| Cable modems fast enough for HDTV. Yes. |
| Thursday, 11 September 2008 15:37 |
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TV folk: Brian Roberts of Comcast changed the Internet in June, 2008. He's going to offer 50 megabit service to his 50M customers by 2010. That's fast enough for 4 HD channels and much more. 60% of the U.S. will be able to get that speed in 2010-2011, and 80% soon after. Quickly, far more people will be able to watch quality TV, especially if the cablecos price reasonably. Full 6 megabit HD will become practical. DOCSIS 3.0 will spread quickly, because it is far better than AT&T, Qwest, or anyone except Verizon's FIOS. It's also a very cheap upgrade, less than $100/home, so it's an easy decision to improve your network. In France and Japan, 50 megabit service is selling for $25-40 as part of the bundle. If U.S. pricing is similar, tens of millions will be able to watch your programming, directly. High prices are quite possible in the U.S., however, as we are down to a duopoly. Glenn Britt of Time Warner and Randall Stephenson of AT&T may wink and nod at each other and keep prices high.
My current estimate is that 40-50M U.S. homes will have a 50 meg option by 2011-2012. Verizon by then will be offering 100 meg or more FIOS to 20M. France, Japan, Scandinavia, Holland and other countries will be further ahead. In 2008, it costs less than 10 cents to stream a digital quality movie at 2 megabits and about 30 cents for excellent HD. By 2011 or 2012, those numbers will be cut in half by Moore's Law. It's already practical for studios to deliver movies at a cost similar to HBO. In a few years, the studios will be able to undercut the premium cable networks. We live in interesting times, some wonderful.
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