[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: Netflix Users Watch 10 TV Shows a Week
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 01:41:12 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
Given the fact that the FCC claims that 17% of U.S. homes lack access
to what they define as broadband, clearly broadcast TV still serves
its basic mission.
First of all, what you say here would only apply to OTA broadcast, not to cable
MPEG-2 TS or analog broadcast.
We just did the math Bert. The cable industry cannot do it today
without nearly doubling the number of PONs,
And secondly, the number YOU gave, 500 households average per PON, can be
retained, while providing each household with plenty of Internet TV spectrum.
Don't forget that I'm still using under 2 Mb/s for this. Not saying this is
ample, but surely 5+ Mb/s is ample. So those who insist on multiple
simultaneous high quality HD streams would work to move that average figure
down to 300, while those who are satisfied with fewer simultaneous high quality
HD streams would move the average up, even way up.
Let's say that one hypothetical PON is used by people who are satisfied with 5
Mb/s "wideband" for their household. How many homes could be served by this
PON, if all the broadcast spectrum were assigned to "wideband" Internet
service? Answer: 1140 homes. Not bad, eh? So mix up these households, some
bandwidth hogs and others not, and a figure of 500 homes can still apply.
and then you need to accommodate nearly 40 million DBS subscribers.
Yes, some of the DBS subscribers buy broadband from the cable
In urban and suburban areas, they likely buy their broadband already, either
from cable or from telco systems. So that's pretty much covered. Those who have
no access to broadband now tend to be in rural communities, and there are, or
there can be, different options for them. For rural homes, satellite broadband
is already available, and terrestrial WISPs either exist or are being set up.
The required infrastructure is not in place and will not be for a
number of years.
The infrastructure is mostly already in place. For example, I can get either
Cox or FiOS any time I want. The transition can happen more rapidly than you
think. And over and above any of these considerations, repurposing the cable
broadcast spectrum to broadband or "wideband" can only HELP solve this problem.
What has my repeated position on ATSC 3.0 been?
That they need to compete with the telcos and cable systems and build
out a wireless broadband infrastructure with high cell density.
Not quite. My repeated position is that the FOTA broadcast aspects of TV can,
and probably should remain ATSC 1.0, as long as OTA broadcast is used in the
US. To support 2-way service, the broadcaster *COULD* reinvent themselves as
wireless broadband providers, taking on a whole new business model that has
little to do with TV broadcasting, or they could leave that up to the incumbent
cellcos. (To support Internet delivery of their/conglom content, broadcasters
could fill the role of CDNs).
I think that the advanced ATSC 3.0 broadcast schemes may have more appeal in
other countries than the US, countries where unmetered Internet broadband is
still very hard to come by.
Bert
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