Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008 - (Page 24)

broadband access to video, why does the customer continue to pay the cable company?” This is a good opportunity for small carriers to offer set-top boxes that integrate HD broadcasts with broadband content. The broadband video is all “being provided online for fee, and the navigation box will just make it available.” The service the carrier provides in delivering Internet-sourced entertainment content to the familiar television screen, to be viewed from the comfort of the family room couch, is what will make broadband video proﬁtable. That will give it a much larger audience than the one currently available, made up of people who don’t mind getting their entertainment at the computer desk. “VeriSign’s overall intent is to make the web experience secure,” says Condon. One way it does this is by delivering video content through secure peer-to-peer ﬁ le sharing. “I think this is going to be the year of legitimate peer-to-peer ﬁ le-sharing of video,” Condon predicts. Illegal downloads have given peer-to-peer a bad name, but legitimately used, the technology makes content delivery efﬁcient and costeffective, he explains. “We have the most scalable, controllable system for peer-to-peer ﬁ le sharing. As more people download the content, it gets more efﬁcient.” The company’s research shows that that peer-to-peer signiﬁcantly reduces trafﬁc on the network. “A well-administered peerto-peer infrastructure is a friend to the telcos,” Condon promises. Some major companies are trying this technology, formerly thought to be the realm of college kids. BBC and Skye use VeriSign’s peer-to-peer technology for delivery to subscribers; Wachovia and PepsiCo use it for in-house content delivery. Rich Wonders Vice President, Marketing & Business Strategies Alcatel-Lucent Rich Wonders says mobile service is where the market is going. The “multi-screen experience”—the ability to access the same show on TV, PC, or handheld device—is the next big thing, in his opinion. “What the customer wants is access to their content, regardless of device, regardless of network.” The company is working with its customers to provide broadcast video to handhelds and car video screens. “Video offers to bring the same changes to wireless that it did to wired,” Wonders predicts. “The moment that [carriers] contemplate offering an entertainment-grade video to their customers, that fundamentally changes the way they deliver” because of video’s needs for speed, reliability, and bandwidth. One reason that the demands of video on the provider are different from those of other data types is that it is used differently. A consumer using a traditional telephone, a cell phone, or Internet service only expects the unit to deliver content while he/she is actively engaged with it. With video, on the other hand, consumers have an expectation that it will deliver content continuously, regardless of their level of engagement. Most homes have at least one television on at all times, whether or not anyone is attentively watching it, and if it ceases delivering content during that time, that is considered a service failure. “This is a big shift in mindset for telcos,” Wonders points out. ANOTHER ADJUSTMENT FOR CARRIERS THAT MOVE INTO TV IS THAT … WHILE TELEVISIONS THEMSELVES HAVE LONG SINCE BECOME SIMPLE APPLIANCES THAT WE WORRY NO MORE ABOUT LEARNING TO USE THAN A TOASTER, CONTENT DELIVERY TO THE TELEVISION HAS GOTTEN INCREASINGLY COMPLEX. 24 COMMUNICATIONS CROSSROADS www.ustelecom.org http://www.ustelecom.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008

Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008 Up Front Contents TeleBites Delivering the Broadband Future Deriving Revenue from Today's Broadband World The Right Way to Operate Data Centers Buyers' Guide Industry Calendar Advertisers DotCom Index to Advertisers Straight Talk

Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008

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