Increased web TV viewing sure to butt heads with up and coming data caps
Saturday, February 7, 2009 22:20
The internet is a powerful tool that reaches every single nook and cranny of the planet. TV viewing over the internet is quickly gaining popularity as people try to save money and make ends meet. With viewing TV on the internet comes the increased freedom of not having to be tied down to a physical location as well as not having to deal with yet another company taking your money. However with the recent rash and equal amount of momentum data caps are getting, the future of web TV looks hairy.
Time warner has been experimenting with data caps in Texas for several months now in Texas with data caps that are a complete joke. 5, 10, 20, 0r 40 GB options are your only choices. 5GB, haha, sometimes I go through that in a day. They aren’t alone in the capping business. Comcast being the consumer loving company they are didn’t want to miss out on the latest and greatest and have joined the capping party. However Comcast’s data cap is a much more reasonable 250GB per month. Now if you’re a nice old grandma or someone who checks email every few days and looks at a few pictures of the grandkids, 5GB is plenty.
This is where web TV comes in. With physical formats breathing their last breaths, digital distribution is obviously the way of the future. Both the consumer and manufacturer can save money with digital goods as you don’t have to pay for materials and shipping plus all the other little costs that are entangled in those two. Streaming TV eats a lot of bandwidth, even crappy quality YouTube videos can send you over the 5GB cap in one day. So what happens when better quality TV streaming becomes available, such as HD. HD streaming will put even mild users over most caps, Comcast’s included. For example, streaming 200 hours of video *standard definition* in one month equals 2GB! That equals out to about 6 hours per day. A little on the heavy side for a lot of people but still, it gives a clear indicator of how ridiculous these data caps are and the danger they pose to the abandoning of physical formats. Sadly, greed will ultimately slow the growth of digital only distribution as companies will continue to cash in on data caps. What’s sad is the same companies who claim the data caps help preserve network health as more and more people flock to use it are the same people lining their pockets until they overflow instead of actually fixing the problem and upgrading their network. I know, upgrade the network, what an idea. That idea however is the last thing on greedy CEOs’ minds.
Even with a slowdown because internet providers capping usage, TV will ultimately be viewed over the internet. It’s just the next logical step.
Do you stream your TV viewing? If so, how much? Shout out!
Source: CNN, Electronista
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Gib says:
February 9th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I watch tons of TV shows and movies on Hulu as well as downloading movies and the like. Data usage isn’t that high on my end in comparison to others but Comcast gets upset. Internet is a national concern and I think that if companies don’t allow unlimited usage, we might have a problem and the gov’t might need to step in. As much as I dis like additional gov’t interference, it might be required.