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Viodi View Newsletter – December 14th, 2006
Click here to learn about Viodi’s Local Content Workshops
By Ken Pyle, ken.pyle at viodi.com, Managing Editor, Viodi View
- Zune Who
- Club Viodi Postings
- Vsocial Audio Interview – Be Your Own YouTube
- My Lunch with Cisco’s Chairman and CEO John Chambers
- And the Debate Goes On
- OPASTCO – More ViodiTV
- Country Music Capital Hearings, RFD Troubles & Franchise Streamlining
- All-In-One Devices Fueling Wireless Telecom Growth
- Update on IEEE 802.11n and Related Companies
- Who Will Deploy WiMAX? – Correction
- 50 Megabits Symmetric – The New 5 Mb/s?
- Late Breaking News – Satellite Headend In The Sky Consolidation
- The Korner – Ho, Ho, Ho
Billions of dollars will be spent this holiday season on the purchase of a variety of electronic gadgets, many of which are about personal entertainment. Collectively, these devices are having a huge impact on society, as they are changing the way we communicate. As such, it was timely that I had a chance to participate in last week’s iHollywood’s Digital Living Room conference, where experts from companies such as TiVo, Microsoft and Verizon discussed the state and the direction of this so-called digital culture.
The focus groups are a unique feature of the iHollywood conferences and make for an interesting last panel. The people that comprise these groups are somewhat biased towards the early adopter, as they are recruited via craigslist from the greater Silicon Valley area. Although these people may not be representative of the typical independent telco’s customer, they point to a trend where the consumer is the increasingly sophisticated driver of the applications that are deployed. The people on this panel are definitely mixing and matching various service offerings, including wireless, cable and broadband to optimize their digital life.
Although they appeared to be very aware of technology options, the people on this panel were not about technology for technology’s sake. For instance, two of the younger people on the panel consciously did not have iPODs (the 17 year old record producer preferred CDs, while the 26 year old self-employed travel consultant listens to music on her PC). Their lack of awareness of Microsoft’s Zune music player (none knew it was from Microsoft and only one had a vague idea of what it was – how many millions has Microsoft spent marketing the Zune?) points to the challenge of communicating a message to the consumer in this cluttered world.
More insight from the iHollywood conference can be found at the Club Viodi site.
Club Viodi is Viodi’s exclusive location for independent telcos to discuss and get inside information on all things video, especially those things relating to local content. Independent telcos, click here to learn more and learn how to join.
Articles posted to Club Viodi since the last issue of the Viodi View include:
- Adobe’s Beta Audio Tool – Soundbooth – Some Initial Thoughts
- MTV Networks Executive Spills Beans…….
- State of the Independent Telco Video Market
- Beyond Local Content – A New Version of Friends
Vsocial Audio Interview – Be Your Own YouTube
One of the more interesting recent posts on Club Viodi was an audio interview I had with Vsocial CEO, Mark Sigal. Vsocial sells the infrastructure that allows individuals, small businesses or enterprises to become their own “You Tube“. What seems to
make it different than competitors like Blip.TV, Kick Apps and Brightcove is
that they charge for additional features and for true private labeling. He had some interesting insight in this exclusive audio interview, including the concept of television becoming an in-band and out-of-band experience (must be Club Viodi member).
My Lunch with Cisco’s Chairman and CEO John Chambers
Ok, so I exaggerate a bit, but Cisco’s head honcho did come over to talk to an analyst who happened to be sitting at the same table as me during lunch at Cisco’s C-Scape conference. This conference impressed upon me that Cisco definitely has the vision to grow into something much bigger than it already it is and to use its position to bridge the formerly separate enterprise, carrier and home network markets. Susan Bostrom, Cisco’s SVP and CMO, stated that their marketing strategy for reaching these markets is one of engagement and not interruption. Their vision is clearly for the network to be the platform to unify these areas, which means strong support for their cable or telco customers.
Mike Volpi, Cisco’s Sr. VP/GM Routing and SP Technology Group, suggested that the challenge for communications providers, whether they be cable or telco, is ability to innovate at the speed of their over the top competitors, such as Skype with its 150 million users and YouTube with its 200 Million streams per day. More on this analyst conference in a future issue, but in the meantime, check out excellent commentary from Parks Associates’ Kurt Scherf’s regarding this conference by clicking here.
Cisco reiterated their views on network neutrality and their strong support for carriers to be able to provide differentiated service levels. Cisco used an airline analogy to suggest that the Internet could support different classes of service and implied that the “first-class” services would help subsidize the rest of the network.
On the other side of the debate, Roger Bindl pointed out this interesting video that argues for the importance of ensuring that the Internet continues to be a true two-way communications infrastructure. It makes some interesting points, especially with regards to a resource that is truly a common good, radio, was sold off early on and not allowed to develop as an alternative access solution. Bindl’s comment on this video, as well his video which shows how independent telcos have been IPTV innovators can be found by clicking here.
