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Undisclosed Markets to Participate in IPTV Trial
prostoalex writes "Associated Press has the story that three communications corporations are doing test trials of IP-based television in undisclosed markets. From the article: "SBC Communications, the dominant local phone company from the Midwest to California, is deploying a full-blown IPTV system that it plans to launch by year-end in at least a few undisclosed markets. Verizon Communications plans to offer some interactive IP-based features on top of a conventional digital cable service... BellSouth has expressed doubt about whether a cable rollout makes financial sense, the company sees enough potential to trial IPTV technology in undisclosed markets." Currently about 1 mln Europeans get their television via phone line."
..i'll just be glad when we start to get HDTV signals
It's sorely disappointing to continue to see this attitude. Many of us "bemoan" Microsoft because their software doesn't work, exactly what this analyst claims they're trying to avoid. Do you get fired if you choose Microsoft and it doesn't work? What's wrong with this picture?
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
This is why Verizon is rolling out fiber to the home (http://www.verizon.net/fios/). They're afraid of the cable companies with their one stop shop for phone, TV, and internet, and the telcos need to do the same to avoid extinction.
So we'll get the crappy content you get on TV; combined with the poor consistency in quality of service and poor customer support you get from an ISP; combined with the restrictive DRM, poor interoperability, and vendor lock-in you get from Microsoft software (they're providing the tech, look at the article).
It's the worst of all possible worlds. I sure can't wait until they find a way to make it mandatory.
This sounds like client server or multicast....but what we really need is something that can help launch p2p iptv or that can be morphed into p2p iptv.
The problem with this SBC proposal is that the content is still corporate-controlled.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
It takes special cabling... So no.
How is "IP" television new? I thought all television was copyrighted from the moment of broadcast.
My Daughter will never get off the phone line. Ever.
TELUS has been trialing IP based TV in Edmonton. It will launch soon in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.
Wake me onces TV companies begin to distribute shows (either paid or free w/ commercials) over something like BitTorrent. If they release an "offical" video file onto the web and then attack anyone who distributes a version without commercials, then there won't be that big of a problem with P2P sites since everyone who watches the show will also see the commercials. The only people who would object would be cable TV providers since they no longer have a purpose. This would also get around any FCC problems.
To make sure people watch the commercials, you can use a custom player/P2P app that disable fast forwarding during commercials the first time it is downloaded or some other method to make sure they watch X seconds commercials for every Y minutes of the show.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
Here in Canada, at least in Manitoba, they've had TV over the phone line for a little while now.
Here's their website.
I don't know first hand what people's experiences have been with it though.
Buffering (30%)... ... ....
Buffering (40%)...
Buffering (100%)
Playing 10s
Buffering (10%)
Enough said...
TV is so much crap, I'm done watching it. Actually I haven't been watching TV for the past two years and I guess it's unworthy of the bandwidth. But how much exatcly does it take to send a proper HDTV signal?
I assume that in such network you're only receiving what you're watching instead of all the channels like it is right now?
Would IP-based TV be monitored by the FCC since there are a limited number of IP addresses, much in the same way there are a limited number of standard TV frequencies? If so, I'm not sure I want more FCC controlled media.
Would that be the American million or the European million?
I'm not even sure that this is going to be feasible in the U.S. anytime soon, but in places like Japan where there is access to affordable and real 'broadband' access, IPTV might be able compete with traditional TV right now!
I agree-- a p2p system to distribute tv is the way to go. And it can happen to much of America if low cost municipal WIFI takes off. That in and off itself would be sufficient to get enough data across, and the added competition would precipitate a sharp drop in broadband prices.
As for supporting production, how about embedded ads in the video? product placement?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Champaign Telephone http://www.ctcn.net/tv.htm/ has been doing this for a while now. The way it was explained to me, each TV channel is an ATM network. Changing channels on the remote issues commands to drop the current network, and join the new one. Yes, there is a lag when changing channels, but not huge. If you hit the "channel up" button 25 times, it doesn't join then drop 25 channels in a row, it goes directly to the final one selected.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
how is this different from digital cable? it is that cable isnt required? I have some friends that would enjoy this if you can get it over a dsl connection...
