Internet Threat to Satellite TV
Posted on January 31, 2012
Before “cord-cutting” became a popular term we predicted almost five years ago consumers would use the Internet to bypass conventional Cable TV. Later when Wall Street dismissed the practice as an urban myth in 2009, we concluded Cable operators may ultimately divest CATV service in order to concentrate on high-speed Internet.
Download 6-minute audio narration to iPod, iPhone, and iPad here.
Presently, “cord-cutting” is the Pay TV industry’s foremost concern. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and Amazon.com are pioneering alternate ways to acquire popular programming over the Net as opposed to Cable systems. Equally important is “Long Tail” content on YouTube and other Internet video sites. “Long Tail” theory implies that while we share interest in popular content, we also have more narrowly defined interests shared with viewer-groups too small to justify mass market distribution. But the Internet shatters such limitations enabling video content to be made available for vanishingly small audiences. Arguably, cultural programming has already migrated to the Net. Read more…
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TV Incentive Auctions and White Spaces
Posted on December 7, 2011
Today’s podcast is a twenty-five minute interview with Steve Coran who is a co-founder of Rini Coran which is Washington law firm dedicated to wireless FCC work. We discuss two topics: (1) incentive auctions for TV stations and (2) TV Band White Spaces.
TV Station Incentive Auctions
Steve estimates it could be three years before TV station auctions actually take place.
Background. At the behest of the FCC, Congress is considering bills to permit selected local TV stations to auction their broadcast spectrum. The likely buyers are cellular operators like AT&T and Verizon. Presumably, most of the auction proceeds would go to the U.S. Treasury, but a minority fraction would be retained by the selling station.
Download 25 minute audio interview to iPhone, iPad, or iPod here.
Typically the seller would use the proceeds to continue broadcasting by sharing spectrum with another local TV station. Digital technology enables traditional analog TV channel band to broadcast multiple streams of digital programming. Selling stations could arrange to share their portion of the auction proceeds with a non-selling station in order to get access to the spectrum needed to remain a competitive broadcaster. Most viewers would be unaware that two competitors are sharing a single TV channel because cable systems would assign each a separate ‘channel’ on the programming guide.
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Watch iPhone-4s Internet-Video on Your TV
Posted on November 11, 2011
Any video on the new iPhone-4s, can simultaneously be displayed on your television. It’s a process known as “mirroring”, and it’s going to fundamentally change how we use our televisions. For example, through-out the day you may sample full length videos that you’d prefer to watch on a TV screen. Perhaps a friend told you about the video and showed you where to find it on the Internet. Perhaps she sent you a link via email. Whatever, the iPhone-4s lets you watch it on either the smartphone screen, or your television.
To download seven-minute instructional video click here, or watch stream above.
Here’s how it works.
First, you need an iPhone-4s. (Mirroring also works with an iPad-2 that has the IOS-5 operating system software.) Read more…
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Interview with Wireless ISP Owner
Posted on November 8, 2011
Today’s podcast is a thirty minute audio interview with Matt Larsen who is the owner of Vistabeam in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska.
The company provides broadband Internet service to 2,500 subscribers in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. Instead of connecting subscribers with cable or telephone lines, Vistabeam provides service through its network of fixed wireless base-stations linking to inexpensive transceivers typically mounted on subscriber rooftops. It sort-of echoes an earlier era when television was received that way instead of via cable, fiber, or satellite. In short, Vistabeam is a typical rural Wireless Internet Service Provider.
Download thirty minute audio interview to iPhone, iPad, or iPod here.
While the uninitiated may assume Wireless ISP service to be slow and unreliable, Vistabeam is actually competing quite effectively with DSL and cable. The company offers speeds of up to 12 mb/s. As Matt notes, the typical Wireless ISP base station a dozen years ago had a capacity of 1.5 mb/s, whereas stations commonly available today can handle 150 mb/s. As with landline providers, Vistabeam is witnessing a marked increased in Internet Video consumption from YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix, among other sources. Yet its wireless system can handle the increased demands. Read more…
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Master-to-Slave Role Reversal for TVs
Posted on October 30, 2011
Download video to iPad, iPhone, and iPod here.
