Aussie Government: No License Needed For Streamers

David Waters writes: "The Australian Government has quickly decided on the future of digital streaming coming into Australia. Streamers will escape licencing laws." Here is the story, from Australian IT, which mentions in passing a fairly bald truth: "Had the Government decided to limit audio and video streaming, the development of Australia's high-speed internet industry [...] would have been severely curtailed." Errr ... yes. Yes, it would.

Comments

Just a matter of time

[Metrol]

When (and if) streaming data starts getting into competing with the old style media television in the US, you can darn near guarantee congressional involvement.

Case in point, do you recall a few years back a scuffle between the cable industry and local broadcasters? Them local folks were griping that they were having to compete with other local broadcasters from outside their range. Nevermind the fact that they may have been sending a crappier signal, or had poorly chosen times for their program schedule. The whining and moaning kicked in about not being "fair".

This whole silliness got into the FCC's realm to correct. What in the hell the FCC has to do with a closed network system like cable programming is still a bit of a mystery to me. Anyhow, from this we now have shows blacked out from channels outside the local area if that same program is being shown on a local broadcaster. The consumer can go pound sand for all that the government cares.

What does this have to do with streaming data on the Internet? It's a closed system that doesn't involve broadcasting controlled frequencies. Thing is, as with the cable snafu you can just bet that we'll be seeing legislation down the road "protecting" the local broadcaster's from a situation that's not "fair" for them to compete in. It'll also be a fine place to have the government step in to starting to get a handle on all this free flow of info via the FCC.

I'm not talking about 2 weeks from now here. Nobody is seriously looking at impeding a still emerging market. That, and broadband hasn't yet penetrated deep enough to be a concern for the NAB. You can mark your calendars now though. At the present growth of broadband, you can damn sure bet we'll be seeing this coming at us within 2 to 3 years. It'll be a contest of a bunch of start up dot-coms who need to have Washington DC pointed out to them on the map versus the major broadcasters who have millions flowing into both major political parties on a very regular basis.

Aside from the money there will also be the issue of exposure on the minds of the politicians. They absolutely rely on traditional media to bring in their votes. How many folks in congress do you think are looking to bite the hand that feeds them?

In all honesty, I'm probably way off base here. What concerns me at this point is the stage is set for such a thing to occur. Here's hoping that I'm very wrong.

Re:Just a matter of time

[Skapare]

Initially the FCC was not involved. My grandfather started a cable TV system in 1952 and the only government involved was the city telling him how to wire things when it involved their streets or poles. He didn't have a franchise or anything. Installation fees were $250 (which is a helluva lot more than that in today's dollars). There were 2 channels both from over 140 miles away. He had one employee. Since it was deep in the mountains of West Virginia, there was no TV without it.

You are correct about the basic reasons the FCC got involved. At first it was simple stuff like non-duplication. Why would I turn to the slightly snowier out of town DX station to get an NBC program when my local NBC affiliate carried it crystal clear?. The rule didn't apply then even if the very same show was time shifted. Apparently the broadcasters feared that people would watch local shows from the distant station and just not change the channel when the network program came on. It only got worse.

Some regulations on issues such as leakage from cable lines were necessary. Some special cable channels had the same frequencies as the aircraft radio services. Those should remain, but will obviously become more and more irrelevant as cable systems gradually migrate to immense bandwidth digital fiber.

Don't discount the funding potentials of the coming landline digital broadcasting services. While big corporations did get caught napping when the Internet came along, be aware that they have now woken up. They may not understand it all, yet, but they realize the huge potential of the technology that this has created. While I'm sure many big broadcasters will whine, others will invest. It's probably the small broadcasters that will loose out. Because the Internet itself already has a head start on this technology, I think the momentum is there to the point where it cannot be stopped even by the FCC, even if they wanted to, which I doubt because of the big name financing that is getting into this which will make the pre-Internet cable conglomerates look like Ma and Pa Cable TV partnership.

I just hope the FCC puts the vacated radio spectrum to proper use (handheld wireless access).