Distributed Media: Triple Play? Strike One
I picked up on an interesting perspective of how content owners and telecos are dealing with the possibilities of IPTV - Free Net TV threatens telecoms and cable
Fragmentation of media consumption and delivery could potentially undermine the business models of the very businesses who have touted 'convergence' for the last 20 years.
In much the same way that VoIP providers have been able to disrupt traditional telecos, due to the interoperability and open standards of web. Telecos and Cable companies find their own 'walled garden' distribution a thing of the past.
It is hard to see how a single Teleco can compete with an open, standards based platform (the internet) in which tens of thousand of developers push the boundaries of what is technically possible - giving us, the user, more flexibility over programming and better quality video.
The article cleverly concludes by hinting at the legal discussions over Net neutrality. This is the debate over whether Telecos should be able to charge providers (VoIP, Content Owners, IPTV Programming companies) a different, higher rate to compensate for their own loss in revenue in these areas.
So it seems the only solution for Telecos toward the disruptive nature of distributed media, is "the squeaze" to control the network.
Read Vince Cerf's net neutrality speech to congress
Walt Disney's bold move to let people download TV shows for free could spell trouble for cable and satellite providers, but it also throws into question the strategy of telephone companies spending billions to get into the paid TV business.
...Over the past two years, Verizon has spent billions of dollars to build a fiber network directly into people's homes that can deliver a triple-play package of services including ultra-fast broadband, phone service and TV. It has bet the farm, so to speak, that the best way to compete against the cable companies, which are now offering phone service, is to try and beat them at their own game. But building and upgrading telecom networks for video is a capital-intensive strategy
fraught with risks.
Fragmentation of media consumption and delivery could potentially undermine the business models of the very businesses who have touted 'convergence' for the last 20 years.
In much the same way that VoIP providers have been able to disrupt traditional telecos, due to the interoperability and open standards of web. Telecos and Cable companies find their own 'walled garden' distribution a thing of the past.
It is hard to see how a single Teleco can compete with an open, standards based platform (the internet) in which tens of thousand of developers push the boundaries of what is technically possible - giving us, the user, more flexibility over programming and better quality video.
The article cleverly concludes by hinting at the legal discussions over Net neutrality. This is the debate over whether Telecos should be able to charge providers (VoIP, Content Owners, IPTV Programming companies) a different, higher rate to compensate for their own loss in revenue in these areas.
So it seems the only solution for Telecos toward the disruptive nature of distributed media, is "the squeaze" to control the network.
Read Vince Cerf's net neutrality speech to congress
posted by Simon Christy at 8:12 PM
1 Comments:
Content distribution becomes even further complicated when telcos are cut out entirely.
An example is www.on2mobi.com which offers free downloads for mobile phones.
The big question that is pertinent here is: how will content owners cope when companies are now providing quality content for free?
Such is the nature of the new wave of 'mobile internet democracy.' Given that users regularly submit and share their own content on www.on2mobi.com, this is perhaps the first instance of user-ownership of content and - we imagine, not the last.
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