CISCO PREDICTS ONLINE VIDEO BOOM
uk.news.yahoo.com
December 6, 11:30 PM
By Tom Sanders in Santa Clara, California
Video delivery over the internet will spark internet traffic growth rates to increase by 300 to 500 per cent, Cisco chief executive John Chambers said at the company's annual World Wide Analyst Conference in Santa Clara, California.
Service providers in Japan are already experiencing such growth rates as they have started to to experiment with internet television services. Europe and North America grow at an annual rate of about 100 per cent, Chambers said.
The increase in network traffic
is sparked not only by the move to high definition broadcast signals, but also by the addition of new services.
"All television will be broadcast over the internet. [At sports games] they will not have one camera angle but 40 camera angles. You can watch the game from any angle you want."
Broadcasters in the future will also add communication features that allow users to set up a video conference with friends and family and watch a game together or exchange messages about a show they are watching together, Chambers predicted.
The new services will force television to evolve from delivering plain data to becoming a interactive. But this will also make it hard for network equipment vendors such as Cisco to deliver the right solutions.
"Video is an art, not a science. Making it work is really, really difficult," Chambers cautioned.
Network speeds are far more important for online video services, explained Charlie Giancarlo, Cisco's chief development officer.
Where multi-second delay might be acceptable when surfing the web, consumers are expecting instant results when they change channels on their television sets.
Cisco however is confident that DSL providers will be forced to move to internet television.
"For wireline service provider their future depends upon the successful deployment of video to their customers," Giancarlo said. "Without video, their wireline services can be usurped by cellphone companies or by cable companies. They have to deploy something that only a broadband company can deploy and that is video," Giancarlo said.
Cisco last month placed a big bet on the success of internet television when it acquired Scientific Atlanta for $6.9bn in cash. The firm is one of the world's largest makers of television set top boxes and digital video recorders. |
