[opendtv] Re: Competition
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 01:02:09 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
Imagine a universe in which we were still constrained to just
one-way broadcast. How would you browse the web, Craig? You'd
have to wait forever for your particular page or pages to come
around on some carousel. ...
How absurd.
That world never existed Bert. You are trying to force fit everything
into one box to make an absurd point.
Before TV broadcasting, and radio for that matter, we had media.
It's amazing how you haven't thought these things through Craig, in all these
years. With radio and TV broadcasting, what I described is EXACTLY what the
technology constrained us to do. If you wanted to catch that news item, you
might be lucky if they repeated it in the evening news, hours after it first
aired. If you wanted to catch some TV show you missed, after it had aired, you
might have to wait months, until summer reruns season. Yes, there were also the
print media. That changes nothing. I'm talking about broadcast protocol. And
sure, the VCR changed a lot of that, except that the broadcast protocol still
limited what information people could access, compared with distributed
storage. There's simply no comparison.
And for the past three decades we have had MANY choices when it
comes to accessing entertainment other than broadcasting.
And the actual broadcast delivery protocol, with the arrival of 2-way IP
networking, is one that has very little reason to continue to exist. Again, the
fact that broadcast protocol requires very little infrastructure, **WHEN OTA**,
is its major advantage by far. But the advantages of the 2-way net, with
distributed servers, in terms of the amount of content available, EITHER live
OR on demand, are pretty hard to deny. Craig doesn't seem to ask himself, if
the 2-way net can do what the one-way broadcast does, and a whole lot more, why
would the one-way broadcast net survive long term??
What any of this has to do with the future viability of streaming
programming, pre-produced or live, escapes me.
Remember, we are talking about the continued need for one-way broadcast nets,
not JUST the supposed luddite attachment to by-appointment TV. Remember, this
mental block you have started with the ATSC 3.0 broadcast-mode thread. That's
when you started on your "both have a place" generalities.
Because people who create content know they can make money from
this content in multiple ways. Why would the stop programming
linear networks when this is the way most TV is consumed and
most of the money is made?
First, validate your claim. We already saw that your claim is false, exception
of some sports. Second, accept the fact that people are moving away from
by-appointment TV, simply because on demand is more convenient in every way.
Third, **even if** you want to use "linear streams," for the dwindling number
of luddites, the 2-way network can do that too, Craig! What's hard to
understand? You don't need any broadcast-only delivery anymore, except again,
that advantage I listed above. (Which doesn't even come in play for those like
yourself, already dependent 100 percent on a physical umbilical connection.)
The point I was trying to make is that the portion of a
proprietary network that is dedicated to a linear streaming MVPD
service is not the Internet, and it is not subject to net
neutrality rules.
I already explained that to you, Craig. Why feel the need to echo my
explanation?
Thus existing facilities based MVPDs can continue to offer these
linear streams with QOS guarantees even if they move to IP transport.
And it also strips IP of all of its advantages. It's obvious, Craig, no reason
to belabor the obvious, that you can use IP in place of a simpler protocol. You
can still keep that gatekeeper head-end monopoly model, with IP on that
cordoned-off bandwidth. And if you do this with IP, you will accrue no benefits
with IP. So it's pretty much an empty discussion.
But the portion of the proprietary network dedicated to broadband
service cannot offer the same guarantees;
Wrong. That's an old canard that has been dealt with many times over.
The easiest way, the most credible way, of guaranteeing any sort of QoS, in
fast and efficient **packet-switched networks**, is to provide plenty of excess
bandwidth. If bandwidth is cheap enough, providing excess capacity is usually a
better approach than trying to develop fancier networks with QoS knobs. Take a
lesson from ATM, Craig.
So, recoup all that bandwidth, now dedicated to the broadcast MPEG-2 TS
streams, bandwidth that is now hogging much of the precious last-mile links,
and you'll be making some non-trivial improvement in the QoS of your neutral IP
service. Easily to the point where households can get all the supposed QoS they
need, for multiple streams, over the neutral broadband service. Yes, CDNs also
have to play their role.
You seem to believe that only the Internet will exist in the future,
and it will be regulated in accordance with whatever the FCC
decided net neutrality means.
Of course, in the future, and not distant future, the Internet will replace the
previously-neutral 2-way service (telephone). Hardly a big revelation there.
What you seem to miss, Craig, is that the Internet can now fulfill all of the
functions that broadcast cable and DBS was essential for in the past. All of
those functions. Technology has a way of moving on, even if luddites find it
hard to swallow. Do horse-drawn stagecoaches still need to exist? No. There
might be a few amusement rides, for tourists or what have you, but there was
truly no reason for the stagecoach industry to continue. So guess what, it
didn't.
You missed it as usual. You did not address the benefits of
bundling multiple services, marketing and other aspects of what
real businesses do.
Web sites, operating over a neutral pipe, can also "bundle multiple services,"
Craig. So guess what? They do! The only meaningful concept here is that the
business that owns the physical cable, the medium that connects to your home,
is no longer, by technical necessity, the same business that sells you the
services on that wire. It's that simple.
Time *is telling*. Once again, even the old MVPD stalwart
ESPN has eliminated geographic restrictions.
Yup. They did that on June 17, 1994 when DirecTV started
offering a national DBS service.
But only if constrained to your welfare-program, "the bundle." And now instead,
they also distribute without geographic restrictions, and without the welfare
program mandate, over cabled connections. So, as I've said a ton of times, it
**is** the owners of content that I'm listening to. Not luddites.
Bert
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