Google, Google, Google. Is there only one company left in the IP media space anymore? Still haven’t gotten Google off the brain. Ever since I posted an item on Monday about how Google is reviewing bids for an optical DWDM network, I’ve been inundated with Google-related phone calls and emails, with everyone wanting to know the skinny. (After Om Malik posted a reference to this item, the whole world, or so it seems, came to this site and IP Media Monitor.)
Then there’s all this escalating talk about Google’s imminent launch of an ambitious Wi-Fi initiative, spurred by a “secure access” tool the company made available on its Wi-Fi website. Not that Google isn’t pursuing Wi-Fi (or more likely WiMax) in a big way, but the secure access tool is hardly worth the pixels and ink that have been spilled over it.
Now comes a Slashdot item that says Google has posted an employment notice for a Product Manager, GoogleTV. Here’s the job description:
In this role, you will provide leadership on product vision and execution of projects that enable using Google’s search and advertising technologies to enhance users’ Television viewing experience. This is a leadership role that combines entrepreneurship, strategy formulation, product development, project management and communication to internal and external audiences. You will identify key market trends that are shaping user behavior when watching Television. These include but not limited to the intersection of Internet and Television technologies, Video-On-Demand, Personal Video Recorders and emergence of next generation set-top-boxes with IP connectivity.
That’s what I call a pretty cool job. Is this the first time that Google has used the term “GoogleTV?”
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 6:29 PM | Print | Comments (1)A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project concludes that “[t]he rate of growth in penetration of high-speed internet at home has slowed and could slow further after several years of rapid growth.” It also suggests that “slowing broadband adoption might encourage bold policy responses (e.g., municipally-owned networks) in order to address worries that the United States is falling behind other countries in broadband uptake and deployment.”
The…May 2005 survey shows that 53% of home internet users have high-speed connections at home, up from 50% in December 2004 – a small and not statistically significant increase. This compares unfavorably with growth rates over a comparable time frame a year earlier. In May 2004, 42% of home internet users had high-speed connections, 20% above the 35% home high-speed penetration figure for November 2003.
A News.com story quotes John Horrigan, Pew’s director of research:
“The low-hanging fruit of early adopters is gone. And the remaining dial-up population seems unenthused in terms of the Internet, so mathematically, that makes for a smaller fruitful pool for providers to select from.”Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:26 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Dallas suburb Keller, TX, today became the first community in which Verizon offers a video alternative to cable and satellite. Its cable competitor in the Texas town is Charter Communications.
Later this year Verizon plans to launch FiOS TV in other communities in which it has secured video franchises, including Wylie, Sachse and Westlake, TX, and communities in Florida, Virginia and California.
According to a Verizon press release, its FiOS video service includes:
Basic, which includes 15-35 local broadcast, weather and community channels, plus video-on-demand, for $12.95 per month, delivered either as a digital service that requires a set-top box or as an analog service that does not.
Expanded Basic, offering more than 180 video and music channels for $39.95 a month, plus access to 600 on-demand titles now, increasing to 1,800 by year end. VOD pricing is $3.95 for new releases $2.95 for other movies.
La Conexion, a tier designed for bilingual consumers. This $32.95/mo. package includes nearly 140 channels of English- and Spanish-language programming, plus VOD. Verizon also plans to offer other international programming.
A 15-channel sports package for $5.95 a month, a movie package, with 45 channels of Starz, Encore, Showtime and The Movie Channel, for $11.95 a month, or both for $14.95 a month. Verizon also will offer 14 HBO channels and 12 Cinemax channels as premium services, with each set of channels available for $14.95, or $24.95 for both.
Verizon is waiving the installation fee for up to three existing TV outlets.
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:10 PM | Print | Comments (1)
The Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference continued with the theme of free VoIP during the discussion with SBC’s COO Randall Stephenson today. Not surprisingly, Stephenson scoffed at Rupert Murdoch’s notion that voice will be free within three years, but added an interesting twist.
“This seems to come up every so often…we always look at this, we’re kind of old-fashioned network telephone types. The reality is that there is a lot of cost behind providing these services,” he said. “As long as there is a cost attached to it [the connection into the home], free is just illogical to me.”
The twist: if broadband providers can’t make up for network costs by selling voice service as a separate offering, they’ll just recoup their costs by raising the price of the broadband connection. “At the end of the day, we’re going to charge for that connection into the home.”
More noteworthy news from Stephenson:
— IPTV deployments are on track. The company is in the middle of a phase 3 trial of its IPTV service, known as Project Lightspeed, in San Antonio, and expects to launch a market trial in December. If all goes well, “scale” deployments will begin in May or June 2006.
—Everything is working well with IPTV but the silicon and integration. The network is delivering the needed speeds, the encryption is working and powering issues are resolved. Stephenson almost, but not quite, disputed the idea that Microsoft’s TV platform is the key bug slowing down SBC’s Project Lightspeed, as has been widely rumored. He said, when pressed, that “Microsoft is not the long pole in the tent…the long pole is the integration exercise.”
—SBC’s new deal with Dish Network requires that Dish Network pick up the customer acquisition costs. Despite this affirmation that the integrated SBC-Dish video service offering is a real dog, SBC and Dish plan to step up efforts by rolling out an integrated TV-DSL-VoIP box and marketing it in territories where the company’s IPTV service isn’t available.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:51 AM | Print | Comments (1)It’s kind of a crazy ongoing theme at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference, but the issue of whether voice service will soon be free (that is, available at no charge to consumers) keeps cropping up — Rupert Murdoch started this wave yesterday by predicting that voice would be free within three years.
Today, BellSouth’s CEO Duane Ackerman got hit with the question of whether he thinks voice service will soon cost nothing. Ackerman said he’s heard this all before; the dot-com boom gave rise to the notion that many services would be free.
But, the fundamentally reality is that it costs money to build networks that can deliver voice, and investors must make a return.
In reality whether you’re a wireless or wireline voice provider, this infrastructure is pretty capital intensive…it’s not obvious to me that this is a sustainable business model. History teaches us that in the end if there is going to be an investment, there has to be a return on those dollars.
Three other noteworthy disclosures by Ackerman. First, while BellSouth plans to repair existing plant where it can in Katrina-damaged areas, replacement facilities will be fiber-based.
Secondly, BellSouth is keeping its finger on the pulse of IPTV, but doesn’t think the time is right. “It’s not quite ready for us at this point in time for prime time.”
Finally, BellSouth will launch later this year a 6 Mbps high-speed product in certain areas. Ackerman said that BellSouth labs tests show that with “pair-bonding,” or combining two or more twisted copper pair lines, the company can achieve maximum download speeds of 24 Mbps.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:29 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Verizon is not too happy with the draft telecom reform legislation introduced last week by leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. According to this piece by Drew Clark in the National Journal’s Tech Daily, Verizon’s chief lobbyist, Tom Tauke, himself a former member of Congress and long-standing leader on the Committee, said during a luncheon speech hosted by the Progress and Freedom Foundation that the bill’s definition of broadband video services doesn’t give Verizon the regulatory relief it needs.
The bill requires “broadband video services” to be integrated with traditional Internet services, a mode of transmission that does not apply to how Verizon is currently offering both Internet and video services. The draft legislation “really does threaten to deny consumers many of the benefits that today’s technology can deliver” Tauke said.
He also takes issue with the section of the bill on system build-outs. Actually, there is no section there yet — the draft simply says “build out - to be determined.” Tauke said “the good news is that nothing is in there. The bad news is that someone believes there should be something there.”
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:08 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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