More control isn’t good for
bandwidth ubiquity
A range of varying industry dynamics
are set radically to alter consumer
bandwith requirements, according to
Howard Greenfield.
ast year about this
time, I wrote about
Barcelona’s Mobile
World Congress—the
largest mobile tech show
on the planet. Video was
ubiquitous at that show,
and this year it’s even more
so - if that’s possible.
As usual, future predictions
of where it’s all going were in
the air. “There will be no
mobile phones in twenty years,”
says Intel president Renée
James, but rather a seamless
integration of communication
products connecting you to
whatever computers are around
you and we’ll communicate
through that.
However, as the media technology mix advances, as bandwidth-intensive digital services
proliferate for connected
devices, control of data speeds
and up-times is increasingly
crucial.
The movement of video
broadcast from TV to multiscreen threatens incumbent
monolithic couch-TV era broadcasting. Everyday a new blog or
article reviews or instructs on
the pros and cons of cord-cutting. And the delivery of video
programming bundled with
voice and data services has
complicated what were once
separate pricing structures and
business models.
Also part of the equation in
the next few years will be the
fusion of data from locationbased sensors, social interaction, and vehicular and building
devices, or the Internet of
Things. With that scenario,
L
comes the continuing effort to
track and garner customers
through data analytics that
report on what they watch and
what they buy. So, competition
is increasing for water rights on
this new data frontier.
That’s why on display back
in the US is another industry
shift, following the Comcast bid
for the
acquisition
of Time
Warner
Cable. The
implications
may not be
lost on anyone following these
developments. The
influence
and control
of these data
flows applies
to the big
Cable companies.
The stakes are high, so let’s
do the numbers. Comcast and
Time Warner have 21.7m and
11.4m customers respectively.
With a $139 billion market cap,
Comcast is currently over twice
as big as Time Warner. The
only other large competing TV
footprint in the US is DirecTV
that boasts only some 20m subscribers.
Comcast has stated that the
new combined cable company
entity will deliver a variety of
“pro-consumer and pro-competitive benefits” that include
faster deployment of existing
and new innovative products
and services to the vast combined customer base.
As expected, the announcement has sparked subscriber
push-back and industry debate
from many sides. Many believe
that Comcast’s TWC extension
in addition to its recent acquisition of NBCUniversal tips the
content scales in its general
direction. For instance, it could
dictate to services such as
Netflix that they pay a streaming fee to Comcast or be prevented from delivering to
Comcast Internet customers.
It was clear to Comcast from
the inception the acquisition
move would
be contentious.
Perhaps
some of
Comcast’s
$3 billion
philanthropy in the
last few
years has
gone in that
direction.
But more
specifically,
Comcast
garnered
endorsements early on for this being a
‘win-win for American business’. It also retains about 100
lobbyists in Washington.
Rackspace startup liaison
officer, Robert Scoble (above),
interprets the merger as no less
than a threat to national
growth. Scoble’s opining, often
raving, provides bleeding-edge
perspectives about technology
innovation. He is on-point even
when in full throttle wild-man
mode, which is why he has over
a million on-line followers.
His views have most recently
been channelled in The Age of
Context, his book which claims
the next big thing is not mobile,
US WATCH
ip us watch_us watch 07/03/2014 08:33 Page 1
Howard Greenfield
is strategic director of
business development at NXP
Software and president of Go
Associates, a global
consulting firm helping
companies bring technology
to market. He is co-author of
IPTV & Internet Video, Second
Edition (Focal Press/ NAB). He
may be reached at howard@
go-associates.com.
media, or big data, but a combination of localised, wear-able
and socially networked functionalities now converging in
the marketplace. “You won’t be
watching more TV on your
watch,” laughs Scoble, “but the
video ahead is going to require
more bandwidth,” which is why
the recent acquisition news is a
turf issue.
Consumers will expect an
always-on, reliable high-connectivity world according to
Scoble. Spotty bandwidth delivery will fail to service the
Internet-controlled home. (“If
you can’t get in your damn
house because your Internet is
down, you’re going to be pretty
annoyed, because that doesn’t
mean you don’t get YouTube, it
means you don’t get in the
house!”) So, the increasing
expectation is for extremely
reliable high-speed throughput.
In his opinion, the Comcast
merger removes choices and
competition because these two
companies control the last
twenty feet to the house which
gives them power to change
pricing, and delivery of everything digital to consumers.
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