Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?

Sat Jan 13 12:50:08 UTC 2007

On Jan 13, 2007, at 7:36 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

>
> On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
>
>> A technical issue that I have to deal with is that you get a 30  
>> minute show (actually 24 minutes of content) as 30 minutes, _with  
>> the ads slots included_. To show it without ads, you actually have  
>> to take the show into a video editor and remove the ad slots,  
>> which costs video editor time, which is expensive.
>
> Well, in this case you'd hopefully get the show directly from  
> whoever is producing it without ads in the first place, basically  
> the same content you might see if you buy the show on DVD.
>

I do get it from the producer; that is what they produce. (And the  
video editor time referred to is people time, not machine time, which  
is trivial.)

>> In the USA at least, the cable companies make you pay for  
>> "bundles" to get channels you want. I have to pay for 3 bundles to  
>> get 2 channels we actually want to watch. (One of these bundle is  
>> apparently only sold if you are already getting another, which we  
>> don't actually care about.) So, it actually costs us $ 40 + /  
>> month to get the two channels we want (plus a bunch we don't.) So,  
>> it occurs to me that there is a business selling solo channels on  
>> the Internet, as is, with the ads, for order $ 5 - $ 10 per  
>> subscriber per month, which should leave a substantial profit  
>> after the payments to the networks and bandwidth costs.
>
> There is zero problem for the cable companies to immediately  
> compete with you by offering the same thing, as soon as there is  
> competition. Since their channel is the most established, my guess  
> is that you would have a hard time succeeding where they already  
> have a footprint and established customers.
>
Yes, and that has the potential of immediately reducing their income  
by a factor of 2 or more.

I suspect that they would compete at first by putting pressure on the
channel aggregators not to sell to such businesses. (note : this is  
NOT a business I am pursuing at present.)

What I do conclude from this is that the oncoming wave of IPTV and  
Internet Television is going to be very disruptive.

> Where you could do well with your proposal, is where there is no  
> cable TV available at all.

Regards

>
> -- 
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se