Future televisions will be nothing more than wireless display stations. No longer will they be the control center for our home video entertainment. In a Slave-to-Master role reversal, hand-held units shall become the gateways.
Let met explain.
In the future, we’ll access content on portable devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers, and choose to display programming on whatever screen is spontaneously most convenient. If we’re in a restaurant for lunch, we’ll likely select the smartphone screen. While sitting in a comfortable upholstered chair with a tablet computer, we’ll likely use the tablet screen. But if were in the TV room, we’ll simply instruct the applicable smartphone or tablet computer to display the video on the television screen.
It’s already happening for those with home Wi-Fi networks. Characteristically, Apple is leading the way. Read more…
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Netflix - Only Yesterday
Posted on September 20, 2011
Just last month Columbia Business School professor, Jonathan Knee wrote in Atlantic Magazine.
“Netflix…engenders fierce (customer) loyalty…even beating-out reigning champion Apple, among 528 other brands…Most observers expect the company to have over 30 million subscribers by the end of the year. Netflix is the rare aggregator…which (excels) in customer service and (product perfection) by harnessing customer feedback.”
Download six minute audio narration to iPhone, iPad, or iPod.
Since Knee’s month-old accolades, Netflix management announced (1) a 50% reduction in projected third quarter subscriber growth, (2) an apology for prompting a million customers to abandon the service in response to price changes, and (3) a formal division of company’s services into (a) streamed video and (b) postal delivered DVDs. Read more…
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Bypassing CATV-Telco Internet Duopoly
Posted on August 10, 2011
Yesterday Online Video Insider published the article below which I wrote.
(Phil Leigh, August 9, 2011) Rising popularity of Internet video in combination with the advent of the smartphone and tablet computer places an obscure segment of the Internet Service Provider industry at the threshold of major opportunities. Although Internet access is dominated by a duopoly of CATV and Telco operators, a promising third category is the Wireless ISP (WISP). Not to be confused with cellular carriers, WISPs offer Internet service to subscribers from fixed base stations to radio transceivers typically mounted on the rooftops of customer premises.
Download six minute audio narration to iPod, iPhone, or iPad.
The first WISP was organized twenty years ago by a young computer consultant in Laramie, Wyoming after he discovered the only Internet access in the town was at the University. He approached a number of local businesses with a proposition to provide them Internet access wirelessly through unlicensed spectrum normally used by cordless phones. His connection to the Internet backbone was a T1 line (1.5 mb/s) which the local telephone company connected to his house for $6,000 a month. Essentially, all subscribers shared the bandwidth of that singe T1. Read more…
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Two Years Before a Cable TV Flop
Posted on July 19, 2011
Last week the Canoe Ventures CEO announced he would depart in August after completing a three year employment agreement. However, as a business concern, Canoe “barely left the dock”.
Canoe Ventures was organized and funded with $150 million three years ago by a consortium of six cable operators. Its mission was to develop interactive TV advertising for the CATV industry. To date it has launched only a single product meeting with little success.
Download two-minute audio to iPhone, iPad, or iPod.
Inside Digital Media subscribers may recall our two year old post entitled “Why Project Canoe Will Fail”.
Among other points we explained, “…video advertising will evolve more quickly on the Internet than within closed networks of CATV systems. Technical standards on the Net are open and well understood by independent developers. Thus it is likely more of them will focus on Internet advertising innovations than on those governed by Project Canoe where standards have yet to be defined.”
As we explained in a March post, the faster innovative pace became evident when Shazam demonstrated how to use embedded signaling and Internet access to provide interactivity to conventional televisions via smartphones. Three months later Kleiner-Perkins apparently reached the same conclusion and invested $32 million to launch Shazam into the interactive TV advertising business.
At Inside Digital Media we aim to discover tomorrow’s industry leaders today.
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