TV over a phone line has been available in Winnipeg, Canada, for a number of years now. It is being offered via our local phone company. You can get both your DSL and your TV through the phone company. The phone company's website is light on technical details. The equipment was provided by a company called "Next Level Communications" and I believe that it has been bought up by Motorola. See http://broadband.motorola.com/nlc/ . The actual device is called the "N3 Residential Gateway".
I work for the local Telco/ISP, and we rolled this out over 3 years ago.
Runing a Myrio system. Hardware is MainStreets or something like that.
It's ADSL to the house with a modem. From there, the customer can have up to 2 STB, and unlimited PCs with 3M down, 128k up bandwidth for internet.
Each STB requires 3M, so if they have low quality lines, they can only have one box.
The STB is a linux based PC booting from the NIC, with software loaded on a smart card type drive.
We even have a PPV video on demand system. You can choose the movie you want, and it's streamed from our servers to you. You can stop it, rewind, fast forward, etc. for up to 24 hours. Each movie is streamed out individually to each customer.
I work for a small publicly-owned ISP serving an island in Southeast Alaska and we're currently selecting vendors for our own IPTV offering. Many, many small telcos all over the country are in the same initial stages of IPTV projects -- either evaluating or getting ready to make the leap.
Most of the hardware we've been looking at uses MPEG2 encoding but in the near future the standard is likely to be either MPEG4 or some form of WMV. Microsoft has been aggressively pushing its video codecs and they seem to be gaining traction in the marketplace. However, they're not gaining as much acceptance as they otherwise might in the video world because at this point their reputation precedes them.
To a small player like us their previous behavior in other markets is more than a little alarming. A Comcast- or SBC-sized provider presumably might have some amount of leverage with Microsoft but what kind of consideration can you expect when you're a tiny little speck on the map in a place few people even know exists? Choosing a proprietary Microsoft standard over a reasonably open industry standard could leave you at Microsoft's mercy and, well, they're not known for mercy, are they?
Exactly. I think that the cable companies are the ones that should be afraid right now. Fiber to the door will blow them away.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Here in Calgary, Alberta....Canada.
Shaw Communications(the cable company) just launched VOIP. Its a blow to TELUS(the phone company) which is going to launch IPTV someday.
Their IPTV solution apperently sucks beyond belief, and they can't get it to work very effectively. They were doing trials in the regional offices more then a year ago now, and it couldn't get it working in half of them.
Which indicates they had the basic infastructure in place that long ago, and they have had over a year to work on the problems and to roll out fiber to the reginal neighbourhoods.
But even with a partly working system a year ago they are still not ready to start a mass home trial within the deveopment teams.
Bye bye TELUS
If you can't fix it ask the 3 year old down the street.
SBC and Microsoft working together to send us our TeeVee signal?
Why do I envision a mutant version of WebTV?
*Shudder*
I would swallow carpet tacks than accept service from this flatulent combine of corporations...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
It'd be really hard to create a successful service without disclosing to consumers exactly where the service is available.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I can't see that the current internet infrastructure can support anything like the kind of bandwidth needed for this.
Millions/Billions of simultaneous full res video streams will surely bring everything to a crawl.
So I wonder what thier long term plans are for that deal they setup not to long ago with EchoStar(DISHNetwork)?
I have to return some videotapes...
...the possibilities we were told about when it came to sending communications over electrical lines? (or is that to remain local (@home) only?)
becuase i check there every week to get the last weeks episodes of my favorite shows. sure, i'm a week behind, but its not as if mind numbing television is time sensitive.
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
Even for very high bandwidth needs (which is where subscription multi-media such as TV and Internet are going) in densely populated high usage areas? Wireless is nice, but not for everything.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Iowa Public Television has always been an awesome station.
