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OT/ The future of TV and Internet Bandwidth
Not sure where to post this but since this is a busy place here goes- I heard a radio broadcast recently (out of Australia) and the lag in technology particularly in the ntsc regions was discussed. Appearently South Korean households presently have 8-10 mbps bandwidth on the internet and it is projected they will be up to 50mbps within a year. At that rate of growth they will be expanding at a rate 50 times the current rates in many other regions around the world. Not even Seabiscuit could catch up.
The last time I bought a cell phone (over 2 years ago), I wanted one with an 8mb camera built in but discovered they were only available in Korea where one can email 8mb photos around. I’m not sure if we can get those camera phones here yet or not but I think we need to wake up over here in North America and jump on the band width wagon! At 50mbps bandwidth, dvcpro100 could stream full frame in the AVC codec. Computer based entertainment systems in our living rooms with on demand HD programming over internet will be a reality within a year in South Korea if these goals are achieved. We could send files across the continent for compositing, sound sweetening, animation and effects…..even final delivery! Imagine the possibilities.
The radio broadcast went on to explain that in Korea, the internet is managed by the government just like the department of highways, health care or hydro. It is treated like an essential service and subsidized by government. I suppose in a geographically smaller country like Korea this kind of thing can be more easily implimented with out cutting the throats of the broadcast industry who’s investment in cable and satelite technology is gragantuous. In North America our digital communications network was designed around the distance from man hole to man hole and would be difficult to alter in such a vast geographic area. more info. In it’s present state the telecommunications network can provide much higher bandwidth but at a very high cost. Perhaps it’s time to write our ministers of parliment/congressmen and, for our professional organizations to lobby government for some subsidies in providing higher bandwidth at affordable prices. Present rates for T1 lines (1.544 mbps) are:
Monthly T1 prices range from $250 to $1,000 -
9 Replies
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What’s scary here right now is that AT&T is using its vast political muscle to buy up all landlines they can get their hands on in the U.S.
If, as expected, they get approval to acquire SW Bell, there ain’t much left for them to do other than to buy Verizon also and they’ll control nearly 100% of all U.S. business and consumer DSL access as well as all lines going to cell towers. They have been paying enormous amounts of money to senators and congress critters to make their ride as unimpeded as possible as they try to reinstitute the old Ma Bell monopoly, but for all wired and wireless internet access this time.
And if they get their way, they will also shortly be able to charge both consumers and providers of video materials extra access fees on a per kilobyte basis on top of the large amounts of money they are already receiving for bandwidth subscriptions, plus the billions of dollars they received from the Federal Government (i.e. U.S. taxpayers) over the last 10 years to build up networks with universal access for all, even in the boonies (which of course never happened, the money was just pocketed).
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Isn’t it strange how communism will win in the end?
I can’t see much of a difference between one business owning the whole nation’s wealth or the government owning all businesses…
Sigh,
Uli
Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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South Korea is a constitutional democracy.
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[Rennie] ” I think we should be trying to stay abreast of this technology at any cost”
Man, if only it could be that easy. There’s no way you can get any company to throw down a significant cost to upgrade the nations technical infrastructure without directly billing consumers for it. COnsidering the amount I pay in cable and internet each month, there’s no way I need this cost to go up any more. Do I want faster services? Of course, but nobody wants to pay for it. Our data pipeline is old technology, but replacing it will be an astronomical cost, especially with everything being as expensive as it is these days.
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[Uli Plank] “I can’t see much of a difference between one business owning the whole nation’s wealth or the government owning all businesses…”
Well I can see a difference. First off, the word Communism doesn’t even belong in this conversation. SK is a Democracy – owning the telco does not make it Communism. If a particular industry is nationalized and the democratically elected government owns and controls it, the public essentially has almost complete control over it. Equating the government owning an industry with Communism is a disgusting flaw in logical thinking.
Now if one private business owns telco with little or no government regulation, then they control everything without any regard to what the public interest is. Unless the public can vote and elect the CEO and board members, you can’t even begin to compare the two concepts as being similar. HUGE difference.
Sean
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Of course there is a huge difference, I would never deny that.
