[opendtv] Re: Spectrum is too valuable

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2015 08:54:15 -0500

On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:04 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

The cable industry is also cutting back on analog streams these days, guess
why Craig.

In some markets this is true, in others it is not. Analog cable is alive and
well here in Gainesville. I do agree that this is recoverable spectrum. So the
issue is simply the cost/benefit analysis associated with turning the analog
service off.

On the plus side you recover spectrum for broadband. On the minus side
customers lose access on second and third sets without STBs. Some new STBs
convert streams to h.264 and send them over WiFi to additional screens
including ablest, smartphones, and TVs with $39 Chromecast dongles.

In the end it's still a question of maximizing revenues across multiple
services that include TV, broadband, VOIP, and home security.

And more to the point, you have often bemoaned the amount of money cable
companies invest in improving their cable plants, to offer more broadband
speeds. Well, this is one way to offer more broadband speed while reducing
the amount of costly labor-intensive work they have to do.

Not really. It still requires new equipment in the existing PONs, although this
is certainly cheaper than building a new PON and running fiber to it. And I
have not bemoaned these investments; they are the cost of doing business, and
have led to the huge advantage that the cabled systems have over the Telcos who
have been trying to keep the old twisted pair plants relevant.

Repurpose the broadcast spectrum. What applies to OTA spectrum also applies
to walled-in cable spectrum. The only way you can weasel out of that is to
say that the cable issue is different, because all the cable companies can
simply charge the Craigs of the world more per month for subscriptions. Okay,
say that and I'll agree.

Now you just drove into a ditch. And not because I must pay for the services I
get.

Cable systems can create bandwidth in multiple ways; in truth, broadcasters
could do so also by moving to a "cellular like" infrastructure. But that is too
expensive for a service that is losing relevance.

Cable already has a GHz of spectrum to play with; but the real advantage is
they can re-create this spectrum multiple times throughout their service area
with the branching tree PON infrastructure. So the issue becomes how to use
that GHz for the ~500 homes served by a PON?

Compare that to even a small market like Gainesville, where the broadcasters
have about 30 MHz to serve more than 50,000 homes.

And you continue to ignore the efficiency of broadcasting linear streams to
every home served by a PON. If I have four kids every one can watch a different
HD program that gets at least 10 Mbps, even as I watch a football game that
"needs" 18 Mbps.

I agree the duplication of channels on analog and digital tiers is inefficient,
but the demand for broadband is not so great that it requires recovering the
analog spectrum at this time. Cox just upgraded my broadband service from 15-23
Mbps to more than 50 Mbps during off peak hours. Turns out it is more cost
effective to upgrade the broadband hardware than losing the revenues generated
by the analog TV tier.




You claimed three HD streams in 18 Mbps.

H.264 requires about 5-6 Mb/s for realistic HD. Even H.262 does not require
19 Mb/s for HD.

As we have discussed, h.264 is not available in most cabled systems. And MPEG-2
DOES require 18 Mbps for high action sports delivered as 1080i. The reality is
we traded off random analog noise for correlated digital noise. When the
channel is stressed we see artifacts.

You can pre filter and compress the hell out of anything, but
that completely misses the point.

Our PBS station does a very credible job at one HD and three simultaneous SD
streams. Our ION station does one HD and five SD. This is not to say that you
won't get compression artifacts if you overdo it (although with H.264, these
blocking effects are masked fairly effectively). This is to say that you
overstate your case, trying to make a point that might have been credible 10
or more years ago.

The case was simple: both OTA broadcast and cable are locked into legacy
technology. Our TVs have out-of-date legacy ATSC tuners and the cable industry
has hundreds of millions of legacy MPEG-2 STBs.

A decade ago you were lauding the advantages of HDTV over SDTV, yet you are
watching SDTV via your PC. And now you are lauding the advantages of SDTV,
while the industry is moving toward UHDTV. Trends Bert!

A case in point:

First, you DO NOT need to feed each home with the same bandwidth, Craig.
These numbers are meant to be guides, not absolutes. Yes, if every home
insists on this amount of bandwidth, then 300 homes would be served by each
PON. But 3 or 4 Mb/s is enough, as long as the CDNs continue to provide
streaming options at these lower rates.

Did you not state that the number now is between 25 homes and 2000 homes? And
that the average is 500? So I'm saying that you can stick with that 500 homes
average, while providing a very credible Internet TV service to every home.
Not decades from now, Craig. In the near future, or in some cases right now.

Yup. Just tell your subscribers to suck it up and live with reduced quality...

Doesn't matter what the FCC considers to be minimum for "broadband." You can
call whatever the FCC decides "broadband," and anything less than that
"wideband." The FCC does not need to force everyone to have the same minimum,
with the possible exception of the lifeline service households the taxpayer
will be graciously paying for.

Once again you miss the point completely.

It is not the FCC that matters here. It is the ability to deliver a comparable
or superior service that will determine when we move from bundles of linear
streams to bundles of live and on demand content delivered over the Internet.

Your argument is meaningless, as by the time the linear TV services are shut
down, everyone will have gigabit broadband.

Regards
Craig


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