Manitoba Telecom Systems have been serving digital television over DSL lines for a while (in Winnipeg only right now, but if a "small" operator like MTS can make it work in a small city like Winnipeg, that's probably good news for the rest of us.)
MTS TV, and FAQ.
the possibilities for some TVoIP (we don't HAVE to use Microsoft's protocol, do we?) can be pretty exciting and lucrative. and because the bandwidth is high enough, it would make high-quality video-calling and conferencing simple and commonplace. not to mention the ability to easily share pictures and home videos, or possibly even digitally broadcast video or audio from your own home.
if someone wants to give me a few million dollars, i can make us rich! as long as the bells and sbc don't monopolize the fiber industry, we should all be pretty excited of what this can bring in the next decade, even if it's terrible for the first few years, most things of this nature are anyway.
Allendale Communications in Allendale, Michigan is already providing IPTV. Pannaway is providing the 'triple play' solution with voice, data, and tv at the local telco.
I think it's good that local telco's are adapting so quickly to stay in the race. With the lines already there for use, it makes it easy to dominate the local area. Personally, I would like to see more competition, instead of one massive provider ruling the IPTV market --not that companies like microsoft are bad for anyone... [sorry, low blow]
Hello free (read: pirated) TV!
Add that with the usual rather limited bitrate that IPTV uses, and perhaps licensing issues (seeing how VC1 has 12 companies that popped up saying they're violating their IP, and that VC1 is WM9 based). Add that microsft just singed up a deal with Macrovision (taking some possibilities away from you - and also passing you the licensing fees to pay). And from what I recall, WM Audio isn't such a great codec either. It's probably adequate for boring TV stuff, but still sucks to settle for "less".
The DVB standard is calling for iso mpeg-4 (the AVC kind, with AAC audio) for the next set top boxes. It's also going to be used (or at least the codecs can be used) on upcoming HD DVD solutions (both), and it's starting to get more popular amongst "encoders". But i guess they wouldn't want to use something that's not heavily DRM'ed.
I hope they settle for something else, but I bet microsoft will somwhoe make it attractive to them (and not for their customers) so they can sell thousands of boxes, and have them all forced to stay with them, no matter what's happens next, as changing the existing setup (both on broadcaster side and all customer's boxes) would be expensive and troublesome.
And I'm starting to get a bit worried about everything coming to my house by IP means. I already have a lot of things depending on it, and dozens of ports in use. I wonder where their box would fit on my network, and how it would connect/interact with my router/NAT/firewall, VoIP "adapter" and home lan in general. QoS could become an issue as well.
///<sig
One word COMPETITION!! now maybe comcast will have to lower prices in order to compete. Right now they have you locked in to cable for your TV and Internet because if you drop internet TV price goes up too much to make it worth it. Landlord wont allow A Satellite dish and my room mate wouldnt survive without ESPN.
Will Americans who come over to Australia for 12months as exchange students be able to still watch their shows thanks to VoIP? How about us aussies? We often don't get American shows, will we be able to sign up for American VoIP and get it while in Australia?
Like other places in Canada, it's been available in Saskatchewan for quite a while now. Most communities had it rolled out in 2002.
Sasktel.com
"Max"
$C 45.00/month
$C 5.00 discount per month if bundled with either a long distance package or DSL, $C 10.00 if both
135 TV channels (some at additional cost to basic package)
45 streaming Audio channels (commercial free); included in basic
33 streaming commercial Radio channels, included in basic
Video-on-Demand movies, included in basic
I'd link to it, but only the home page is regular HTTP; as soon as you click on a link you're on a secure connection with lots of javaScript; works best with IE. Sasktel dot com if you're interested in checking it out.
On a related note, they're rolling out WiMax right now (30 Km range); been running for 2 years in small test communities and a full-scale rollout will be up (final test) in Kamloops BC this year.
Kamloops is a good place to test; it's in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. They plan to roll out wide-scale WiMax in 12-18 months in urban areas of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Indianapolis is one of the "undisclosed" markets.
