Archive for the 'Internet Neutrality' Category

Internet TV for couch potatos

Published on July 20, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Technology. 0 Comments

One of my favorite blogs that doesn’t often make it to posts here is OSNews. Their editor, Eugenia, takes on an issue that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately–Internet TV (The Next Big Tech Battleground: the TV).

She starts out by stating, “I’m a couch potato.” Aren’t we all?

Eugenia’s experience with her PS3 with Netflix and Hulu Plus leads her to believe that the best way forward is to bake this kind of functionality into televisions.

I get all these movies, shows, documentaries that make me want to ditch my Comcast box (which costs me a whopping $90 per month for the HD channels and DVR — and that’s without the movie channels or HBO). The only thing that’s missing from the new experience is Live TV (e.g. sports). But if a “smart” platform reaches our TVs, that lets you run applications, and have access to Netflix/Hulu/etc. content via their native applications for that platform, then Live TV will be inevitable.

I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree with that specific point, but I think her target of “the couch potato” is very illustrative.

Most online media platforms (Google, Boxee, and to a lesser degree Hulu and Netflix) are structured more towards searching for online videos as opposed to just delivering them. To a couch potato, that sounds like work.

Digital Video Recorders are similar technology that has taken off smashingly well. It is easy to use a DVR.  They fit the way television programming is structured — it’s simple to record an episode or series, and every series is packaged together in easily navigable folders.  Internet TV doesn’t even come close.

Eugenia ends on a very insightful note:

The only real obstacle in the kind of future I present in this article are Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. These companies make big business over their cable TV solutions, and it’s unfortunate that they’re also internet providers. Do you really think that Comcast will let you stream this highly competitive content over their network? I didn’t think so. It’d be like committing business suicide. …

So it all comes down to net neutrality. If this much-discussed law passes, at last, eventually our TVs will get revolutionized. Maybe it will take a few more years for all the TV manufacturers to settle down to the same platform, but it will happen.

I agree!

AT&T: It’s our ball!

Published on June 16, 2010 in Internet Neutrality, Mass Communication Law and Technology. 0 Comments

AT&T: drop net neutrality or U-verse gets it (Ars Technica)

AT&T has told the FCC that if it reclassifies broadband providers as common carriers, it will “have to re-evaluate whether we put shovels in the ground.” Interestingly enough, AT&T has already admitted that they are investing less in the development of this badly needed high speed network.

“AT&T has already slowed down U-verse deployment under the current Title I regime,” declared S. Derek Turner [of Free Press], “so to blame the FCC for the company’s own investment decisions is simply disingenuous.”

This points out the crucial difference between the understandings of Net Neutrality proponents and opponents. Providers see their network as “their ball,” while we’re asking them to build the playground.

US broadband: still expensive (especially @ my house)

Published on June 11, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Technology. 0 Comments

US broadband: still expensive, underwhelming (Ars Technica)

Ars gives a great update on how US broadband is still lagging behind the rest of the world. My DSL teaser rate recently ran out, so this has been a hot button issue in my home. Perhaps most telling:

To address some of the population density questions, the OECD also produces a chart of broadband penetration overlaid with a population density line. The chart confirms the low density of the US, though five countries with even lower densities still remain ahead of us.

I am starting to wonder if anyone is truly happy with all of their communication services (cell, internet, television… the lot). With the hundreds of dollars a good number of us spend on these services, should we expect better?

FCC to force line sharing?

Published on February 15, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Mass Communication Law. 0 Comments

Regulators may drop broadband line-sharing bombshell.

I’m not sure how this might jibe with the Brand X decision, but this could be a big win for creating competition in the broadband industry. Hopefully it will help to lower prices, drive network expansion, and ensure neutrality. …but maybe that’s hoping for too much.

Google the ISP

Published on February 11, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Mass Communication Law. 0 Comments

Google recently announced that they plan to start building an experimental, high-speed fiber network.  It’s not clear yet whether they are going to just build the network, or if they will also manage it (as a traditional ISP would), but this decision might be looked at from two sides of the same coin.

First, this might violate traditional conceptions of a vertical monopoly. If Google owns the wires, apps, servers, and content that most people browse on the Internet their business model starts to look a bit too powerful. Despite their promise not to “be evil” and to keep the networks “neutral,” if they were to manage these networks it would undeniably give them the potential to exert a great deal of control.

Yet, at the same time this appears to be a direct response to other ISPs who are sitting on their profits hands when it comes to broadband development. As recently explained in a story on Broadband on NPR,

“They aren’t leading, they aren’t following, and they won’t get out of the way,” says Craig Settles, author of Fighting The Next Good Fight, a book about broadband business strategy. He says the nation’s biggest telecom companies have generally decided not to apply for federal stimulus money.

The traditional ISPs are not developing their networks, fighting efforts of local broadband development as well as neutrality regulation, and are not applying for federal broadband stimulus money.

Perhaps that’s the catch 22: it appears to be corporate interests that are hindering our broadband development, but also Google’s corporate interest that might push this competition forward.