It seems a day doesn’t go by where articles are being posted to News Limited (Murdoch) websites with nothing but negative spin for the NBN. Most, if not all, are founded on poorly constructed arguments that ignore technology & the reality. They all seem to point to one solution: anything the Coalition are saying they’ll deploy.

While this does reek of patent bias amongst Murdoch’s Australian arm, I feel this goes a little deeper than just wanting a Coalition government, but a fear of becoming obsolete in the age of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television).

While FTTN (Fibre to the Node) can offer basic IPTV, it cannot offer multi-set full HD broadcasting as FTTH/P (Fibre to the Home/Premises) can. With this in mind, it doesn’t take long before it’s apparent the likes of Comcast & Time-Warner in the US, are bleeding subscribers or seeing a slowdown in subscriber uptake due to internet streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon’s Prime service.

While we haven’t seen a drop in subscribers here in Australia, there has been a slowdown in subscriber uptake that is sending a message direct to News Limited/Fox: kill off any advancements in broadband speeds before it kills off your business model.

WHAT MAKES FTTN BETTER FOR PAY TV PROVIDERS

One thing to remember is that the main differences between FTTN & FTTH are, speed, service area, & reliability, with FTTN failing on all three. These differences can mean someone can happily use an IPTV service, or you are relegated to stuttering pixelated video. The one (& only so far) pure IPTV example I can give in Australia is FetchTV, with others like Quickflix not quite making their mark due to limited outdated content.

FTTN, which a large portion of Australia already relies upon, can be of many flavours, but the generally accepted limit is VDSL2+ up to 1km, VDSL2 up to 2km, & ADSL2(+)/ADSL1 after that. Looking at these numbers, even if VDSL2+ is used, a large portion of Australia will not be able to stream more than one channel to one TV comfortably in HD. Some will not be able to receive HD video at all, having to opt for 1.5Mbps “lite” services offered by IPTV providers.

With this in mind, we can see that opting for slower, less reliable, with a smaller service area for higher speeds, broadband benefits satellite & cable TV (pay TV) providers by limiting customers’ ability to utilise lower cost IPTV services. Don’t get me wrong, Foxtel are dabbling with IPTV with massively crippled plans that are far more expensive in dollars-per-channel than their set-top-box contract locked services.

Essentially FTTN offers a moderate speed boost to allow for slightly faster speeds, but not so fast as to make pay TV obsolete. This benefits pay TV providers, but not customers or content producers, leaving a monopoly in place to reap the rewards of archaic infrastructure that’s way past its used by date.

STUDIOS ARE GAME

It’s clear that content producers aren’t fazed by IPTV service providers, with Netflix in the US signing up many studios/channels to their service, & FetchTV offering a number of non-Fox channels for a fraction of the cost of Foxtel on Xbox/Smart TV (Foxtels pure IPTV service).

So where does that leave the likes of Foxtel in such an open market? Well, on the pointy end of a large stick. Murdoch & his ilk aren’t prepared for digital TV distribution, much like they weren’t prepared for digital news distribution & digital music distribution. Instead of being agile enough to deal with new technologies, pay TV providers have gone for the “entrench the customer” model that has not only failed for other mediums in the past, but turned customers away from their offerings.

With so many content producers embracing smaller start ups (or as the pay TV providers see them, up starts), what leverage do the big names in pay TV have left? The answer is simple: little to none. With pay TV you are limited to watching what providers broadcast & a small amount of on-demand content accessible via your internet connection. With IPTV services, multicast is offered for a small amount of content, but a majority of the content is on-demand, allowing customers to pick & choose what they watch. This has a two fold benefit for content producers: being paid for what is watched, not what is broadcast, & being able to accurately measure what customers watch the most.

Why does the Liberal party let one man dictate policy to them.

Murdoch is not even Australian and he doesn't vote here.

John S wrote on Feb 28^th, 2013 at 5:01am:



The more worrying aspect wiseone is that you are Australian and you do vote here.

News Ltd are unfit to operate anywhere IMO......the phone tapping and blatant abuse of power shown by the Murdoch empire shows these people are not concerned with decency and honesty.....Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to watch Fox News know how bias and unreliable there news coverage is.....Tapping the phones of dead people to get a scoop is very low and part of News Ltd SOP....sp@mpert Murdoch does not care about anything but himself and those who do his dirty work for him!!!

Ive been saying for ages that News Ltds opposition to the NBN is based on self interest via it being a threat to foxtels monopoly.