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In an IPeal world

Discussion around IP is already steady and high, VoIP is popular and IPTV is a recent and so far has low volumes but still a reasonably consistently ranking in the blogosphere. There are all the same a method of access that is finding new uses all the time.

Living in a country of limited choice for television I welcome the dawn of IPTV as the low infrastructure cost (the customer buys most of it themselves) means that there should be more programming choice as the provider (publisher) can invest more in buying the programmes (content) and delivering to me (the subscriber)

I use the terms
  • publisher
  • content
  • subscriber
for the generic tone that it requires. We could equally be refering to games for your phone or ring tone, TV programmes, Pay Per View films the applications are fairly limitless the delivery framework is the same. The uses are personal and/or commercial and are centred around IP Access.

Having already mentioned the impact on non-traditional media channels with respect to the BBC it made me think on how the borders of coutries (and by default their control) is blurring and shrinking.

For instance SlingBox opens up non-US people [potentially and possibly not legally] to the US cable cloud, OK maybe not a nice thought but a thought. Now being a "brit abroad" I would probably like to choose to see some programmes from home, not necessarily the ones that Thailand's UBC wishes to show me.

That was IP ultimately allows me; choice. Choice of what, when and where. Channels as we see them should collapse, the niche media sectors (UK's Food Channel) will become more popular and dictated groups of schedules (e.g. BBC 2) should become less popular.

The revolution within the TV Media industry could be alikened to what we are starting to see in the MVNO trend. Strong brands packaging content (films, programmes, radio stations etc) and delivering through IP channels.

Deregulation needs to start, if necessary driven by the publishers themselves, if they are to survive. As the borders blur; and grey channels open up to meet the "it's available here if you want it now rather than wait for your network" demand, the players will have to accomodate the market that bitTorrent pushes the edge of every day.

The rollout will have to managed in order not to pressurize the current hardware out there today. Check out Paul Jardines ramble on the subject for more insight.

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