[opendtv] Re: Spectrum is too valuable

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 07:20:16 -0500

On Nov 15, 2015, at 8:34 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


That's the BS. This is your habitual modus operandi, Craig, hardly the first
time. What I explained is exactly what DOSCIS 3.1 does, and I even gave you
the link to check it out for yourself, right at the start.

I provided that link when I calculated what the theoretical the bits per Hz is
for DOCSIS 3.1. The calculation was limited to 900 MHz of downstream
bandwidth, because that is the maximum possible in the 1 GHz HFC systems
deployed today.

You just found the numbers in the document for a 1.8 GHz system, which may be
possible if the industry upgrades their infrastructure to support the higher
bandwidth.

The only math you did, which was great that you did it all, was to compute
capacity on a hypothetical 900 MHz cable system, from a spectral efficiency
value you found.

That is not hypothetical. That is all that is the maximum available if you turn
off all of the existing services offered today.

But you DID NOT inform yourself how DOCSIS 3.1 works, how it does what it
claims, to improve drastically over what DOCSIS 3.0 does. And yet, this was
the second time I explained all of this.

I not only covered that, I asked Ron how it works - i.e. how OFDM and QAM are
used together to gain this added efficiency. If you can remember, this all
started because we were arguing about DOCSIS 3.0 and its use of MPEG-TS and 6
MHz channels. By the way, other than correctly claiming that DOCSIS 3.0 useS
MPEG-2TS you explained NOTHING. I did the research and the calculations...

And Google tells us that about half of their subscribers - with
broadband speeds measured in HUNDREDS of Mbps

Or this. Look again at the title of this thread. We are supposed to be
discussing how cable companies have to spend a whole lot more money with
expensive manual labor, if they continue to waste spectrum on well over a
hundred MPEG-2 TS broadcast channels.

Huh?

Manual labor?

They are not wasting a thing. They are making a ton of money off of the MVPD
service delivered in that spectrum - a service used by about 40 million homes
in the U.S. And they are STILL able to provide ever increasing broadband speeds
in other spectrum bands on the same cables.

You are the one suggesting that they turn off these highly profitable services,
that for now provide the most efficient use of that spectrum, so they can force
everyone to move to Internet delivery of TV programming. You still will not
concede that the "broadcast" nature of the MVPD service is more efficient than
forcing every home to move to UDP streams, not to mention the higher quality
than YOU are watching in less than 5 Mbps via DSL. Your argument is that 5-10
Mbps is adequate for TV.

Do you not get that offering hundreds of Mb/s per broadband customer only
makes matters worse? Do you not get that the size of the PON gets even
smaller, compared to what is the norm today, if your HFC network has to
remain 900 MHz, *and* offer 100s of Mb/s per household? What are you arguing
about, Craig?

Reality.

The network does not need to remain 900 MHz or 1 GHz, but there must be good
economic justification to upgrade it to 1.788 GHz. Perhaps that will happen in
time if the extra bandwidth is needed. But for the next few years, DOCSIS 3.1
and recovering spectrum from other services gives them the extra bits they need.

It should be obvious that every household does not pay for the 100 Mbps
service; Cox offers three levels of service here in Gainesville today, starting
at 15 Mbps. Households that ALSO take the MVPD bundle do not need the higher
bit rates for 3-4 HD streams, as they get most of their TV from the MPEG-2TS
streams.

You talk about the waste of spectrum with analog and digital MVPD services. The
analog spectrum can be recovered if the system is willing to either:
1. Lose the customers on that tier;
2. Provide STBs at little or no cost to move them to the digital tier.

And a significant portion of those digital channels can be recovered if the
bundles shrink. It only takes about six channels to deliver a service like
Sling.

With VOD and SVOD services eliminating the need for hundreds of rerun channels,
there is a very real likelihood that we will see the MVPD bundles shrink to 50
channels, perhaps less.

What this says is that we are moving to hybrid services, with a portion of the
bandwidth dedicated to live linear streams, and a portion to UDP streams
delivered via the Internet. And it is likely we will see more Virtual MVPD
services next year that offer both.

The fact that half of Google fiber customers ALSO take the MVPD bundle should
tell you something. Would you care to explain why they do this?

And please do not tell us they are Luddites.

Think, Craig. The legacy MVPD model creates monopolistic gatekeepers.

No longer. That was the legacy. Today almost everyone has multiple choices. The
article Monty posted yesterday included some FALSE info that an apartment
dweller could only get Comcast - that DBS dishes were not allowed.

But the FCC issued an order years ago that says anyone can put up a Dish. The
only limitation is the side of the building you are on, as you Ned line of
sight to the satellite. But even if they could not put up a Dish, they were
still buying a fast broadband service from Comcast, so they could access Sling.

However, in the end, they decided to re-up with Comcast. Why?

Because the content they wanted is not available over the Internet.

This is not difficult to grasp, so quit the senseless arguing. The only
reason you have more than that one choice of source now, Craig, is that you
are lucky enough to have a **mandated-to-be-neutral** broadband link on that
cable.

I have had multiple choices since the late '90s Bert. Now I am getting MORE
choices.

That's it. If that broadband pipe were not neutral, you would still be stuck
with the single monopolistic gatekeeper.

Do you even think about how absurd it is to make such a statement?

No, Craig, you did nothing of the sort. I was watching this stuff BEFORE any
HDMI/HDCP, and it was pre-H.264. It was not HD material. I was watching over
analog RGB, using Flash or Windows Media Player, depending on the TV network,
most likely H.263 compression (very constrained MPEG-2 compression). That's
how I noticed problems when H.264 came on the scene, Craig. At a certain
point, the PC had to skip frames, and the video became jerky. This had not
been the case previously.

You were not watching entire programs. Perhaps some clips. Perhaps you MAY have
been going to some pirate sites that were making complete shows available for
download.

As I pointed out yesterday, the congloms would not stream full programs to a PC
in 2005 because the content was not protected. That was not possible on Windows
PCs until 2008.

So, prove to me that the networks didn't begin streaming until 2008. And in
any event, even 2008 is many years ago now, Craig. The congloms have been
doing this for a very long time. It didn't take Apple, or some other limited
use box, to graciously allow us to watch TV online, on demand or otherwise.

The modern era of OTT TV really started to become a reality in 2010, largely
because of the improvements in broadband speeds. We did not switch from DSL to
cable broadband until 2012, and we did that largely because DSL was inadequate
for the streaming services that were becoming available.

As for the boxes you love to hate, they are the means by which the vast
majority of homes that use streaming TV services get the program on the TV. PCs
only represent a small and declining percentage.


Regards
Craig

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