Here in central PA, our small phone company has been offering TV over DSL for about a year (both in Lewisburg and State College).
The phone company has also teamed up with a local college to allow their TV content to be streamed to set top boxes in the college dorms.
Bucknell University chose this plan because it allowed them to offer cable tv without the added cost of refitting all of the dorms with CATV cable.
During the pilot, the college also tested a PC based TV option, but the client wasn't quite ready for primetime.
One exciting aspect of this technology is that in the future, the university might be able to shop around for the best TV Service provider.
You're probably right. Chances are, we're all going to be seeing HDTV in MPEG-4 part 10 -- also known as H.264 or AVC. It'll be in Blu-Ray, HD DVD, DirecTV, and QuickTime 7... not to mention a whole slew of other applications. I wouldn't be surprised to see cable companies using it... plus the telecos.
It's an amazing codec since it actually allows stellar HD at surprisingly low bitrates.
You're also right that Mircosoft has an uphill battle to fight considering nobody really wants to give them control over what will be the future of video. Microsoft's only playing card seems to be licensing. If they can undercut MPEGLA, companies will chose it over AVC.
But for simplicity's sake... I hope Microsoft loses. They have just as much a right as any other organization at submitting a standard... but what's better about WMV? If the current incarnation is any indication, it'll be Windows-centric and will leave everyone outside of the platform left virtually stranded. In the grand scheme of things, Microsoft will use it as leverage for future Windows purchases... great for them.. but what about everyone else?
I just wish all this wasn't tied to such limited technologies. I'm waiting for a TV that has an open interface for changing channels, so that anything plugged into its control port can do any operation on it. IR is unreliable, but look what has been done with universal remote controls. TiVo tries to use "IR blasters" to change TV channels, but it's unreliable. I would like to see some sort of open hardware communications standard emerge in TV's and stereos, so that anything (eg my computer) can connect to the unit's serial control port and do anything it wants to with it, reliably.
Currently hooked on AMP
With USWest. Basically it was DSL. They called it VDSL or something similar. Worked exactly like digital cable, nothing special about it.
One of the things that both programmers (TV programmers, that is) and consumers usually fail to "get" about IPTV is that it takes us completely away from the channel model of programming. A channel is a set of programs - just like a DJ's set is a selection of tracks. There's nothing intrinsic about the programming - it exists because TV spectrum is limited, so programmers pick the programs that they feel will get them the highest ratings in the market.
But when you move to IPTV, where you can send a highly individualized, per-program stream to each user's STB, why do you need a channel? Can't the customer just directly select the programs they're interested in - from a very, very, very long list of available programs - and watch those? Why do you need a TV programmer at that point?
Of course, there are all sorts of licensing and copyright issues which need to be observed in that situation (so that everyone involved gets to make some money) but that's just a legal nicety.
The idea of having "channels" as anything besides a convienence when we move to IPTV is ludicrous. I mean, we don't have channels on the web, do we?
I talked to a SBC employee who said that they are testing Fiber to the premises and providing phone, highspeed internet, and tv content from a satellite provider (Direct TV or Dish Network). They are testing it in new housing developments in Southeastern Michigan.
This way, when the cable goes out, you can't call to complain!
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
It already does: Check out Yahoo! BB.
From the two articles, i don't get everything.
First, why do you need IP for TV ? over ADSL, it's a lot better to send it in raw ATM. Of course, you can use IP to broadcast TV to the DSLAMs. And if it's IPTV to play TV on the computer, what exactly is the use ? Isn't it better to get it directly on TV ?
Then, why do you need Microsoft for that ? Are these Bells not using MPEG2 or MPEG4 for TV ?
And, 1mln users in Europe for TV over ADSL ? It's very very low ! There are about 700 000-800 000 only in France: France #2 ISP provides TV over ADSL as part of their triple play solution, and they have reached 600 000 people subscribed to the triple play offer.
