MORE DEMAND FOR MORE AND BETTER BROADBAND CONNECTIONS
The number of broadband households is reaching the critical mass needed
to spur the development of new devices and applications – and that, in turn,
will create even more demand for more and better broadband connections.
OnLive’s approach to gaming hardware is low-cost and minimalist because the
game engine is online. With an increasing demand for Broadband, apartment renters
will be putting priorities on apartments with better amenities, including
high speed internet and satellite tv.
New consumer applications for
ultra-broadband – the kind of
high-bandwidth, super-reliable,
low-latency, no-monthly-cap broadband
that only fiber to the home can deliver –
are arriving at an accelerated rate. Here
are some of this month’s sightings:
• OnLive’s new gaming service threatens
to make gaming hardware go the
way of the dinosaur. The company
came out of stealth mode to announce
an online platform, seven
years in development, on which
hard-core gamers can play solo or
multiplayer games using either a TV
(with a tiny, inexpensive “MicroConsole”)
or almost any PC or Mac. “No
high-end hardware, no upgrades,
no endless downloads, no discs, no
recalls, no obsolescence,” says Steve
Perlman, the company’s founder and
CEO. Gamers can watch live games
in action, join in at any point, and
network with friends. The platform
should appeal to publishers and developers because it reduces
development costs while expanding the potential
market size – and, in fact, most of the major publishers have
already signed on (or invested in the company). Because the
games run “in the cloud” and not on the user’s computer
or console, there’s only one thing required to use OnLive:
seriously good broadband.
• Apple just began selling and renting high-definition movies
for download through its iTunes store. (Some television
episodes were already available in HD.) Where Apple goes,
its competitors aren’t far behind. Amazon is rumored to be
testing a high-definition progressive download service for
movies and TV with some TiVo users. And new technology
like Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight
lets content providers offer broadband video that
automatically adapts to the user’s bandwidth – the higher
the bandwidth, the higher the resolution.
• Research firm Parks Associates reports that about 2.5 million
broadband households in the US and Canada would
be willing to purchase an Internet-connected TV (like the
11 new Wooo models just introduced by Hitachi) at a price
premium of $100 over regular TVs. The top application
that consumers want through a connected TV is access to
video-on-demand content from the Internet (other possible
applications are on-screen widgets and playback of content
stored on home computers). “Access to additional content
is the key demand driver,” notes John Barrett, director of
research at Parks Associates. “Most people can get popular
video titles through their pay-TV providers, but if they
want to watch niche or personal content on their TV, they
have to burn or buy DVDs. With a connected TV, they
suddenly have lots more options.” Parks Associates’ finding
calls into question the walled-garden approach that is
being used by several TV manufacturers, which essentially
attempts to recreate the cable VoD offering.
--Broadband Properties Mag. |
