Slashdot Mirror
Intel Streaming Media Service Faces An Uphill Battle for Bandwidth
Lucas123 writes "Intel this year plans to sell a set-top box and Internet-based streaming media service that will bundle TV channels for subscribers, but cable, satellite and ISPs are likely to use every tool at their disposal to stop another IP-based competitor, according to experts. They may already be pressuring content providers to charge Intel more or not sell to it. Another scenario could be that cable and ISP providers simply favor their own streaming services with pricing models, or limit bandwidth based on where customers get their streamed content. For example, Comcast could charge more for a third-party streaming service than for its own, or it could throttle bandwidth or place caps on it to limit how much content customer receives from streaming media services as it did with BitTorrent. Meanwhile, Verizon is challenging in a D.C. circuit court the FCC's Open Internet rules that are supposed to ensure there's a level playing field."
This is why we can't have nice things.
The illusion of choice is a powerful thing. The internet almost gave us the real thing, but the content and music is still firmly under the control of RIAA and MPAA. When their stranglehold ends, the last ISP standing will either be the most open, or the one with the best walled garden.
There's still room for competition, so lets hope it leads to a free-er market, at least.
That's what you get with vertically integrated companies. If you buy into one part of their "stack", they will ensure you will not go to their competitors for the remainder of the stack or try and tax you if you do, if they can get away with it. In the case of ISPs who also sell content, that's why we need net neutrality.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Intel's larger problem will be that as soon as it is widely recognized by the public and the press that their set-top boxes have build in cameras and microphones their market will dry up instantly. There is already a bill in congress to put a stop to this sort of thing.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It is time to allow multiple cables into a home. There is simply no excuse for allowing one company to control cable access. I am aware that technology is allowing cable to carry more and more data or content but allowing one company to set rules, speeds, limits or prices is wrong. In my home only one miserable TV channel can be had without cable. Home dish services generally do not have good reputations here. So why not have five separate cables running into a home? Many areas can support such an idea.
After years working in broadcast engineering on the development end I do have to say this would cause a paradigm shift. The provider of the hardware wants to enter the commercial space for television? As much as Intel would want to remain a separate entity many more operations would adapt to their practices inevitably. Rather than challenge Intel I think these telecom companies should allow Intel to offer their services and really put the customer in control. Everyone should be able to choose what they want when they pay for television and internet services it shouldn't be the provider who makes that decision for you.
In Canada, the HDTV transition has been an usability disaster. The cable boxes are simply to complex. If someone puts an easy-to-use HDTV-over-internet product together - the cable companies are dead. It might take a while, but almost anyone can put together a device with more commercial appeal than a Canadian Cable Company or Telco.
My Dad has Alzheimers and cannot remember anything. The Cable companies' HDTV remote is impossible to use. It has two different methods of adjusting volume. Powering on/off the TV takes 4 button presses. 6 different buttons can be used to change channels in various ways, and each way is inconsistent. For instance, pressing "up" will either increase or decrease the channel number depending on which up-button is pressed. With the old analog TVs, things were so much simpler: Power On, Volume Up/Down, Channel Up/Down - easy.
In comparison, an Apple TV box has a much simpler user interface. However, the main problem with Apple TV is that it won't receive cable channels. If I could purchase a set top box that simply displayed a few key channels - then it would be game over.
So in one type of place the internet content is controlled based on political affiliation, the other by company fiefdom.
It's hard to see a major difference. Hopefully the courts will realize this and through these suits out on their arse.
By allowing only a few companies to own cable infrastructure, competition has become stifled, and consumers must choose between terrible and atrocious when considering their options.
Look at the cute little Intel try to do things. Awwwww.
It's like somebody in their boardroom thought that just making boneheaded decisions about their processors wouldn't make AMD competitive enough, so he invented a massive boondoggle that nobody has any need for.
"This is why we can't have nice things."
I think all the actions described by OP as a way ISPs may try to limit the service are already illegal.
(1) They can't legally discriminate based on source.
(2) They can't legally charge one outside source significantly more than another because that would violate (1).
(3) They can't legally charge more for services that are not their own. (There is a Federal law specifically prohibiting that.)
I suspect OP is much ado about nothing.
they also own of alot of the channels as well as local sports channels as well.
Just look at the low uptake of channels like CSN Houston and CSN NW.
Monopolies and trusts are back in style along with egregious wealth disparity. Why compete when you can collude.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Lots of talk about how ISPs could do this to protect their own video offerings. But are they really doing it? My current ISP is Comcast, previous was AT&T U-verse. In both cases I did not subscribe to their TV option - just to internet and voice.
I have had no problems streaming video from Netflix, Amazon or Hulu+ through my Roku box. Base bandwidth to maintain a video stream is only 5 Mbits or so, so it would seem to be increasingly difficult for ISPs competing for customers in the Mb/s battles to throttle things so much as to prevent streaming video.
Let's just google suggest "intel unfair", oh wait we get...
"intel unfair business practice"
"intel unfair competition"
No really that's too bad for them.