Also, their triple play offer, and especially the freebox, is running Linux, like most of their whole architecture, so how exactly the Bells' choice is a coup for Microsoft: thet are entering a market very late. In France, all of it has already been taken, with the 3 major ISPs already offering TV over ADSL. And I can't see how Italy could top that, with their currently expensive ADSL.
Moreover, they're already working on providing HDTV through their triple play offering.
So i think either i missed the point, or both articles are (at least partially) wrong: some other people explain here that several ISPs are also offering triple play offers in the US or Canada. Can someone explain me ?
Since apparently you've been investigating Microsoft, I am curious to understand what they truly have.
I watched Microsoft's keynote at CES 2005 and I have been present at several broadcast tradeshows. (Click the link "100 K" or "300 K", the IPTV demo is 47'30 into the stream).
I really felt uncomfortable with all the lies. One of them is that by design "IPTV allows instantaneous channel change". What Microsoft is showing is probably a set-top box that decodes 4 streams at the same time. What amount bandwidth does that use? Probably more than you're willing to spend. And, the fact that it's IP doesn't bring anything new here.
What you will never hear from Microsoft is how much power is required to run their applications. I suppose a quite powerful PC.
I'm interested in knowing how does that affect your thinking. Apart from the codec and DRM matters, do you think that Microsoft is a serious actor in the IPTV world?
I've got Free here in Paris, of my 20MBps connection I lose 2Mbps when switching on the TV.
Picture quality is better than analog cable was in the US, channel changing is instant (much better than digital cable, satellite or HDTV.) When offered by the broadcast, dual language audio is supported. The box even has an optical audio out port!
The best is the price..30 euros gets me 100+ basic channels, 20 Mbps internet, and a fixed IP telephone with unlimited free calls to France and 3 cents a minute to the USA. It's almost too good to be true. The freebox hardware itself was designed by free and runs Linux.
http://free.fr
> First, why do you need IP for TV ? over ADSL, it's a lot better to send it in raw ATM
What everyone expects from TV over DSL is interactivity. People want video-on-demand, they want to pause or record live, they want to provision their account, etc. At the same time, broadcasters and telcos are looking for new revenue streams. Without IPTV, the features mentioned above would only work if you add a hard-drive to each set-top box (STB). However, for deployments to hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the cost per STB is too high.
The two-way communication between the set-top box and the server is what IPTV brings. And for that, HTTP and RTSP are example of protocols to use. (HTTP for sophisticated client/server transactions, and RTSP for fine control over the real-time streaming). I don't know how the sophisticated features would work without the IP, HTTP, RTSP, and RTP layers.
One of the nearby cities, Kingston upon Hull (or just Hull as it's generally known) has had IPTV for some years. The hardware uses an ARM processor and the set top box version of RISC OS.
Interesting you can thank the privatisation of the telephone system for this development. The telephone system here in the UK used to be run and managed by the Post Office. Then when it was sold off the whole lot was bought by British Telecom (now BT) except for the network around Hull which was bought by the local Council (local government). Eventually the was privatised and became Kingston Communications who were for a while, the only phone company that wasn't BT. So the government restrictions on BT supplying television didn't apply and Kingston set up their own digital television service.
SBC has totally ruined their rep in my eyes. I will never do business with this horrible company ever again.
I hope they die a miserable death and the remains fed to rabid hamsters which are then fed through a chipper, sun dried, doused with deisel & then burned.
I really hate SBC.
Interesting.
If it is true that everything is in raw ATM at Free.fr, I suppose that they wrote some kind of a communication layer for making requests to the DSLAM. If you know of a place where to find further information, I'm interested.
How many times must we say it. The internet is not digital TV ! Oh... wait a minute...
But seriously I think the ability to get TV over the internet could be excellent all round. The consumer hordes can then use the internet TV services and the rest of us can use the "good old" internet.
Hopefully all the idiots who make flash only, or plugin riddled, "crudsites" will all then fuck off to build internet TV related sites and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
Hmmm... I can dream can't I ?
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Thanks for the link. I will read the paper since I can read French.