Isn’t it more the case that this special class of applications are demanding the capacity? Having a high speed network doesn’t mean we need to saturate it.

Sorry for the lack of reply. Been working non stop the last 48 hours. Goes quick when you are enjoying it.

I will check usage and get back to you. Would like to find out from Virgin for example, what usage increases they forecast. Guess they are preparing for the price hikes. What is great is their testing 50mbps in Kent right now.

Plenty of interesting comments below here already. Maybe I should have added more value than sharing my watching habits. Wink Wink. On that note this is a great new documentary from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kfqps/The_Incredible_Human_Journey_Out_of_Africa/

Thank God the other channels do not work on my mac, leaves more time to geek out on Giga Om & TC networks.

Manju

I have a feeling this market is a long way from maturing and us seeing a clear leader yet.

I think if media companies can come up with a paid-model, there are going to be many takers — the problem is that most of the media companies don’t want to risk it because they know many of their shows suck and need advertising support.

On the issue of bandwidth, I think it is going to be interesting to see how it evolves. My view is that a new class of bandwidth service providers are going to emerge whose job is to essentially manage and lower the cost of content delivery.

How much bandwidth are you consuming on a monthly basis. Do you monitor that usage? It be interesting to know that because it would be quite revealing in terms of how the usage is going to escalate

http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2009/04/features/the-man-who-saved-the-bbc.aspx

Worth a read if you have 10 mins.

Slightly insightful article, but I think a few things should be noted.

No consideration for cost, and the original iPlayer was a waste of £100′s Millions until it was moved to flash, however the cost of bandwidth is dropping and it’s UK peers are making a go of it, each iteration improving.

Due to the BBC’s managements dogmatic obsession with selling off what were once core operational units, the BBC now has to pay extra to Siemans Technology (outsourced I.T.) and Aquiva (Outsourced Playout) a whole lot of money that could have been done cheaper, internally and revenue-generative by supplying peers.

The platforms that have gained most quickest traction versus user-base are the mobile phones and Virgin Media, the platforms that are ancillary to the core P.C.-based service.

Much of the world suffers from inadequate broadband access, but as the history of the Internet shows, once the content is there, a tipping-point occurs where parties involved have to invest in the necessary infrastructure; With Hulu in the U.s. and IPlayer (+ 4OD, ITVplayer and 5onDemand) in the UK, it’s an inevitability, especially when you also consider that most of the UK’s mobile networks can handle at least 4mbs wireless broadband.

Also, Virgin Media (cable) and BT (DSL) are already moving/have moved towards fibre, iptv and Docsis3.0 infrastructure.

As things such as RSS and Twitter have shown, the internet is moving to “pull” rather than “push” content, even youtube shows that only 5% of people are actually content-generative rather than pure consumers, where various examples have shown that the consumption UI matters, and the BBC is further developing UI/tech. that will “hyper-connect” broadband users!!!

However, saying all of the above, more people will still watch traditional scheduled TV where they know what’s on when and can sit down in the evening to watch it.

Yours kindly,

Shakir Razak

Cheers,

Zubin.