| March
25, 2004 is a special and historical date for television.
Will 2004 be a big year for Television in Telecom?
Fifty years ago the first color televisions rolled off an RCA production
line.The RCA model CT-100 color set sold for about
$1,000. The Wisconsin State Journal (3/26/2004) describes this as equivalent
to a state-of-the-art, 70-inch flat screen HDTV in today’s money
– roughly $6,500.
This week, fifty years to the week from that rollout, the MTA
held its spring conference in Minneapolis. John Schultz,
GM/CTO at FTTH Communications, spoke about video at the conference.
Like me, he was likely unaware that this was a special week as he talked
about video, and HDTV. He described watching a lab trial of highly compressed
HDTV; 6.4Mb. Compression advances
like this will soon allow providers to transmit HDTV on the fiber and
copper telecom networks of today.
In another room, Rod Halsted, CTO at JSI, quoted research
data that 108 million homes have televisions today. Ninety-five million
of those have CATV or DBS. For telco’s considering this huge market,
he encouraged them to plan. Referencing the Triple Play, he warns “outs
don’t win games”. There may be reasons to do or not do video,
and there may be a grand slam if done right.
Telecom television, or IP Video, was a hot topic at MTA, but VoIP
took the cake. Despite my primary goal to report on Telecom
TV, VoIP kept surfacing. Rod Halsted described it as just one of many
alternatives to POTS. Voice is available today on local line, wireless,
cable modems, DSL, and over PC’s. VoIP also linked to that other
V in IP – IP Video – as access vendors promoted new CPE
equipment to integrate VoIP with data and video.
Grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence, but I realized
this week that VoIP is creating another field of grass.
CATV companies are watching VoIP traffic from Vonage (and alike) on
their network, so they’re looking to take action. Telco’s
are equally aware of the threat and opportunity, and taking action.
The green grass of summer, or competitive alternatives, look like they
are taking root with different plants.
Content reared its entertaining, yet ugly side. Mark Marinkovich
of ATI told another filled room how equipment costs are dropping.
On the flip side, a few telco’s described how the equipment savings
were partially offset by content increases. And yet, FTTH Communications
released news of a partnership with View Now.
This new competitor could improve video costs in at least one area.
Competition may be good.
And finally, one point of agreement, from IP and ATM vendors; technology
is giving us longer reach and more bandwidth. ADSL2Plus sounds
like the answer to a lot of video concerns… more
streams, more bandwidth for HDTV, longer reach, and standards.
Now to celebrate, here are special notes from the U.S. Census
Bureau; March 11, 2004; for the 50th Anniversary of ‘Wonderful
World of Color’ TV.
www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/001702.html
• 98.2% of households have televisions.
• 248 Milliong televisions in households in 2001.
• 2.4 televisions per home.
• 1,669 is the average number of hours adults will watched television
in 2004.
• $255.18 is projected annual spending per person, on cable and
satellite TV in 2004.
Back to Top
Back to Main Page
All displayed trademarks, logos
and service marks are the property of their respective owners. ©
2004 Viodi,
LLC. All Rights Reserved |
|
