Really Rocket Science

Good news: Google Fiber may get access to utility rights-of-way under Title II of the Telecom Act.

Here’s the news, via The Wall Street Journal…

In a rare public comment by Google on net neutrality, the Internet giant this week said it sees a silver lining in the potential to be regulated like a telecom company.

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed treating broadband Internet providers like Google Fiber as telecommunications services under Title II, which President Barack Obama supported in November to complaints from the telecom and cable industries.

Title II would expose Google Fiber to new regulations usually targeted at communications utilities and monopolies. Rates and service quality would be regulated by the government and Google Fiber may have to ask permission to stop providing some services, according to Tom Cohen, a communications lawyer at Kelley Drye & Warren.

But in a letter Tuesday to the FCC, Google’s director of communications law Austin Schlick highlighted a potential positive for the company if Title II kicks in. As a regulated telecom service, Google Fiber would get access to utility poles and other essential infrastructure owned by utilities. The FCC should make sure this happens because it would promote competition and spur more investment and deployment of broadband internet service, Schlick argued.

Broadband competition just got a little more interesting.

The trends are pointing in favor of the cord-cutters.

Even BSkyB, the pay-tv service that put Astra on the map, is itself moving away from using satellite technology.

The Telegraph published an excellent report, which could be the slow de-orbiting of the satellite business…

BSkyB is preparing a major overhaul of its set-top box technology to address the threat to its subscription business from internet-based television services from American giants such as Amazon, Apple and Google.

A special unit has been set up within the company under the name “Project Ethan” to develop an entirely new system that will aim to make it easier for customers to access programmes on any device, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

For instance, Project Ethan is understood to include plans for television recorded using the Sky+ service to be stored in a central data centre rather than on set-top box hard disks. The recordings in “the cloud” will be accessible via smartphones and tablets, or on internet-connected televisions outside the living room.

For both recorded and on-demand video, the new software will make it possible for viewers pause on their main television and then pick up where they left off on another device, and vice-versa. Sources said BSkyB, which formerly referred to the investment as “Project 2016,” could roll out the system to millions of customers as soon as two years from now.

The multi-screen technology would also allow BSkyB to extend the reach and sophistication of its recently-launched targeted advertising service. In one possible scenario, retailers could target viewers in a given postcode on their sofa then follow up with a special offer delivered to their smartphone via the Sky app.

Almost sounds like the IP-PRIME service that SES killed back in 2009.

NBC Universal will broadcast the first Virgin Galactic flight live.

The Today show will be seen by millions and get incredible ratings. Hopefully, the first flight will be during sweeps.

Interesting piece in The Drum on how Netflix does their research…

Vice president of content acquisition for Netflix, Kelly Merryman, revealed this week that the company she works for routinely use piracy sites to determine what television shows the company will buy. By gauging the popularity of shows on sites like The Pirate Bay, the company is able to determine which shows are really popular and help assist in making licensing decisions.

That’s brilliant. And it seems to be working well. The article goes on to cite “BitTorrent traffic in Canada dropped 50% after Netflix started there three years ago.” Their market skews younger, and they’re far more likely to be “cord-cutters” and view their favorite video entertainment online. Pay TV’s base is eroding and they know it.

Surely it won’t be long before pay TV services — cable, satellite and fiber — finally get smart by offering real à la carte service and dispense with the increasingly-annoying table d’hôte way of doing business. Their customers don’t want 15 shopping channels or 12 faith-based networks. They want CNN, The Weather Channel, ESPN and The Food Network — and maybe some locals. Offering packages of 200 channels for a fixed price is getting old.

Watch this video edit (4:55 RT) of actor Kevin Spacey speaking at the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival last month. He concludes content should be served/offered any way the customer wants it — movie theater, TV screen, iPad, streamed, iPhone et. al.

Here’s the full video (46:01 RT). Either one will lead you agree with his conclusion.

UPDATE: this report from Ian King of Bloomberg really gets into the details…

…a generation of technology-savvy, budget-conscious consumers who are taking advantage of the availability of high-speed Internet connections and the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, lower-cost TVs and other gadgets that make it easy to consume downloadable shows in a snap.

The shift in viewing habits is putting pressure on cable, satellite and phone companies by pinching subscriber numbers, which may have a knock-on effect on revenue growth. The impact on the $80 billion pay-TV industry is already being felt, with 2013 on pace to be the first year ever that total U.S. pay-TV subscriptions will decline, falling to 100.8 million from 100.9 million last year, according to researcher IHS.

And while 3.2 million new U.S. households were set up in the last three years, the paid-TV industry only added 250,000 subscriptions in that same period, according to market-researcher SNL Kagan.

Section 207 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been around for a while, obviously, but that hasn’t prevented the City of Philadelphia from passing a bill last fall to limit installation of satellite dishes. As Philly is Comcast’s corporate home, I’m not surprised.

It should come as no surprise that the SBCA is preventing the law’s enforcement, according to a report by the Philadelphia Daily News:

Enforcement of a bill passed by City Council last fall to regulate placement of TV satellite dishes has been stalled due to a petition filed with the Federal Communications Commission by the satellite-dish industry.

The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association is fighting the bill, approved in October and sponsored by current Council President Darrell Clarke, prohibiting satellite-dish companies and installers from placing dishes at the front of homes unless putting them elsewhere would cause signal reduction or significant extra cost.

A petition filed in November by the association, and pending before the FCC, alleges that the bill violates a 1996 over-the-air reception-device rule that blocks restrictions of satellite-dish installations without a public-safety concern or historic-preservation justification.

“We feel that it isn’t just a matter of taste, but a matter of fairness,” said Lisa McCabe, the association’s director of public policy and outreach. “It’s a burden. It would increase the costs of doing business in the city and would ultimately fall on the users.”

The city’s two major dish companies, DirecTV and Dish Network, argue that the city uses “aesthetic concerns as a pretext to restrict consumers’ access to satellite television.”

But the city disagrees.

“There’s no consideration,” said William Carter, Clarke’s director of legislative affairs. “We simply ask that they don’t do in our community what they wouldn’t do in theirs.

“We were noticing a disparity in areas of the city inundated with satellite dishes. You don’t see this in Chestnut Hill, Society Hill,” Carter said, adding that more dishes are seen in areas with more renters.

Philly has more than 100,000 dish users and was the first city to pass such a measure.

Under the bill, dishes installed in the future must match the colors of homes, and hundreds of inactive dishes will be removed.

I doubt Philly will get its way. People simply refuse to pay higher rates for TV entertainment, and urban neighborhoods with a high concentration of new immigrants will always opt for satellite TV service and their international programming options. I’ve seen more satellite antennas in cities than ever before. You can’t argue with popular preference.

How about above-ground cables and wires strung from utility poles? Now that’s ugly!