Where Will Broadband's Killer App Come From?

tripletwentie asks: "Here's an interesting story from ZDnet that talks about the success and the pitfalls of the world adopting broadband, and how regular Joes like us will change the world the way we know it today. Is it really the idea that you can get any piece of music for free that will attract people to buying broadband or maybe the idea of streaming movies straight from your computer to your flat screen tv? Sure, broadband in the house will become a utility like having electricity in the house, but what will get us there? I would love to hear the thoughts and ideas of the programming world." While the article is breathy in anticipation of the promise of broadband, I think its an intersting thing to note that media companies are also in an interesting position, in the fact that certain media companies are already in control of the technology behind broadband itself. Can anyone say "potential conflicts of interest"?

Comments

the killer app for whom?

[akb]

The question of broadband's killer app must be embedded in a consideration of who will control the broadband marketplace. Consider Lawerence Lessig relating a Sony exec's experiences in trying to get video streaming deployed over IP on broadband networks. The exec said a cable operator told him "we will shut down broadband before we ever allow this technology on our lines". From a talk he gave at the Conference on the Public Domain, here's the realvideo of the panel he was on "From Anarchist Software to Peer2Peer Culture: the Public Domain in Bandwidth, Software and Content". The comment is about 10minutes in (watch the whole thing its amazing).

Apparently that cable operator thinks there is some advantage to controlling the content that flows over their lines. P2p networks, open access and a broadband internet don't seem to fit into their vision of broadband, seems likely that they'll build closed content broadband networks so that they get to define what the killer app is.

Consider:

• Asymetric bandwidth. Guess why bandwidth is asymetric, they don't want content competition from their customers.
  
  
• ATT, the nation's largest cable operator, at one point made noises about asking a percentage of the ecommerce that flowed over their pipes to the Internet.
  
  
• the "Cisco whitepaper". Cisco marketing equipment to cable internet operators to make competitors traffic slower. Analysis.
  
  

Oh, the cable operators' killer app is interactive television. Perfect marketing information that they can sell, shoving products in your face. Is that your killer app?

Re:no killer app needed

[tripletwentie]

"I mean, as it is, people are waiting months to get DSL installs, so obviously there's enough of a demand for the service."

Just because the wait time for a residential or even a business user is over a month is not because of the demand of the product. It's due to the fact that you have a process to setup your connection that involves many third parties, and getting everyone to communicate is the bottleneck.

When you call your ISP to get DSL installed, they have to contact your local telco to create a circuit at your CO. That process of getting your telco to create the circuit is what's so time consuming. Then a contracter is called out to test the lines and set up the circuit at your location. There are many steps to setting it up, it actually takes 3 to 6 weeks even if no one else is signing up.