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Students Use 802.11g To Save Cable Industry
LiquidFun writes "Business undergraduates at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business have written an e-business case for one of their case competitions that describes how to use 802.11g wireless technology to distribute cable content, both interactive and broadcast, throughout the home. They mention features like video-on-demand, cable gaming, etc. and even provide enough of the technical specifications necessary to start believing that this could work. They even make available their PowerPoint presentation that they presented to judges from both Cisco & Deloitte Consulting. I'd say a pretty good job for third-year undergrads."
This seems like just another technology that's neat, but not very usefull. Sure on some campuses it would be helpfull, but other than that, i see no End User marketability. Not many people want to broadcast their own TV. Neat technology though...
OMG OMG OMG WTF OMG WTF BBQ STFU RTFM, OMFG OMG OMG OMG ROFL LMAO OMG WTF STFU ROFLMAO
Well, it is good to see we are at least producing students that can actually put something together. Working in the consulting field myself, I seldom see people actually able to pull together a presentation.
On the other hand, 802.11g, like all wireless standards are cooperative shared bandwidth. From what I saw, there was a lot of bandwidth need in the presentation.
Also, with any technology that you are going to drop into the home, there are lots of hidden costs, support, hardware, etc as well as distributing and developing the devices necessary to enable not only wireless but VoiP, VOD, etc, etc... so I would say the cost model is a bit flawed.
Also, 802.11g is overkill for current cable modem speeds (upto 800Mbp/s is what I understand). I am not sure you can get that much more over cable at current cable quality (most houses are RG56 and not even RG8, which is what is recommended).
Also, there is a desire (altough draconian) for cable to use cable and telco to use copper and so on and so on...
Keep up the good thoughts though!
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
What about in denser neighborhoods, or apartments. Where could be many different channels being watched , and open internet connections at the same time. Seems like the "54Mbps" would be used up pretty quickly.
And is it really even 54 Mbps? I seem to recall that the actual transmission rate is much lower.
They want to have the cable companies to combine with the telephone company and game companies and assign everyone a unique ID.
Ya know, a business case is always gonna look good if you're advocating a total media monopoly. Yes, if one company controls every possible communications mechanism we have, they will make lots of money.
This is an evil idea. Regulatory committees exist solely to prevent this from ever happening as it would destroy our way of life.
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My experience with the cable industry has been that they have huge opportunity, but are too risk-averse technologically to make these things happen. They are still, today, ham-strung by the GI/SA encryption duopoly that has made their settop boxes an embarassment in the CE industry.
Wireless doesn't provide the cable industry with any competitive advantage over a telco/satellite alliance. Both can offer the same improved services w/ or w/o wireless. Wireless scares both cable and DSL providers because it will make sharing of broadband that much easier, so they will make efforts to delay its deployment (although I doubt they can have much effect there).
Finally, offering "remote game-play terminals" as suggested in the ppt slides seems like an interesting idea, but ignores the bandwidth/compression costs of 30fps 1920x1080 low-lateny gaming that will be prevalent by the time this idea is executed. HDTV streams are 13-19Mbit/sec, but compressed-on-the-fly game content will be much higher bandwidth. It will also be continuous for the hours of game console usage/day. There's a good reason to put a powerful computer or a game console on the other end of the wire: 3D graphics are a GREAT compression mechanism.
DSL is growing 2x as fast as cable modems? Says who?
Satellite offers more attractive packages? Like?
Cable is already into telephony, both older Circuit Based RF Telephony and newer Voice Over IP using DOCSIS.
good job for third year undergrads? What's that supposed to mean? I hope they didn't mean that in terms of creativity and ideas. College kids are certainly creative in their ideas; some of the best ideas come from students.
The PowerPoint presentation is amateur at best. I hope they had a lot to say when they actually presented it.
This is just a bunch of hoo-ha-hullably that will blow over much like Fiber to the door or Internet via power outlets.
Besides, how would this type of cable service be managed? Illegally reconnecting your wireless cable would really end up being illegal! This due to that fact that it would require 'hacking' and not simply reconnecting a coax cable.
"Students Use 802.11g To Save Cable Industry"
With the current batch of state-mandated monopolies abusing their customers with captive-audience pricing, I'd rather not see the cable industry saved, thank you very much...
...and other high-bandwidth LANs: vobStreamer
The cable industry's problems are of their own making. The consolidators (Time Warner, Comcast, Charter, etc.) WAY OVERPAID for the systems they own and now they can't afford to run (or even maintain) them. Add the Rigas greed of Adelphia to the recipe too. Now they try to pass their bad business decisions off onto their consumers? I don't think so! Here in Santa Monica, CA you will pay over 40 bucks a month for basic analog service. Over half the channels on this service are over the air stations. Dish TV offers more 'premium' (that is not over the air channels) then cable does...for about HALF the price! So, I pay 50 bucks for an antenna one time, 22 bucks for 55 channels of Dish, and say SCREW CABLE! Not only that, cable's big advantage used to be that you got a better picture with their product. Not any more! Their picture SUCKS, with herringbones and left sided ghosts (both a result of bad system design and especially maintenance) on over half the channels (including HBO). They put out a lousy product at an overinflated price and I shall not shed a single tear when they all go into bankruptcy. Look, if I pay $250,000 for a house that's worth $50,000 that's MY problem. If I try to make it my tenants' problem, they'll leave...which is exactly what's happening with cable.
*yawn* This is a business case and not even the one that won. Possible reasons: unrealistic bandwidth assumptions, overly techy powerpoint background, setting in an idealistic world. In any case, this isn't even a very interesting topic. Must be a slow news day.
Was it really necessary to specify that she was Puerto Rican? Do you really think we care about details like that?
How long? They already do, DVD players and CSS for one. Lexmark printers are another.
If this becomes popular, I forsee xbox hackers running linux and snort not only to leech bandwidth, but to steal cable- it's an ideal platform to do it.
And I doubt MS would be too upset that you're stealing from (and thus lowering the revenue of) AOL-TW...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.