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Interested in Sponsoring the Viodi View? Send an email to: [email protected] Please forward this free publication to anyone you know who is involved in some way with independent telephone companies. Mission of the Viodi View: In this on-line publication, we share our analysis, opinions and direction on the interactive television news and views that we believe will be of interest and use to our friends associated directly or indirectly with independent telephone companies. For more information as to the various ways Viodi works with independent telephone companies, please go to http://www.viodi.com/alliance/ Disclaimer: The Viodi View [Viodi, LLC] and its associates used their best efforts in collecting and preparing the information published herein. However, the Viodi View [Viodi, LLC] does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any and all liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident, or other causes. All displayed trademarks, logos and service marks are
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Viodi View Newsletter - May 9th, 2007 Click here to Learn more about the Best Practices & Beyond Workshop By Ken Pyle, ken.pyle at viodi.com, Managing Editor, Viodi View “New money; that’s what the studios want,” Paul McKellips told me before the turn of the century. He was commenting that VOD had to mean more than stealing from Peter (Home Video) to pay Paul (the VOD provider). Monetizing existing assets in new ways is an important element to growing a business. The Parks Associates Connections conference reminded me of Paul’s comments, as the array of new services discussed at this conference offer the potential for service providers to generate new revenue over their broadband networks. New Revenue Potential for Broadband Providers Home security monitoring (many independent telcos already provide) appears to be a viable revenue stream. Companies like uControl and ARM are providing private label, home-monitoring services that go beyond security and include home energy management features. Combined with new devices from companies, such as Carematix, and web-based health monitoring becomes viable. Energy Management, security and health-care are just a few multi-billion dollar applications that promise independent telcos new revenue from their broadband infrastructure. It Really Is About Connections – The Rest of an Extreme Makeover Story People are the most important reason to attend a conference. I was very fortunate to meet up with Brent Groome of HTC, a gracious past host of Viodi's Local Content Workshop, at the Connections Conference. He discussed how HTC is providing value-added services, like home theater installations, to generate new revenue. In the course of our conversation, it came out that HTC made history as probably the first independent telco involved in ABC's hit series, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. HTC provided free wireless access for the media and spectators, wireless internet access for the builders, as well as voice, video and data for the ABC production crew on site. For the Wilson ’s home, HTC provided Home Integration products and services. Click here to read the details of part of the story behind this extreme makeover story. Verizon, with their emphasis on building a fiber-based last mile access network, understands that they need to generate new revenue in order to avoid being just another cable provider. Shawn Strickland talked about Verizon’s, “Once a Century Upgrade,” at the Connections conference. Click here to find a summary of his excellent presentation. Roger Makes It to the Small Screen
Watch This Review from a Multi-Award Winning Producer.....
Compressing 8 Hours Into 6 Minutes
Technology, Content and Politics – Will Sparks Fly? When Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Washington D.C. converge, expect some interesting results. Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., E.D.T in Washington D.C, the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet will conduct a hearing, “ Digital Future of the United States : Part V: The Future of Video.” Speakers will include Chad Hurley (YouTube), Blake Krikorian (Sling Media), Tom Rogers (TiVo) and Benjamin Pyne (Disney). Interesting, that no service providers are at this hearing. Click here for latest information regarding the webcast. Could MPEG-4 Transcoding Be Outlawed? A Washington D.C.-based friend recently said that the FCC is more active than he has ever seen and that it is simply not possible to keep up with their flurry of activity. Politics and personal agendas seem to be fueling this uptake in activity, particularly as it relates to cable television. From ala carte programming to separable security to multicast, there is simply too much regulatory activity to cover in these virtual pages of the Viodi View. Having said that, one serious implication that has not been widely reported is a throwaway sentence (let’s hope) in a FCC request for comments from a few weeks ago. The document was about ensuring all television viewers have the ability to view must-carry television stations. A couple of sentences of concern:
A potential interpretation of this is that operators of cable/IPTV systems could not transcode MPEG-2 broadcast signals to MPEG-4, since an argument could be made that bits are thrown away in the process. This is serious business as it could seriously affect IPTV deployments that depend upon the compression advantages of MPEG-4. Coalition for Network Neutrality Formed – Follow Up to “P in Public” Viodi has been following this story for a number of months about call blocking and service disruption/degradation for conference calling services of independent telcos in Iowa. Over a dozen conference providers and rural telcos, including Arvig Communications Systems, Interstate 35 Telephone Company and Superior Telephone Cooperative and have formed a coalition – The Coalition for Network Neutrality – to combat what they describe as bullying tactics (non-payments, call-blocking) by larger carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, Qwest and Embarq. This is battle is getting more heated and the divide between small and large telco operator seems to be widening with every issue of the Viodi View. IMS and Push To Talk Over Cellular – by Alan J. Weissberger At the IEEE ComSoc- SCV chapter’s April 11th, 2007 meeting, Sonim Technologies CTO Joakim Wiklund presented an enlightening and pragmatic view of IMS (IP Multimedia System). Included were the origins, current status and future directions for this much hyped panacea technology for service convergence over IP networks. Click here to read more. These articles and content are exclusive to independent telcos.
Stephen Streater’s last name was misspelled. Dave Erickson’s name was misspelled his company mis-identified (Should have been FreeConferenceCall.com). Sorry Dave and Stephen!
The Korner - NAB2007 - Fun Videos - Baseball, Donuts and Mother’s Day
REMINDER This upcoming Sunday is Mother’s Day. This video from Art Paul and Roger Bindl is a gentle reminder to, Call Your Mother. Happy Mother's Day to all the Viodi View readers who are also Moms.
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The Video Business Case for Independent Telcos – The Report Viodi’s report, Video Business Case provides results to a survey of independent telcos and their business case for video. Most of the telcos that responded to the survey have figured out a way to deploy video services. This survey provides insight from the independent telcos as well as several of their Engineering firms.
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