HDTV Almanac - Change of Heart by Cable?

[alfredpoor]

Jim O’Neill is the editor of Fierce Online Video, and he made an interesting observation in his column today :
At the American Cable Association’s policy summit this week in Washington, several smaller cablecos posited that acting as a “dumb pipe” for the flood of online video that was moving across the system of late might [...]

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/columns/2010/04/hdtv-almanac-change-of-heart-by-cable.php]Read Column[/url]

[ccclvib]

However, if the telcos can use their light pipe-to-the-customer as a means to provide high-speed internet, telephone and television - at a package discount - cable may not have a choice. If the cable companies insist on charging for content, and the telcos do just "provide the pipe" why will cable customers want to pay the extra money? Until now, cable has pretty much had it all its own way. It may take a while, but that will change.

[Roger Halstead]

I would predict that should the cable companies take that approach they would find themselves at opposition with the film and recording industries.

[alfredpoor]

I have trouble coming up with a good analogy. Maybe it's like the companies that own the pipelines that the oil and gas companies use to distribute their product. Or the railroads that just carry cargo from here to there. Get out of the business of trying to figure out what cargo to make and sell; let Hollywood take over retail distribution of movies and television programming. The data pipe -- whether it's provided by cable or phone company -- just delivers bits. The consumer will have to make arrangements with the source at the other end to get the content. Maybe it's free and you get ads with the content. Maybe you pay a subscription fee, like you do with some information sites on the Web. Maybe some aggregator will come along and broker deals between consumers and multiple content providers. But the people with the data pipes just worry about their physical infrastructure and bill someone -- maybe the consumer, maybe the provider -- for the data that they carry.

I don't think the existing cable business model can survive, and I'm not too sure about terrestrial broadcast, either. I expect to see something very different -- and probably Internet based -- within the next 10 years.

Alfred

[Roger Halstead]

Even dealing directly with the studios through the cable "pipe" there will be other sources. So far the recording and movie industries have expected who ever serves as the ISP to also police this pipe.

As to the broadcast industry as well as cable. I fear you are correct, BUT there is no replacement for OTA local signals for news and security. It is a job that cable and satellite can handle only when things are going correctly. In the case of a disaster, be it natural or man made the OTA signals are the only reliable source for information.

Cell phones are considered to be stay in contact during disasters by the average person, but the cell system is one of the first things to fail.
Power outages? Cable which is almost as vulnerable as the cell system is gone.
Satellites can fail as can the major uplinks. One major coronal mass ejection directed directly at us could take out the power grid (Remember Quebec in the 70's) and satellites.

So the only source for that battery powered, emergency radio is the OTA signal.