Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your yard?

Warren Bailey wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com
Sat Feb 9 22:28:55 UTC 2013


I was a lead engineer on a satellite based aeronautical connectivity platform. We sent live video via multicast over our satellite data stream as multicast. The aircraft performed the join and all seat backs had/have live TV (not a demodulator on the plane like domestic carriers, true multicast video). The amount of pain we went through with encryption required by the content providers was nuts. I don't know how they do it on the ground, but we ended up with a sizable PKI at the end of the day.


>From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.



-------- Original message --------
From: Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com>
Date: 02/09/2013 2:23 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: 'Scott Helms' <khelms at zcorum.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>,Brandon Ross <bross at pobox.com>
Subject: RE: Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your yard?


I know of two state-wide head ends and one of them has the agreements in
place for all their channels.  So a new telco coming on needs only to some
documents, to be sure, but there's not much (if anything) they need to
negotiate directly with a content owner.



Frank



From: Scott Helms [mailto:khelms at zcorum.com]
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 2:50 PM
To: Frank Bulk
Cc: Brandon Ross; NANOG
Subject: Re: Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your yard?



Frank,



One thing to keep in mind is that I don't believe its possible to get a
contract with the bulk of the content owners in a wholesale scenario.  This
would be a different kind of situation than I've seen attempted in the past
but in general the content guys get very picky about how video delivery is
done.  I'd certainly not claim to be authoritative on this, but I've never
seen it done and I have seen the content guys strike down shared head end
systems in almost all cases.


Also, apologies for the rash of emails since this is the first time I've
been able to get back to this thread.



On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 11:43 PM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com
<mailto:frnkblk at iname.com> > wrote:

Brandon:

My apologies, I didn't mean to suggest that providers would be unable to
provide video services across the muni fiber infrastructure.  I was just
pointing out that many customers want a triple play, so that should be a
factor that Jay considers when considering a GPON-only or ActiveE design, as
an RF-overlay on a GPON network is likely more profitable than an IP TV
service on top of GPON or ActiveE.  And Jay wants to attract multiple
providers, so he wants a fiber design that's as attractive to as many
parties as reasonably possible.

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: Brandon Ross [mailto:bross at pobox.com <mailto:bross at pobox.com> ]
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 9:56 AM
To: Frank Bulk
Cc: NANOG; Jay Ashworth
Subject: RE: Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your yard?

On Sat, 2 Feb 2013, Frank Bulk wrote:

> Yes, but IP TV is not profitable on stand-alone basis -- it's just a
> necessary part of the triple play.  A lot of the discussion has been about
> Internet and network design, but not much about the other two "plays".

I don't know if that's true or not, but so what?

The concern was that providers would be unable to provide television
services across this muni fiber infrastructure and that customers would
demand triple play.  I showed that they absolutely can provide this
service by doing it across IP.

If a provider can't make money at it, then they don't have to provide it.

This whole exercise, I thought, was about removing the tyranny of the
monopoly of the last mine so that these other innovations could take place
in an open market.

And as far as the "other" triple play, it's even more well established
that delivery of voice over IP can be done economically.  Or do you need
me to send you URLs of companies that do it to prove it?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brandon Ross [mailto:bross at pobox.com <mailto:bross at pobox.com> ]
> Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2013 3:53 PM
> To: Jay Ashworth
> Cc: NANOG
> Subject: Re: Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your
yard?
>
> On Sat, 2 Feb 2013, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>
>>> Perhaps I live in a different world, but just about all of the small to
>>> midsize service providers I work with offer triple play today, and
nearly
>>> all of them are migrating their triple play services to IP.
>>
>> Really.  Citations?  I'd love to see it play that way, myself.
>
> Okay:
>
> South Central Rural Telephone
> Glasgow, KY
> http://www.scrtc.com/
> Left side of page, "Digital TV service".  See this news article:
>
>
http://www.wcluradio.com/index.php?option=com_content
<http://www.wcluradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15567
> &view=article&id=15567:
> capacity-crowd-hears-good-report-at-scrtc-annuan-mee
>
> "He also reported that SCRTC is continuing to upgrade our services,
> converting customers to the new IPTV service and trying to get as much
> fiber optic cable built as possible."
>
> Camellia Communications
> Greenville, AL
> http://camelliacom.com/services/ctv-dvr.html
> Note the models of set-top boxes they are using are IP based
>
> Griswold Cooperative Telephone
> Griswold, IA
> http://www.griswoldtelco.com/griswold-coop-iptv-video
>
> Farmer's Mutual Coopeative Telephone
> Moulton, IA
> http://farmersmutualcoop.com/
>
> Citizens
> Floyd, VA
> http://www.citizens.coop/
>
>
> How about a Canadian example you say?
>
> CoopTel
> Valcourt, QB
> http://www.cooptel.qc.ca/en-residentiel-tele-guidesusager.php
> Check out the models of set-top boxes here too.
>
> Oh, also, have you heard of ATT U-Verse?
>
> http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800
<http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26580>
&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26580
>
> "AT&T U-verse TV is the only 100 percent Internet Protocol-based
> television (IPTV) service offered by a national service provider"
>
> So even the likes of AT&T, in this scheme, could buy fiber paths to their
> subs and provide TV service.  I'm pretty sure AT&T knows how to deliver
> voice services over IP as well.
>
> Do you want more examples?  I bet I can come up with 50 small/regional
> telecom companies that are providing TV services over IP in North America
> if I put my mind to it.
>
>

--
Brandon Ross                                      Yahoo & AIM:  BrandonNRoss
+1-404-635-6667 <tel:%2B1-404-635-6667>
ICQ:  2269442
Schedule a meeting:  https://doodle.com/bross            Skype:  brandonross










--

Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000
--------------------------------
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