Verizon and Microsoft Partner for IPTV

benore writes "According to the AP, Verizon joins other baby bells SBC and Bellsouth in choosing Microsoft to provide TV content over high speed internet. IPTV, whose technology will deliver TV content in much the same way as VOIP delivers phone service, relys heavily on fiber optic speeds. According to SBC, Microsoft's IPTV technology will allow a home to receive 3 standard TV signals, 1 HD channel, and high-speed Internet access all at the same time."

Comments

Re:Monopolist expanding

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

Baseless attacks and disinformation regarding anti-trust law in this country helps no-one.

It is not a crime to hold a monopoly position in the market. It is a crime to do certain things with that monopoly position. Such things are called anti-trust violations. When you violate them are are not convicted of being a monopoly, you're convicted of anti-trust violations.

Nowhere does anti-trust law say that once you have a monopoly in one area that you can't enter business into a new area. Anti-trust law does say that you can't use your monopoly in one area to obtain a monopoly in another area (ie: refuse to sell windows to that company unless they agree to use Microsoft's IPTV stuff, or make sure windows won't connect to their internet service unless they agree to use Microsoft's IPTV stuff).

But hey, don't let the reality of things get in the way of your rants ...

Re:Performance

[blanks]

Proformance is better, traditional cable is constently sending you all the data about every show, so its a constant stream of everything. With the IPTV it only sends you the data (channel, station, website, etc) that you are currently requesting.

So the proformance is better, but at the cost of "loading" times each time you make a requst for a different channel, station, website, etc.

Re:Read the fine print

[game kid]

You can pay for Microsoft products, or you can not use a computer.

I see...so you can not run Linux on said computer either?

Or MenuetOS?

I mean, I'm sure there must be some other choice for an x86 right? Or television with Internet access for that matter...

Are people reading the article wrong?

[ApheX]

3 SDTV and 1 HDTV channel.

This doesn't mean only ONE channel in the service is HDTV, it means that you can only receive 1 HDTV channel at a time. If I only have 1 TV in my house that is HDTV complaint - thats fine, I can watch any of the HDTV channels on it, however, if I have more than ONE HDTV in the house, they are both going to have to be tuned to the same channel. Also, if you have more than 4 TVs in the house going at the same time, 2 of them would have to be watching the same show. While maybe the assume that many people wouldn't have more than 1 HDTV and 3 SDTVs it almost sounds like a step back to the days of pre-multiswitch satellite, when you had your 1 receiver feeding all the tvs in the house the same show.

I'll keeo my DirecTV and TiVos thanks.