Posted on 05/19/2012 6:14:24 PM PDT by AmonAmarth
Comcast’s plans to do away with its 250 GB data cap and charge users based upon usage marks the end of an era for cable TV providers, and for the online video industry. No longer will users be able to endlessly stream all the content their hearts desire. Not just that, but the fact that usage-based pricing is arriving at the same time that more, higher-quality content is appearing online could have a dampening effect on demand for services like Netflix or Hulu Plus.
Comcast, of course, says that its new, usage-based pricing policy is pro-consumer, and to a certain extent it is. The average broadband subscriber — those who only use up about 8 GB or 10 GB of data a month — shouldn’t necessarily pay the same as those whose usage goes above 300 GB in the same period of time.
But for those of us who are avid streaming video users, usage-based pricing models could change the overall value proposition of watching video on the Internet.
(Excerpt) Read more at techcrunch.com ...
Without a doubt. We're all different. Perry Mason is way before my time. Literally long before my time. I wasn't even a twinkle then. I look at television from that period, Leave it to Beaver, Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy with sort of a morbid fascination as to why anyone would willingly sit down and actually watch it. My children however love it, but more in a MST3K kind of way than a true appreciation.
That’s because it’s theft.
I find the old children-oriented shows- and most shows tried to appeal to the whole family back in the three-channels days- aren’t very interesting.
But the ‘adult shows’ that came on after 9 o’clock hold up very well.
I have a question about this streaming issue: is it the bytes or the bytes/sec that is the problem? Or both?
More bytes per second, but to some degree total data as well. Just not as important. I know that internet providers have looked at returning to peak hour models, similar to what phone providers now use. As to if they seriously considered it and rejected it, are still considering, or just laughed their asses off at the prospect, I couldn’t tell you.
Supply lags an increasing demand; that’s typically what’s seen in capitalism. But I’d been hearing about all this unlit transnational fiber for years. I think it’s great that something is finding a way to light it up. All manner of business will be fed from it, if liberals don’t bollix it up with demands for cheap streaming video to all, now.
And in the meantime, video streaming services will probably find a way of doing localized mirrors coordinated with network traffic data.
I agree. It will be a tech boom. One which the likes of Lucent Technologies (kinda R.I.P., it’s Alcatel-Lucent now) wishes had happened a decade ago. But it’s not too late to do the economy good soon. If Mitt gets it this fall, it will probably happen during his first term.
Some Columbian gangster should take him for a ride.
Or worse, which I will leave to your imagination.
Oh it will happen, but it’s going to cost you. There are already a million solutions coming down the pike. Some will be winners, some will be losers, but none of them will be free.
That’s the free market, baby. When demand exceeds supply, the price goes up.
There isn’t a provider out there that is prepared for 50% of it’s base to start using 100+ gigabytes a month, but everyone knows that it’s coming. They’ve built a pricing model that is based on subscribers using half that, and it won’t last. It’s the free market, baby, and consumers love their Netflix enough to pay.
I’ll make you another prediction right now. Those new services that are springing up left and right, like HBO GO, and Showtime Online? Expect to see cable providers exempt those from the monthly data caps that are coming.
Of course it’s going to be a tech boom! However, it’s not going to be competition for the few dollars that we’re spending now. It’s going to be a boom, and competition for a bigger slice of the household budget.
Even if the overall cost of bandwidth actually drops by half, we’re still going to wind up paying double, because with the goodies on the horizon, we’re going to be using four times the bandwidth as individuals.
And I’m more optimistic than most about the future of local storage, which is going to have marked effect on the amount of bandwidth used.
Finally, and even though it only loosely pertains to the subject, this needs to be said: Cloud is a marketing term for internet. ;)
To make it practical for dabblers, it will have to go to discounted metered models. I’d like to be able to see videos at full speed, but not all day and all night.
ping
Stream bandwidth varies. But let's say you want to watch an MPEG2 stream that is encoded for a DVD (5 GB, 2 hours.)
To exhaust 200 GB you need to watch 40 DVDs per month, or 80 hours. It comes down to only 2.6 hours of watching per day. Given that the TV allows you to watch news all day long (and generally to keep it on for no additional cost,) and also given that multiple persons in the household might watch their own selection of shows, the 200 GB limit is easy to encounter.
It's possible to play with codecs and reduce the bandwidth that each stream requires. Then you get a fuzzier picture, or you have to use more complicated codecs. It quickly becomes a science project. But people are used to watching TV as a free resource (except PPV, which very few people ever pay for.)
This is the reason I never signed up for streaming videos from Netflix. I still get 4 DVD’s at a time and I don’t have to worry about this crap.
“Maybe. 250 GB is a lot of Netflix and Hulu viewing. “
With HD, I’m not so sure about this - especially if this is one’s complete substitute for cable entertainment. Which, of course, is what Comcast is trying to squash.
The model of capitalism is that occasionally people find a way to steal stuff (shun pikes) until the technology of pricing catches up. For some time, Hollywood could reap excessive prices by monopolizing distribution. Now it has swung thevother way. But even someone like futurist George Gilder would admit that sooner or later the market (and content CREATORS) will find a way to get paid or they will Atlas Shrugged ).
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