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 As
someone who grew up on television, in many senses, the Dowbrigade doesn’t
understand those who shun it as an inferior, even offensive media unworthy
of an evolved mind’s attention. For better or worse, what’s on TV has
come to define our times. Besides, TV in the broader sense (including, say, video-blogs) is the most engrossing, high content communication humans have come up with, short of a night of unbridled passion with the partner of your choice.
Of course, what we call the broader sense if TV is really any moving
images and sound on a personal screen, and the ways in which we can receive
and view these images have exploded.
Over air, broadcast, fiber optic cable, WiFi, on disc
exist. Now it looks like we ned to add one more – TV over your
existing phne lines, and the following
article by Hiawatha Bray in today’s
Boston Globe makes it sound like an extremely competitive service, and
in principle
more choice and comptition is a good thing. However, we wish the clearly
destined always-on everywhere Internet of the future would emerge so
we can disappear into it and peek out of any monitor, anywhere, any time
we want…
The next big thing in television could be a technology
borrowed from the Internet. IPTV (the ”IP" stands for Internet
protocol) will let users choose from a vast variety of video entertainment,
available on demand through a simple piece of wire. Telephone wire,
to be exact, because phone companies — not cable TV firms — are leading
the way.
SBC Communications Inc., which offers phone service in 13 US states,
is spending $5 billion to build the first IPTV network in the United
States, set for launch late this year or in early 2006. Verizon Communications
Inc., which is spending $3 billion to bring TV service to its customers,
will use IPTV to deliver on-demand movies.
Cable companies could adopt IPTV technology as well. But for telephone
companies the technology offers the first chance to sell TV services.
It’s also an opportunity for Microsoft Corp., which is providing much
of the underlying technology, to become as powerful in entertainment
technology as it is in software. IPTV could shake up the cable industry
in the same way that voice-over-Internet phone systems have roiled SBC’s
own voice telephone business
Already, about a million people use IPTV systems, mostly in Hong Kong
and Italy. Last month, British Telecom said it would work with Microsoft
to deploy IPTV in Britain. On this side of the Atlantic, SBC spokesman
Michael Coe said his company expects to make IPTV available to 18 million
homes over the next three years.
”There’s a lot of pent-up frustration with the cable companies; consumers
are looking for another alternative," said Coe. ”We’re going
to be that alternative."
from the
Boston Globe
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