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T-Mobile Is Becoming a Cable Company (engadget.com)
T-Mobile has revealed that it's launching a TV service in 2018, and that is has acquired Layer3 TV (a company that integrates TV, streaming and social networking) to make this happen. The company thinks people are ditching cable due to the providers, not TV itself. Engadget reports: It claims that it can "uncarrier" TV the way it did with wireless service, and has already targeted a few areas it thinks it can fix: it doesn't like the years-long contracts, bloated bundles, outdated tech and poor customer service that are staples of TV service in the U.S. T-Mobile hasn't gone into detail about the functionality of the service yet. How will it be delivered? How much will it cost? Where will it be available? And will this affect the company's free Netflix offer? This is more a declaration of intent than a concrete roadmap, so it's far from certain that the company will live up to its promises. Ultimately, the move represents a big bet on T-Mobile's part: that people like TV and are cutting the cord based on a disdain for the companies, not the service. There's a degree of truth to that when many Americans are all too familiar with paying ever-increasing rates to get hundreds of channels they don't watch. However, there's no guarantee that it'll work in an era when many people (particularly younger people) are more likely to use Netflix, YouTube or a streaming TV service like Sling TV.
They dedicate 40mbps*50 channels for 2gbps, that's what, 2-10% of a tower (I'm seeing LTE towers are built for 20-100gbps), assuming they can make devices that pick up broadcastlike.
So for a 2-10% reduction in mobile data speed for customers, they can offer 50 high quality (4k HDR) channels using H.265 (I assume, I don't actually know how efficient it is, I'm basically taking blue ray * 4 (pixels) / 2 (efficiency)).
If they can sell/rent a receiver for a reasonable price that can take their broadcast they can have super high quality live TV for minimal bandwidth reduction for their regular market. They can then lean on people having home Internet or much reduced resolution for on demand content (maybe 5 mbps as Netflix recommends for HD), this is in the realm of what I typically get at a minimum when checking my LTE speed (5-50 in my home city). They could maybe limit on demand content to SD speeds (1.5mbps), but allow you to subscribe to shows and have access the day after aired at 4k, downloading in off times (including allowing the downloading of Netflix downloadable shows).
This seems like a very doable and smart thing in an era of people hating cable.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
This has got to be intentional as these companies are salivating at the thought of making our internet like cell phones before 2007 where you had to pay a monthly fee for each service such as adding a ringtone or a map program. Net Neutrality now is the only force holding them back.
Yeah, because that's exactly what we all had to do between 2007 and 2015. I'd suggest decaf.