Discount registration for OPASTCO’s Winter Convention ends this week. This is a great place to meet the independent telcos. To get a flavor for an OPASTCO event is like, check out the videos from ViodiTV, which include interviews with OPASTCO President John Rose and former Presidential Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers. We are producing ViodiTV at the Winter Convention, so please contact us if you are interested in being involved with this effort.
Country Music Capital Hearings, RFD Troubles & Franchise Streamlining
A somewhat related conversation took place in Nashville this past week, as the FCC held hearings on the topic of media ownership. This would have been a fun meeting, as Country Music artists like Big and Rich, Naomi Judd and George Jones spoke at this meeting. The topic of independent and locally produced content via broadcasters was a hot topic at this event. Of course, as has been reported here many times, local content is a natural extension of independent telcos’s efforts to strengthen their communities.
Here are links to the FCC Commissioner’s opening comments:
Another story of interest, which was not widely reported, is the FCC’s Declaratory Ruling stating that RFD, “fails to qualify for carriage by direct broadcast satellite (“DBS”) providers in fulfillment of their public interest obligations under 47 C.F.R. § 25.701.” Apparently, RFD Communications is a non-profit acting like a commercial entity. A friend, who has a much better grasp of this story, suggests that this Declaratory Ruling just scratches the surface of the challenges faced by this channel, which is a favorite for independent telcos’ video customers.
Last FCC news – there are some wild rumors going around the Internet that the FCC is going to take away cities ability to provide local franchises. There is indeed an agenda item on franchising at next week’s December 20th FCC Open Commission Meeting. It looks to me like this agenda item is about ensuring that the franchising process streamlining franchising within the existing laws.
All-In-One Devices Fueling Wireless Telecom Growth
Alan Weissberger reports that the TIA’s latest forecasts portend a positive future for Wireless Internet Service Providers around the world. To read this article, click here.
Update on IEEE 802.11n and Related Companies
In this article, Weissberger provides an update on the 802.11n standard, which promises four times or greater performance improvement as compared today’s WiFi standards. Click here to read about highlights from an 802.11n webinar, WiFi Alliance Plans for 802.11n Standardization, 802.11n Company Developments, and look at “smart WiFi” and 802.11n for in-home IPTV distribution.
Who Will Deploy WiMAX? – Correction
The wrong revision of Weissberger’s article on the prospects for U.S. deployment of WiMAX was published in the last issue of the Viodi View. To see the correct version of this article, please click here.
50 Megabits Symmetric – The New 5 Mb/s?
As reported here before, independent telco, Surewest keeps raising the bar for service providers in the U.S. and around the world. They just announced their “Ultimate Package”, which debuts next week and is a quad play bundle offering all of their basic and premium video channels, telephony, wireless (with 1,000 minutes of roaming) and a whopping 50 Megabits of symmetric last mile bandwidth. The price is not cheap at $415.18 per month and it will clearly be for those who are early adopters or having a real need for speed. This may seem like a lot, but I heard today of someone who, in the mid-90s, paid $500 a month for the privilege of a frame relay connection measured in the kilobits.
This is a brilliant move by Surewest to use their FTTH architecture to their advantage and establish themselves as the technology leaders in their area. And there will be early adopters for this service, who effectively subsidize the folks who take the lower speed services (e.g. back to the airplane model of first class subsidizing coach). These early adopters may not even need this service today, but they will want it if for no other reason than prestige or perception. As history has shown, these 50 Mb/s pipes will soon be filled with new and wonderful applications.
Late Breaking News – Satellite Headend In The Sky Consolidation
Just across my virutal desk comes a story from a trusted source suggesting that two of the players in the MPEG-4 transport over satellite will be announcing their merger today. This makes sense as how many of these providers can the market realistically support, especially when some of the programmers are seemingly bypassing these carriers and going direct to the operator. It will be interesting to see how this market shakes out in 2007, as MPEG-4 finally (hopefully) becomes a reality for IPTV deployments.
Now is the time of year when children’s thoughts turn to visions of Santa Claus and Christmas day presents. There is nothing like the joy of talking to Santa (who could forget my son’s video telephone conversation with Santa 2 years ago – thanks Packet8).
The people at GotVoice have come up with an interesting way to use Santa Claus to promote their voicemail service. To get a message from Santa, one only has to complete either a simple form and, like magic, a message will appear in a person’s email box or as a phone call – fun stuff.
Roger Bindl puts his own twist on the Jolly Old Soul in his latest video collaboration with Madison’s own artist/singer Art Paul Schlosser. Art Paul is a local celebrity and has a following among the Madison, WI college crowd. I have found that my kids enjoy the music videos he and Roger have put together.
And on that note, peace on earth, good will to all.
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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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