Daily Archives: 15th Jun 2006

IPTV: Can this be pulled off?

In my earlier write ups on IPTV, I have mentioned about the metamorphosis of the telecom companies from mere voice carriers to entertainment delivery platforms. Content for mobiles is woefully inadequate and it does represent a huge untapped market for value added services.

However, IPTV or Internet Protocol Television would call for massive investments in the hardware/ delivery channels. At current speeds of 256k, it’s a no brainer give away that BSNL’s rat infested exchanges would collapse like nine pins.

There has been some movement on ground earlier on. This is mentioned here. Given the current scenario, I was wondering whether the content would choke the existing lines. At present, Reliance is the only company that has firm plans for IPTV roll out.

So how do you marry today’s technology with the possible future? Interestingly, Ramesh Jain and Robert Cringely have the answers.

Dr. Ramesh Jain writes:

When Video on Demand first appeared, it was considered to be a vehicle for providing a time shifted TV for popular video content so people can watch any movie or a popular program at their convenience in the comfort of their home…It was clear that the cost of the infrastructure was too high compared to the demand. In place of VoD becoming a big buzz world, it slowly became dormant.

IPTV is in simple terms video on internet….This in fact is the convergence of communication, computing, and content.IPTV is a real transformation in the society. IPTV brings TV media to masses not only as a consumer but also as a producer.

Robert Cringely has something else to write: ( My comments in the brackets)

The Internet television story, even as written here in columns going back as far as the late 1990s, pushed the idea of enabling the aggregation of widely-dispersed viewing audiences, allowing programming to thrive that might not be successful on any local station, much less on the national network. ( A locally produced TV show though having national relevance may not log in many viewers; for a wider platform like Internet, it can have a mass appeal, because of the sheer size of the people accessing the content).

Robert further writes:

My reasoning came down to the price differential between Internet bandwidth and intranet bandwidth, the latter being that bandwidth entirely within the ISPs local point of presence or data center. There is a lot more of this intranet bandwidth, for one thing. Depending on how their network is segmented, a local provider of cable Internet or DSL service may have gigabits of aggregate customer bandwidth attached to a much smaller Internet pipe. A 100-to-one ratio of internal to external bandwith is typical, meaning the effective cost of internal bandwidth is 100 times lower…The advantages of this strategy are profound. Bandwidth costs go away completely, which not only frees up money for more programming or better servers, it becomes much more practical to display video with larger frame sizes, faster frame rates, and higher resolutions, creating a better viewing experience.

What’s in this for the phone and cable companies is revenue sharing for advertising, as well as reducing demand on the ISP’s own Internet connection. They’ll understand instantly and see the revenue and cost-saving potential.

This means that a local cache of the content would serve the IPTV better. This seems to be BSNL’s strategy; the promised IBM servers would be installed by this month end.

This does open up the possibility to work around with the content, deliver the latest Rakhi Sawant videos to the consumers. No, none of the Techwhack guys are any big fans of Rakhi Sawant; though, I am sure there would be many eager beavers to lap her pelvic thrusts online. Porn, perhaps, would find itself here too. Time Shift TV may be a reality soon. For all those who missed the wardrobe malfunction in Bombay’s Fashion Mela, you can rewind it and view it as many times as you wish. Or Baba Ramdev may be crooning with Mallika Sherawat soon on your Yoga channel delivered via Internet.

This is the future I am talking of.

Giga Om

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My earliest “international experience” was with GigaOm; a tech web site. The gentleman in question is a NRI (Non Reliable Indian) who has made it big via Business 2.0 magazine.

Starting off his blog, he used his moles and undercover agents in the silicon valley to tip him off on the start ups. As the blog “grew” in “dominance”, the gentleman started off Broadband Blog.com domain to mirror the telecom events in India.

However, the “relationship” soured because the egg faced dude modified my write ups to an extent that they couldnot be recognised. The fury of my writings was reduced to gentle rapproachment to the telecom companies. This of course, was an insult to injury, since I had to take extra pains to send up write ups to him. Even though, out of sheer courtesy, I had to “admit” that the write ups were “good”.

