mmeiser blog

HDTV Series Mass-Distributed for Price of an iPhone

Some people took exception to my recent(ish) post about DRM-less peer based distribution being the future of IPTV. Their primary issues being that "people can skip the ads" and/or "cut out the ads and redistribute ad-less shows".

My points are as follows.

People can already cut out the ads with now common solutions like TIVO, and people can and do already cut out the advertisements and redistribute TV shows via bittorrent. No amount of DRM is going to stop this. Period. The promises of DRM are a myth. It only takes one person to crack the DRM... and the very fact that you can hear and see TV means it is fundamentally re-recordable and copyable with little to no loss of quality.

Secondly, If there is an "official" peer based release, a legal, legit and secure alternative that offers a sufficiently user friendly experience (i.e. not to excessive of advertising or to cumbersome an interface) this greatly diminishes the demand and interest in grey market or black market alternatives.

Thirdly, Advertising is already evolving away from 30 second interstitials into integrated product placements, overlays and sponsorships which are not as easily removed or skipped. I always use the example of the NFL game: Advertising and sponsorship is seamlessly integrated into every aspect of the experience... both on the actual field, in the stadium, on the uniforms and equipment, even the stadium name, as well as overlaid with scoring and stats on the screen. The advertising model is increasingly independent of the proverbial 30-second spot.

Finally, These above points brought up by readers are not even the primary issue.

The primary issue is as such: centralized distribution systems are increasingly cost prohibitive and do not scale well at all for the mass market.

The infrastructure and inherent cost in distributing media from a centralized point or non peer based CDN (content distribution network) such as Akami or other is tremendous. In fact with more popular and mainstream content where there may be real-time demand for HD quality video upwards of 400,000 this distribution model completely short circuits.

Timeliness is an important factor both to the media (ie. news and content) and the experience (ie. skipping video). Peer based distribution such as bittorrent therefore become not just a logical alternative but in some cases a necessity.

Peer based systems are not just the most efficient means to scale distribution with demand, they are fundamentally the only way when dealing with economics of scale in an increasingly global market.

Protecting this future is yet another reason why protecting net neutrality is so important to the future of the internet. Peer based mechanisms are a fundamental and important part of the internet. Not just with media but in all aspects of social networking and communications of which media in the form of VOIP, video sharing, podcasting and such are increasingly the killer applications of the network. In short communications are fundamentally peer based. All that's changing is we're making them media rich with video, VOIP, podcasting, and blog-like mechanisms.

The following is a recent post from the Miro blog providing further details about the Norwgian Public Broacasting's use of bittorrent to distribute programing.

Norwegian Public Broadcaster, NRK, recently made waves with the success of their pilot project where they put one of their full series online, in HD, without restrictive DRM, over bittorrent.

The initiative has been a huge success on every front ? viewers love the super high-resolution picture and most people have reported incredibly short download times (given the file sizes). Furthermore, viewers have been downloading the episodes en-masse (around 80,000 times in the past 3 weeks). To top it all off, NRK hasn?t broken the bank to deliver the goods; in fact, they haven?t even broken a sweat.

To-date, NRK has paid a total of $350 for storage and delivery of the entire series. This information was disclosed to me by project manager Eirik Solheim; he also estimated that the bandwidth bill would have been roughly $8,000, had NRK chosen a more traditional delivery method.

Eirik shared the secret sauce behind the project:

All the HD video files were stored and delivered using Amazon?s S3 data service, which has optional bittorrent capabilities. NRK syndicated the .torrent episodes over an RSS feed, which allowed the program to work something like a podcast.

NRK recommends that people use Miro to subscribe: it?s the easiest way for folks to use BitTorrent and it fits their public-interest mission. The estimate that a high percentage of their downloaders (50% or more) are using Miro.

The ease of use is very important, because it encourages more people to participate in watching and sharing the shows. Technically, the cost to the producer for distributing to a handful of viewers, say 300, is basically the same as doing so for 1,000,000 people. This is because after a point, distribution is handled by the viewers themselves; as the number of viewers rises, the work that NRK does stays constant.

