[opendtv] Re: NAB: FCC's Wheeler Piles on Praise for Broadcasting | Broadcasting & Cable

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 01:08:31 +0000

Craig wrote:

Sling is only different [from traditional MVPDs] in that it also
offers some VOD access to library content, and TV Everywhere
access for your mobile devices.

Oh, so I guess CBS All Access is also an MVPD. It provides live and on demand
too, and service to mobile devices. I guess Craig considers CBS All Access to
be just like TVE.

The MVPDs are moving aggressively into high speed broadband, but
this is about building out the last mile infrastructure

Focusing in on this, if the MVPD allocates more frequencies to broadband, in
their existing last mile infrastructure, they can offer more and faster
broadband service **without** having to reduce the number of homes served by a
single PON head-end. So it's their own business decision. Continuing to
dedicate the majority of spectrum to MPEG-2 TS broadcast streams makes it that
much more expensive, for the network provider, to improve their broadband
service.

You mean like watching a live sporting event when away from
home?

It even depends what sport. Not all sports programming is consumed live, or
consumed by huge audiences at the same time. Some sports, such as the Olympic
type events broadcast by Universal Sports, would not merit a broadcast signal,
when distributed over the Internet. Only a small minority of TV content
actually begs for, i.e. benefits from, broadcast distribution, once you have
available a broadband two-way network.

Wireless to mobile devices requires much more infrastructure
and/or much lower spectral efficiency than wireless to fixed.

That is legacy thinking.

No, that is understanding the subject matter vs repeatedly uttering vague
generalities, Craig. If someone has built a cell network, i.e. wireless
optimized primarily for unicast, using that network for broadcast service only
makes economic sense "as necessary." Not always.

So let's say broadcasters could piggy-back on cellco networks, without having
to do even so much as supply their own transmitters. The cellco network is most
certainly NOT going to allow, say, 80 MHz of spectrum to be gobbled up by
broadcast 24/7, throughout their wireless network, to meet the broadcasters'
demands, without charging the broadcasters an arm and a leg. That's a huge
chunk of bandwidth, Craig, that the cellco won't be able to use for their own
revenue-making service.

If broadcasters decide to go it alone, and build their own LTE system, first of
all, the cellcos are unlikely to allow their phones to tune to the
broadcasters' frequencies. And aside from that, Craig still has not told us how
many towers such a broadcaster-owned network would require, in a market area,
say, 40 miles in radius. So that's hardly free. Once Craig does the simple
arithmetic, and I know he has the information necessary now, perhaps he'll see
why.

It doesn't matter how you slice it, Craig. Supporting good wireless mobility
costs more to build and more to operate the network. You either need many more
towers and/or you have to reduce the channels offered, compared with a system
designed for fixed service. Doesn't make any difference whether such a network
"already exists."

Correct. The cell systems have already installed this towers

Even that's a simplistic notion. Cells aren't a fixed number of assets that
just stays as is forever. Something as simple as a new neighborhood, or a new
building, create a need to modify the configuration. With big sticks, this is
far less of a problem.

No Bert, I said nobody is willing to use the extensions

Again, irrelevant! You said the ATSC standards can't be extended. That is
false. They can, and they have been. So please change that tune. You've been
repeating it for perhaps 15 years or more, and it sounds increasingly silly.

There are plenty of viable uses for broadcast, especially if
it is compatible with the hundreds of millions of devices now
used by consumers.

There are? Except that Craig has never been able to come up with anything
compelling.

Broadcast used to be the only game in town, to distribute wide bandwidth
content to huge numbers of households. Whether that content was best consumed
on demand or not, broadcasting it was still the only game in town. Now it's
not. So the future is one where how much bandwidth is used up for broadcast,
compared with how much bandwidth is taken up by unicast, will depend much more
on dynamic business decisions. You can't offer the huge amount of interactive
(unicast) service people now expect, competetitively, if you continue to
reserve large amounts network assets to broadcast, in your two-way network.

Times have changed.

Bert



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