[opendtv] Re: IEEE Ericsson article on use of LTE for TV

  • From: "Albert Manfredi" <bert22306@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 04:48:20 -0400

Craig Birkmaier wrote:


SO? I am buying bandwidth, sot content from the telco.
When you use Vcast, you're buying bandwidth AND a service. When you use the voice telephone, unless you're using Skype, you're buying bandwidth AND a service. If the cellco has a service that competes with something not part of that cellco, they will certainly resist you bypassing them. 


You are correct that almost all of the songs, apps, movies and TV shows I
downloaded from the iTunes store traveled across a 2-way network. But
not a telco wireless broadband network.
Don't get lost in the weeds, Craig. We're talking about your sloppy use of the term "return channel." Anything you ever did with iTunes always involved a 2-way network. It's as simple as that. Not a broadcast channel with some separate "return channel."
The same happens with broadcast TV. *If* broadcasters implement a purely one-way broadcast LTE network, then it's flat wrong to pretend "all they need is a return channel." Instead, for interactivity of any sort, that broadcaster will have to use someone else's 2-way network. The one-way broadcast being physically isolated from the 2-way channel.
When you call into a call-in show, your telephone call in no way uses the radio station's broadcast channel. This is exactly the same thing. Your telephone call to the station requires a proper, 2-way phone link. Not some one-way "return channel" that somehow uses the broadcast signal as "downlink." Sloppy lingo, Craig, unless you really know what you're talking about, and are merely using shorthand. 


So now we are lumping together the entire Internet infrastructure, both
wired and wireless...
How convenient.
Of course. 4G, or even the broadband Internet service you can get on 3G, are nothing but a wireless links to the Internet. That's all. What applies to the wired Internet holds exactly the same on wireless broadband. 


I will concede that this makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to
implement traditional 2-way unicast sessions. No big deal as it is
relatively easy to deal with lost packets.
Lost packets? I'm talking about on-demand service. I'm talking about sessions on the web. Anything that allows me to go to any server of my choosing, at any time of my choosing, find something specific, perhaps download it. It's not about lost packets at all. Anything on demand requires the 2-way network, HTTP requires a two-way network. Even IP multicast, the real IP multicast, where individual users join a group, and the network only carries that traffic if there are group members listening, even that requires a two-way network.
Broadcast is very efficient when everyone wants the same content. But you can't fit all the content available on the Internet in a couple of broadcast links. Not credibly. Not in a way that I can get to the one page I want whenever I want, perhaps content that no one else in the entire city or country ever heard of or cared about. 

Bert



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