All in all, the pilot has been a major success, and is blazing a trail to wider adoption of bittorrent delivery for NRK programs. We?ll definitely post here when we get more details.

Labels: amazon, amazon-s3, bittorrent, black markets, cdn, distribution, drm, iptv, Miro, net neutrality, network neutrality, p2p, public-tv, tivo, VOIP

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T-Mobile blocks Twitter

This strikes a cord lately with cellular services like Verizon and then AT&T paying lip service to "open". And people say we don't need net neutrality laws? I can't wait to see what becomes of this issue.

From: Alternageek Technology Podcast > T-Mobile blocks Twitter? (updated)

"T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate ?? some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion." Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation."

From: T-Mobile Turns Off Twitter?

I?m a T-Mobile customer and testing the issue right now, although I have received sporadic updates as recently as last night. It would be quite astonishing if T-Mobile is blocking an opt-in text messaging service considering how common they are and T-Mobile?s relatively small market share in the U.S. However, it wouldn?t be the first time the company has been at loggerheads with a third party service. Earlier this year, T-Mobile blocked VOIP-based free calling service Truphone, but eventually lost in court.

There's an bit more including some responses from twitter on it at the interesting customer empowerment site getsatisfaction.com.

GetSatisfaction.com > T-Mobile Shuts Down Twitter Service for Good?

Labels: ATT, cellular, cellular industry, common carrier, getsatisfaction.com, net neutrality, network neutrality, open-access, SMS, T-Mobile, T-Mobile sucks, truphone, twitter, verizon, VOIP

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The future is open, Verizon to support any device or app on it's network?

Some people may overlook the importance of this.

Verizon opens up, will support any device, any app on its network

However, the end-to-end (aka. common carrier, aka. network neutrality) principal of the Internet is slowly taking over how other networks operate as well.

These networks are increasingly finding themselves *competing* with the Internet and they cannot do so without opening themselves up and creating a level playing field for innovators as well. You can see it with cellular networks (competing with wifi & the infinite array of internet services), traditional telephony (competing with VOIP), and to some degree cable TV, which is now competing in a very direct way for the attention of younger generations.

What this eventually means for Verizon customers is:

Good bye having to *rent* the GPS features on your phone.

Good bye ridiculous 10 cent text messages.

Good bye paying $2.99 for ring tones.

Good by buy or rent stupid applications like "weather" on your sell phone.

Good bye having to pay $10 a month extra just to be able to blog photos from your camera capable phone.

Good by having to choose a cell phone based the scant choices your cellular company provided.

What this means is in the long run a veritable cornucopia of services will be available to you on your phone, whatever entrepreneurs or anyone else can dream up, and all you'll have to pay Verizon for is the bandwidth you use.

What Verizon looses off charging service fees for few obtuse services they will MORE than make up for selling bandwidth for the 100,000's of thousand mobile services that will increase the utility, use and validity of their network.

Verizon no longer gets to tax based on the contents of the package or the type of service. Unlike the cable companies they no longer get to pick which content makers get to use their network.

They're now pledging to be a "carrier neutral" shipping company for bits. This throwing away of arbitrary and frankly stupid criteria can now mean innovation can really happen. Verizon will no longer arbitrate the winners and losers instead the playing field will be open to ALL comers. All, specifically meaning anyone who has access to the Internet or a cell phone. This means potentially billions of users can use or offer services or benefit from services on their network instead of the few dozen services Verizon offers its customers now.

It is funny to watch how the cellular provider "tax" on items like the absurdly overpriced 10 cent text message and other capabilities of cell phones have shifted and distorted innovation which has routed itself around them.

This taxing has been going on, and will still continue to go on for a while, but with Verizon declaring its cellular network neutral, the apple iPhone challenging traditional rules set down by cellular carriers and above all Google throwing down the gauntlet in helping create an open source mobile OS the paradigm for these closed networks like cable, cellular, and traditional telephony seem to be opening up.

The future is open.

Labels: ATT, cable industry, cellular industry, common carrier, competition, end-to-end, google, innovation, iPhone, net neutrality, network neutrality, open source, verizon, VOIP

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T-Mobile announces seemless VOIP / cellular package

Of all the rotten times to launch an amazing new service.