Sushubh decided to set up Broadbandblog.in which would mirror the developments happening in India. We nearly got a lawsuit threatening to revert back the domain name; some unnamed lawyers got in the picture; a flurry of emails sent back and forth till we decided to call it quits.

It was a sad state of affairs since we violated no frigging law of the universe. Still, it was disheartening to see an overgrown idiot behaving like an imbecile; this dangerous game of wits was clearly beyond the capabilities of his bird brain. He is the front runner for asshole of the year 2006 and stay tuned for announcements by the new year eve. Unless of course someone more “meritorious” trumps this chap from the hallowed pedestal, his nomination still stands.

Now the scoop comes through that his website is slowly morphing into a business venture and he’s obtained funding for the same. As he grows in stature (and so does his ecosystem), I am sure that things would look good for him.

The anger isn’t personal. The ire is directed towards prostituting the real interests of the customers at the altar of commercial interests. We went in with the ‘brand name” because Giga OM does get significant readership. Some of my earliest write ups are still there. However, they don’t really serve the purpose for bringing about a change in the perception nor the corporate practises. Yet, a trafficked website can pass off lies as truth. This is something that I have to conciously avoid at all costs. My biases do creep in, often in good faith though.

I learnt couple of things in the process and this was hopefully one blip which came and went away. Still, being threatened with a lawsuit only serves the purpose of gagging and stifling the voice. Someone has to hold up the mirror and show to the world that one particular gentleman is anasshole; unfortunately the ‘duty’ fell on my nimble shoulders.

I wish all the best to the gentleman in his new venture. My middle finger goes up in appreciation.

Reliance: Updates

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Reliance has huge investments lined up for the next 6 months. The planned wireline is being “final touches”; the prepaid service is on course and has been confirmed. I wonder as to why the marketing idiots are hell bent on committing harakiri by introducing an alien concept in a tried and tested post paid model. Still, they would need some rabbits pulled out of the hat from Anil Ambani owned Mudra to make it “appealing” to subscribers.

Broadband would have to wait till July end (tentatively) and the Mbps plans are no where around the scene. My “mole” in Reliance marketing office was at pains to explain to me about the “speeds” on dial up. Imagine. I could have puked there but held myself. He even claimed that video conferencing was possible on 256k line.Reliance isn’t getting any “talent” and they picked up the “smartest of the morons” available.

I wonder whether anyone from Reliance is reading this. If you have such employees who bull shit their potential customers, you are dead as a dodo. Specially the customers who blog.

September is the probable slated launch for Reliance’s Blue Magic or DTH service. I doubt. There hasn’t been much activity on ground as yet. Would Reliance appoint dealers to scale up? If yes, there should have been advertisements in the newspapers calling for the same. None. The existing Web World properties are now creaking. With peeling paint, broken chairs, crashing PC’s (running Windows- what else!), the only thing that is missing in web world is the smell of sweat and urine. And the web worlds lack any space for expansion to cater to the expected increased demand for Blue Magic. Anil Ambani would either have to appoint third party dealers (leading to mismanagement of the customer’s expectations) or scale up independently via company owned showrooms. This would obviously lead to duplication of costs.

DTH is a holy cow untouched by regulations and only dominant player in India is Subash Chandra’s Dish TV. There is a lot of bitching about the Digital Video Recorders (DVR’s) and their hopeless quality. However, this is a virgin market and the players are milking it for all it’s worth.

DTH needs a seperate post though.

Reliance would need all the marketing muscle it can muster to make it happen.

Finally though, Reliance is loosing it’s sheen. It may have the numbers (trumped up mostly), but this is backed by opaque clauses, absolutely nil transparency and billing glitches galore. The biggest drawback is to “outsource” the “core” billing collections to third parties who leave no stone unturned to make the experience as hell.

In my opinion, Reliance has to fight the perception of a company which doesn’t care.It is definitely a tough call; rebranding exercise or not. An ageing star brand ambassador cannot do anything about it.

(Update:This is edited version of what appeared earlier on in the morning. I was at the mercy of my electricity company and had to hurriedly “save” the post). Apologies).