[ NNSquad ] Re: Cancel Cable! Get Great TV Over the Internet!

[Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com>]

George Ou wrote:
> At 2 Mbps for most "HD" Internet streams, you can pretty much watch an
> average of ~6 hours a day 30 days a month with a budget of 150 GB per month.
> I don't think that's the big problem when we're talking about reasonable
> caps in the 150 to 250 GB range.
>   
I tried looking up the information on Wikipedia, but couldn't 
immediately find how many bytes true HDTV requires.  But I found that
 a) Blu-Ray uses true 1080p format (at least potentially)
 b) A 50GB (2 layer) Blu-Ray disk will hold 8 1/2 hours of programming.
[reference: Howstuffworks.com, "The Death of HD-DVD".]

So 150GB is about 3 times that, or 25 hours.  So a 150GB monthly cap 
would allow less than an hour a day before you get into trouble (lowered 
speeds or a big jump in your bill).  Of course, you will get more time 
if you're watching 720p "High Definition".

> One ironic part about the article is that it talks about ESPN360 which uses
> what I first termed reverse net neutrality in 2006
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=251.  This is where ESPN360 blocks your entire
> range of IP addresses for your ISP unless your ISP pays them a
> per-subscriber fee. 
Lauren added:
>      It's not clear to me that the ESPN360 case really involves net
>      neutrality (standard or "reverse") per se at all.  ESPN360 is not
>      a gateway to the Internet at large in the manner that ISPs are.
>      ESPN's restrictive distribution policy affects no services other
>      than their own.  There is generally no requirement that content
>      providers make their content available universally or for free.
>      While I personally don't much care for the "we get a cut of all
>      subs whether they watch us or not" cable model, I'm also not a
>      supporter of proposals to require broad a la carte pricing of
>      cable channels, since I believe that the loss of channel
>      cross-subsidization could destroy some great channels with
>      relatively low viewership.  So this is a complicated situation.
>   

Yes.  That's definitely an area where I think leaving it to the market 
to figure out the "right" answer is best.  If the providers choose to 
cross-subsidize the less-popular offerings by bundling it with the most 
popular channels, I for one think it's not a bad thing.  I wouldn't 
enact it into law, but I think a law against it would not serve us well 
-- we might end up in the situation we were before cable, with all the 
channels carrying the same garbage.