I was just just trying to be a bit cynical, remembering that it seems only a few years ago that legislation divided Ma Bell into independent businesses to avoid a monopoly. We have a very similar dicussion going on here in Germany. A few years ago German Telecom, which was owned by the federal government before, was privatized. Now they are asking the government for protection against their competition before they are willing to improve infrastructure for VDSL. Seems like private investors like capitalism as long as they get their profit, but ask for governmental regulation when they need to invest…Regards,
Uli
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[JeremyG] ” COnsidering the amount I pay in cable and internet each month, there’s no way I need this cost to go up any more. Do I want faster services? Of course, but nobody wants to pay for it.”
That’s just it, Koreans pay through taxes so it isn’t that exspensive. It’s an essential service like road building, snow plowing and education. Right now a T1 line is $600.00 instalation and $300.00 per month last time I checked in my area but appearently in Korea they have 6 times that speed as thier normal service. If you had that bandwidth you wouldn’t pay for cable, you wouldn’t need it. You would save on your fedex bill too. e-Deliverables could all go over internet and much faster delivery times. I’m just saying we need to look at this, the rest of the world is 10 times slower and we will be 50 times slower in a year from now. Incidentally much of Europe and the UK (basically Pal Land) is about 25% faster than North America because of their bit structure as used on the internet. Our T1 is 1.544 mbps and theirs is 2.048 mbps and dsl is the same ratio.
[JeremyG] ” Our data pipeline is old technology, but replacing it will be an astronomical cost, especially with everything being as expensive as it is these days”
Actually a lot of it has been upgraded to fibre optic from back in the 70’s. Sorry if my 1st post made it sound like it had to be replaced. My thinking was more like a small area like Korea could change their modeus oprerendi and say start broadcasting TV over the internet easily (if they are not already) compared to over here where there are presumably many more irons in the fire and more ducks to line up.
[B.J. Ahlen] ”
And if they get their way, they will also shortly be able to charge both consumers and providers of video materials extra access fees on a per kilobyte basis on top of the large amounts of money they are already receiving for bandwidth subscriptions, plus the billions of dollars they received from the Federal Government (i.e. U.S. taxpayers) over the last 10 years to build up networks with universal access for all, even in the boonies (which of course never happened, the money was just pocketed).”Ain’t that the corporate mentality, or should I say Eron Mentality? I guess the government will just have to introduce a new tax bill next year regarding the internet as a public service. or is the government just a branch of AT&T?
[Uli Plank] ”
can’t see much of a difference between one business owning the whole nation’s wealth or the government owning all businesses…”Yes, as Steve pointed out it’s North Korea that is Communist and like Cuba they are suffering from embargos and trade sanctions. China on the other hand is chugging right along with all the contracts the AT&T’s of world send them for the cut rate manufacturing that bolsters the shareholder dividends so well and we consumers hungrily buy up those goods on boxing
dayweek! China has a trojan horse though. They aquired it when they regained control of Hong Kong in 2000. It’s the biggest badest capatilist based economy on the planet and it’s spreading! -
The scariest part is where AT&T is putting millions of dollars in our politicians pockets to try to get the right to act as tollgatekeepers for content.
Creative Cow’s server internet access? “We noticed you accept advertising on your site, so from next January you will pay 4 times the basic rate. Just charge it to your advertisers, or start charging your forum users.”
“And, Mr. Forum User, we noticed that you access video tutorials. From next January, there will be a $1.50 access charge for each of those (subject to future increase). VOIP calls will be subject to a 12 cents per minute surcharge.”
“And if you don’t like our prices you can go somewhere else. Bwah-hah-hah!!!”
“In other news from Washington in January 2007, it was reported that the Congress critters and Senators who had voted to eliminate Net Neutrality (in order to allow tollgatekeepers), were found floating in the Potomac with their intestines pulled out by the largest angry mob in the history of the United States. The 10 million strong mob marched on the White House and delivered a 12-foot diameter “rubberband ball” to the President, but made of intestines.
The President got the message, immediately restored Net Neutrality by Executive Decree, and to be on the safe side also ordered AT&T once again dissolved into small regional Bell companies.”
“BREAKING NEWS: The President of the New AT&T has escaped to Russia, where he has been offered a position reporting directly to Putin with responsibility for extortion of all datacommunications users in the Greater Former Soviet Union.”
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I know that the comments were about South Corea and that it’s NOT a communist country. In North Corea probably the only one who has a DVD player is their ‘glorious’ leader (but he’ll get no new titles, due to the embargo, he he he).
I just tried to make a sarcastic remark about a monopoly, but politics is always a mine field, so let’s get back to FCP…Regards,
Uli
Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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