Versatile Amphibian

It struck me earlier today that the nascent market in unscheduled, IP-delivered TV is a bit atypical for a capital-intensive new product. There are literally hundreds of different products that do the same thing. Each broadcaster has gone down their own path at great expense, and has been joined by aggregators and a few relatively small tech' players (Brightcove, ThePlatform and the ill-fated Maven Networks, to name three). There is limited standardisation in technology or approach. I've talked to broadcasters, tech companies and Telcos - the future could be big, heavy infrastructure or a customer-centric interface with simple underpinnings. Even though the codecs are based on similar principles, they seem unique in flavour to each platform. The only thing they agree on is that 'on-demand' will one day be a larger proportion of viewing than linear. Incidentally, this is the only thing I'm convinced isn't true! This has confused me for a while. Until today, when ...

I attended a live video stream of the Future in Review conference on Wednesday. Although the format was unusual (even with a cinema screen and surround sound), several comments made by the speakers caught peeked my interest. During a conversation on the network implications of cloud services, it occured to me that the storage and processing of vast amounts of data in a central location is going to lead to significant latency problems. This in itself isn't great insight. Neither is the fact that network management is going to lead to distribution of content and processing around the edge of the network, based on statistical analysis of likely usage. I started wondering, however, whether that distribution is going to lead to 'systems' of usage, similar to the weather systems in the Earth's atmosphere. The Brownian motion of particles in the atmosphere is in some ways analagous to the 'motion' of packets in IP networks, with rate shaping and the variable speed of ...

Following yesterday's post, here's some related thinking on the impacts on operators of handset leasing. Handset sales represent around 25% of operator revenues in a typical European market, but generate only around 5% of margin. It may therefore be the case that the scenario described would lead operators to a more profitable structural model than exists today. Oil companies are consistently and acceptably profitable, despite being (literally in some cases) the ‘dumb pipe’ that operators are so desperate to avoid becoming. One of the reasons for the oil majors sustained profitability is clear focus on their role in the value chain – to supply the fuel that enables transportation, relying primarily on location, then brand and finally product innovation to compete. BP or Shell do not need to subsidise the purchase of a car in order to drive consumption of fuel because consumers are ‘hooked’ on it (it gets them from place to place) and there are many credible car manufacturers an...

I've been doing some more thinking about what the mobile industry could learn from the automotive. See what you think: The parallel between personal communication and personal transportation Although outwardly very different, mobile telephones and automobiles actually offer a similar consumer proposition, in that they provide a means of obtaining services, doing business and, most importantly, maintaining social contact. Both are a personal choice, as the vast range of styles available in each market demonstrates; moreover, both started out as niche, expensive fancies and have matured into mass market items. If automobiles and handsets are analogous, then there are also clear parallels between the mobile network and the network of fuel stations that support car travel. Both networks are spread out to provide coverage over a wide area and both have economics that vary significantly from location to location. One could even suggest that the recent interest in wi-fi bypass to increase...