kids soccer game, maybe even your church service (so you can be fishing while your neighbors are sitting in hard, uncomfortable pews). Where does it say you have to be uncomfortable while you “attend” church?
You may object that video on demand (VOD) is supposed to mean RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE. You are both right and wrong. Other than as it happens” events (a Las Vegas prize fight, for example) I contend we care about what we watch (select the content, or have an agent help find things we probably like), and when we invest time watching (convenient day and time). But outside of real time shared experince such as popular TV shows where you wnat to see it when your frinds are so you can iscuss over coffee the following day… other than that cable and satellite TV have conditioned us to endless cycles of shows being repeated. When you miss a great episode on Discovery, you are OK because you’ll have several more chances to watach or mayb TiVo it.
InternetTV will be a blend of Netflix (movies you want to watch, as they are delivered) and time delayed TV, a la TiVo.
InternetTV can (and probably will) become a big deal, as will real time video over IP (IPTV or TelcoTV). The difference is that InternetTV will work under the most difficult line quality you can imagine. The TCP/IP protocol can restensmit packets should (as one example) there be a nasty glitch on the line. The economics can be sweet, because what quality the video is is largely independent of the length of your telephone loop, or the quality of the copper. There is a STUNNING amount of bandwidth availabl when you consider that there are 24 hours in a day, and you may watch content two or three hours?
The single impediment to InternetTV succes is protecting copyrighted content from being redistributed. The disks and computer cycles are already extremely cheap. What’s is less clear is whether the best of the best in digital rights managmnt (DRM) will adequately protect the content.
It all depends on the real world security of DRM. Only time will answer that question.