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Viodi View Newsletter – January 3rd, 2007
Click here to learn about Viodi’s Local Content Workshops
By Ken Pyle, ken.pyle at viodi.com, Managing Editor, Viodi View
- AT&T Wireless Again?
- Aggressive Marketing
- Is U-verse Impacting the Rollout of Independent Telcos’ IPTV Service?
- Standards or End-to-End Solution
- Another Approach to IPTV
- Upcoming Events
- ViodiTV in Orlando
- People on the Move
- The Korner – What’s the Number for the Santa Support Center?
For many of us, the period between Christmas and the New Year is a good time to slow down, recharge our batteries and get a fresh perspective for the upcoming year. From the sounds of it, last week was intense for lawyers from AT&T and the FCC. Working into the wee hours last week, they were able to forge a deal allowing AT&T to acquire Bell South. Dave Burstein’s DSL Prime provided some interesting insight into some of the fine print behind this deal and how AT&T’s concessions on Net Neutrality may be may not matter much, especially in the context of IPTV.
Since they are the only landline telecom company with 100% ownership of a nationwide wireless carrier, it will be interesting to see if AT&T can create integrated landline/wireless products that are superior to what their competitors – that all have to rely on partners – can provide. One thing for sure is that we will soon probably see the Cingular brand jettisoned in favor of the AT&T moniker. It seems like we saw something like this a couple of years ago when Cingular and AT&T Wireless became one.
Based on a print and television advertising campaign that launched with the New Year, it looks like AT&T will aggressively try to win back customers from cable, VoIP and other providers. They are offering “Free TV” for a year, when bundled with Internet, local and long-distance phone service (wireless phone and data are not part of the bundle yet, nor is HomeZone from what I can tell).
It is great marketing, in terms of grabbing people’s attention, but it could backfire to some extent because of this offer’s strict qualification criteria. For instance, this offer is not available to current customers, unless they are located in San Francisco, San Antonio, Detroit, Chicago, Connecticut, Oklahoma City or Austin.
Is U-verse Impacting the Rollout of Independent Telcos’ IPTV Service?
Meanwhile, the rollout of AT&T’s terrestrial video service, U-verse, is proving to be more challenging than AT&T predicted (check out these posts to get some ideas of the challenges they are having). Unfortunately, delays are all too typical of U.S. IPTV deployments today. Independent Telcos, the leaders in U.S. IPTV, have even greater challenges with system integration, technology and obtaining programming due to their small size. In our comments submitted to the FCC last week, we argue that the entry of the bigger telecom players has actually slowed the independent telcos’ rollout of IPTV. Click here to read these comments.
Standards or End-to-End Solution
In order for IPTV to be successful, there must be either a strong standard and interoperability organization or one company that spearheads a total solution that becomes the DOS of IPTV. Motorola’s purchase of Tut points to the idea that the big companies are looking to provide the end-to-end solution.
Cisco’s recent purchase of Tivella seems to be another piece of the puzzle to an end-to-end solution. Although Cisco touted this deal as a purchase of digital signage technology, the initial design for the Tivella middleware focused on IPTV applications. It is easy to envision this software integrated into the Arroyo, Linksys and Scientific Atlanta products, effectively giving Cisco an IPTV middleware and set-top solution.
Another Approach to IPTV? (ClubViodi Members Only)
One of the more interesting postings at Club Viodi in the past few weeks was my audio interview with Scott Sahadi, Vice President of Broadband Services for Verisign. Sahadi suggests they have solution that will reverse the “winner’s curse” (Internet video not scaling as it becomes popular). Verisign’s approach, which is driving next generation video channels such as AxiomTV, promises cost savings of up to 40% over traditional methods. Since it is a managed service offering, Sahadi claims system integration is smoother with Verisign’s approach than traditional IPTV deployments. Integration with consumer electronic devices (expect announcements at next week’s CES) could make this a last mile solution for independent telcos.
Club Viodi members, to hear this interview, click here. Here are some of the articles posted over the past few weeks. Only independent telcos qualify for Club Viodi membership. Independent Telcos, please send an email to us if you are interested in joining.
- PC Video Editing Software – User Generated Content to the TV – PhotoShow Update
- AT&T’s uVerse Service & Why It is Important to Independent Telcos
- Idea for a TV Show – Importance of a Stinger
- Inexpensive Stock Music
January is a busy month for shows. Here are a few we will be attending and we hope to see you at one of these events.
- Local Content Workshops – We are working to firm up dates for 2007, so if you are interested in a particular date and location, let us know.
- CES – I will be there on Tuesday. I am looking forward to meeting a few independent telco friends there. Independent telcos, if you are going, let me know.
- NTCA Wireless Symposium – Great show for learning from and about independent telcos; in Dallas, next week. We won’t be at this one, but is a great one regardless.
- WCAI – An informative show on everything wireless, located in San Jose. Alan Weissberger (alan at viodi.com) will be there for most of the show
- NATPE – Always a good show to learn about everything that is content.
- OPASTCO’s 2007 Winter Conference – A must-see event for anyone wanting to understand and reach out to the independent telco community.
In less than two weeks, we will beam updates and exclusive video coverage of OPASTCO’s Winter Convention from Orlando. This coverage will complement the full program that OPASTCO has on tap. Thanks to Innovative Systems for their help in making this edition of ViodiTV possible. To get a preview of what we are planning and to see highlights from last summer’s OPASTCO Convention, check out the following videos.
Stayed tuned as the OPASTCO Winter Conference goes live on January 15, 2007.
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Teresa Sperry, formerly of Paradyne/Zhone, moved to Calix in a Product Management role. Peter Lowten brings his years of video expertise to the just filed for an IPO, BigBand Networks.
Serial entrepreneur John Reed launched a new venture, called Southwest Venture. He sees a deficiency in the Texas capital markets when it comes to helping start-up companies and he has some ideas for improving this situation. Check out his blog.
The Korner – What’s The Number for the Santa Support Center?
One of the byproducts of the post World War II, baby boom prosperity was the explosion of store-bought Christmas gifts for children. Christmas day was a busy one for the dads as they tried to assemble the toys, bikes and other fun stuff that Santa had magically stuffed down the chimney. The assembly process was never smooth, however, as there would be missing parts, overlooked instructions and/or pieces that would not fit together. Frustration would abound on Christmas morning.
Fast forward fifty years and things have improved with the mechanical toys. Pieces just snap in place and the manufacturer often supplies any necessary tools. No, today’s problem is not in the mechanics of assembling, it is in the software and the communications that comprise these 21st century toys. These days, a dad has to be an IT administrator on Christmas day (as well as most of the rest of the year). Now, it is not about finding the right washer, but ensuring you have the right driver.
This story is close to home for me, because, over the past few months I spent countless hours reformatting hard-drives, reconfiguring networks and downloading drivers in preparation for the holiday. Still, I found myself on Christmas night exchanging emails with a CEO of a kids’ educational game night trying to figure out how to make his product work.
As I look at the aftermath of a network that is working, but not quite finished (as evidenced by wires running across the floor), I wonder how long it will take for software and networking technology to reach the level of maturation of mechanical technologies?
P.S. Josh – there is finally an RSS feed associated with the Viodi View…..
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The Video Business Case for Independent Telcos – The Report
Viodi’s report, Video Business Case provides results to a survey of independent telcos and their business case for video. Most of the telcos that responded to the survey have figured out a way to deploy video services. This survey provides insight from the independent telcos as well as several of their Engineering firms.
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