On July 5th T-Mobile announced T-Mobile HotSpot @Home. In a word it is a cell phone that also does VOIP.

For only $10 extra a month you can make calls from the same phone both via cellular and VOIP potentially saving yourself thousands of dollars a year.

To put it another way, this service offers all the ubiquity of a cellular network with all the inexpensiveness of VOIP.

Re: IPhone-Free Cellphone News - New York Times

It?s called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it?s absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win plays like that are extremely rare.

Here?s the basic idea. If you?re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you?re out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.

But when it?s in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always ? you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features ? but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves.

These phones hand off your calls from Wi-Fi network to cell network seamlessly and automatically, without a single crackle or pop to punctuate the switch. As you walk out of a hot spot, fewer and fewer Wi-Fi signal bars appear on the screen, until ? blink! ? the T-Mobile network bars replace them. (The handoff as you move in the opposite direction, from the cell network into a hot spot, is also seamless, but takes slightly longer, about a minute.)

I say hurrary!

This first generation service may not be perfect but at the very least it shows that T-Mobile "get's it".

Cellular companies are no longer in the voice communications business... they're in the internet communications business.

This service is a huge step forward. For a cellular company to embrace VOIP to save their customers money and in so doing potentially make much more profit itself is unprecidented.

But this isn't the only way for a cellular company to utilize the internet to make more profit.

Many may also see a direct parrellel between this service and the potential offerings of the iPhone. The iPhone is after all among other things a device that already has all the hardware capabilities of T-mobiles new service. It is an "internet communicator" to quote Steve Jobs... yet it has no VOIP application on the phone.

I assure you hackers and many others are VERY hard at work trying to bring VOIP to the iPhone.

Personally my friend Adam (a non-blogger but brilliant guy non-the-less ;) thinks Apple is trying to use the iphone to leverage itself into the world of communications in exactly the same way it used the iPod and Pixar to leverage their Apple from simply computers into media. This final piece of the puzzle would of course give Apple the unprecidented power to sell and deliver digital media and services DIRECTLY with it's customers anywhere and anytime.

What's more with already ubiquitous WiFi and the potential for ubiquitous WiMax sometime in the next 2-10 years my friend thinks Apple is going to try and leverage the iphone into being a communications company by either buying out a current cellular company or slowly using their leverage to turn all important cellular services into a mere commodity regardless of whether the end use of their networks is voice, data, text messages or accessing ANY webservice.

This may sound like a long shot, but it is VERY similar to what apple is now doing with the iTunes Music Store in shaking up the music biz and turning major music labels product back into a simple 99 cent commodity.

Not only do I think my friend is right on all counts but I'll one up him.

Given DRM dies in a fast and firey death as it is extremely anti-competitive and a huge hindrence to fluid markets the commoditization of BOTH these markets (digital media AND cellular data) will bring TREMENDOUS innovation to both markets over time accellerating the pace of innovation and creating ironicly explosive growth and revenue for Apple's unwitting and often disagreeable partners.

In so commoditizing cellular services into merely data access providers much like internet service providers I think the cellular companies will find a cornicopia of growth like they've never seen before as millions of webservices innovators, so called web 2.0 companies, strive to deliver services over their networks.

As cellular networks stop trying to be the gatekeepers of cellular networks like Cable TV operators... offering extrmely limited services like 10 cent text messages and $2.99 ringtones and finaly offer full unprecidented access and integration with the internet like the iPhone and T-Mobile's new Hotspot @Home service... the tremendous innovation in web based services will add tremendous value to their network and with it exponetial usage and revenue increases.

The most basic lesson here for cellular network providers is this:

Better to make a penny a kilobyte then a buck a minute.

Cellular services only THINK they are in the voice communications business.

Soon they will wake up and realize they have it all wrong. While they were slumbering on their profits or trying to find more ways to nickle and dime their customers to death their industry changed.

Cellular network providers are no longer in the voice communications busines they're in the mobile internet access business.

Labels: apple, cellular, communications, iPhone, media, NYTimes, Pixar, T-Mobile, VOIP, web 2.0, Wifi, WiMax

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