Mike, a few posts back you mentioned the drive to provide more interactive. That was what I was referring to earlier upstream, when I made the distinction between the STB's focus on the intranet, as opposed to cable modem's orientation to the Internet. Of course, I now see that measures have been undertaken to integrate the two.
The interactive content will not, by design (at this time, in any event), be mounted on the 'net, rather it will reside within the content libraries and caches assoicated with the hierarchical servers of the MSO (or some third party _g_).
In the uplinked message you again emphasize the ramp to an appreciable penetration rate for digital-enabled services.
I get a distinct impression when viewing these stats against the backdrop of the architecture that prevails today there will be a struggle between factions within the MSOs at some point. It's an intuitive feel that I get from witnessing the coveting of thy neighbors' bandwidth for quite some time, and I know how these things usually turn out when there is a finite amount of bandwidth available for all. Sooner or later, if it's not happening already, the MSOs will experience an increase in internal tensions between video programming and Internet services groups.
This assumes that the free thinkers within the MSOs will speak up and be heard. The tensions, of course, will be between program- and interactive- video groups who will pound the table in favor of meeting the next quarter's numbers, VS. those who favor the open Internet and cite far greater eventual opportunities that are still out of reach, and whose effects wont be felt until we've transcended the next several e-rizons.
The tension will become openly manifest in the reservation and ultimate use of increased levels of bandwidth for revenue-producing program- and interactive- services, as opposed to (and because of the liabilities that are associated with) placing too much investment and good intentions into an "open-access compliant" set of Internet-centric provisions. I think that the liabilities associated with open access, from an HFC-provisioned MSO's perspective, speak for themselves.
It'll become a rocky, hard place in which to negotiate at some point, unless the finite amount of bandwidth that currently exists is expanded by several orders of magnitude.
This, notwithstanding the momentary vacancies that may materialize by the migration of regular analog services in the lower end of the coaxial band to digital services supported by STB features, in the higher end of the same band. And guess who's going to win? Comments, corrections, welcome.
FAC |
