So, this weekend in the UK our broadband lives are to be enhanced with FTTH!
No, sorry, not Fibre to the Home but Football to the Home.
For an increasing fee (the closer we get to kick off the more the subscription will be) you will have the opportunity to watch a somewhat pixelated version of the now meaningless World Cup qualifier between England v Croatia.
There is a lot of debate as to how our broadband infrastructure will cope with this so I thought I might take the opportunity to add to that. As far as I can tell there are three possible outcomes:
1. Everything works just fine. People will quickly realise that paying between £5 and £12 for a low quality version of a meaningless match is ridiculous so virtually no one will watch therefore our broadband lines will cope just fine (that is for those who have a 2MB service - those who don't should probably not even try to watch!). The net result being it will be heralded as a great success by those in ignorance and we will be no closer to a broadband infrastructure for the future.
2. Works fine on urban exchanges that offer ADSL2 or ADSL2+ but rural areas who have the paltry "up to" 8MB service have quality issues that mean watching becomes a pain rather than a pleasure. The net result being a maintenance of the status quo in which the digital divide is no closer to being bridged.
3. Everything comes crashing down around our ears. So many people try to stream the match that exchanges cannot cope, DSLAMs burnout and the whole thing is shown to be a huge farce (our broadband rather than the England football team, for once!). People finally see that improvement must be made if we are to enjoy our expanding possible uses of the Net and demand that high speed broadband is made a reality.
Sadly, while I'm praying for #3, #1 is the most likely so don't get your hopes up too high that changes are afoot.
But do try to remember that Internet delivery of high profile events (Pay per View events) will become the norm. It is technically very feasible today. In fact it is technically very feasible to deliver this in high definition - other than that first mile connection. As long as we remain on copper we remain constrained and unable to improve.
You know the answer!
Wednesday 7 October 2009
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great post as usual. well done.
ReplyDeletechris