This article is by Emma Dawson, executive director at the Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society, at the University of Melbourne. It originally appeared on The Conversation.
analysis No-one would describe News Corp Australia’s view on the National Broadband Network (NBN) as rosy. But if it’s true the company has engaged in repeated attacks on the government because it “hates” its network, as Fairfax columnist Paul Sheehan claimed at the weekend, the big question seems fairly obvious. Why?
Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull deserves much credit for bringing the Coalition to the policy position of supporting a national broadband network, albeit one that eschews the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) model being executed by Labor in favour of a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) approach, with a reliance on existing copper infrastructure to complete the delivery of services to the home.
Turnbull rejected the crux of Sheehan’s argument: that Labor’s NBN is a greater existential threat to News Corp’s pay TV company Foxtel than the Coalition’s own policy. On his website, he wrote a rebuttal to Sheehan’s Fairfax piece, claiming: “[t]he Coalition’s plan for the NBN will bring the day of reckoning [for the Foxtel business model] much sooner”.
Turnbull stated that Foxtel was already adapting well to the “internet threat” and repeated his claim that, by improving broadband speeds more quickly than Labor’s policy, his own approach to the NBN is hardly likely to be favoured by Foxtel or its parent company, News Corp.
All of this has led to a situation in which: Labor is decrying Murdoch’s criticism of its NBN as being the product of vested interests; and the Coalition is apparently courting, rather strangely, Murdoch’s disapproval of its NBN policy as some sort of badge of legitimacy. So, spin aside, let’s try to get some facts on the table.
What’s going on?
Telstra owns the 50% of Foxtel that News Corp does not. Foxtel enjoys a virtually unchallenged position in the provision of pay TV services largely due to Telstra’s control of the means of distribution on its hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network (which combines optical fibre and coaxial cable) in the highly profitable metropolitan markets.
As the wholesale operator of what is currently the only efficient means of delivering pay TV in urban markets – an HFC network (Optus operates another) – Telstra controls the price and conditions by which any new entrant might provide a similar service to Foxtel.
This position was bolstered by Foxtel’s acquisition last year of Austar, the company which delivered pay TV to regional and rural Australia via satellite.
While it’s certainly true Foxtel suffers regulatory restrictions in Australia – primarily through anti-siphoning legislation that ensures premium sport content is offered first to free-to-air television – and that those restrictions have prevented it achieving the same levels of market penetration as it has in other countries, the company remains the only viable option for Australian viewers wishing to access pay TV.
An open, wholesale, fibre-to-the-premises NBN – the Labor version – would undermine the Foxtel business model by allowing new traditional-type pay TV providers and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) to compete on an even playing field in the pay TV marketplace.
It is true, as Turnbull states, the Coalition’s plan will deliver faster broadband speeds nationwide – enough to support IPTV services as they currently operate – sooner than Labor’s NBN. But this ignores the reality of broadband use in the home: there’s no allowance for the use of other applications at the same time as the operation of IPTV.
Watching and learning
Despite the over-excited claims of “tech-heads”, there’s little evidence viewers are completely abandoning “linear” (traditional, scheduled programming) TV in favour of downloading content on-demand. Rather, on-demand viewing is an additional activity to traditional TV consumption.The viewing of news and sport, in particular, will remain an activity conducted “in real time” over traditional linear TV delivery.
If a household were, in the future, to use IPTV as its primary television provider, one must assume it would be operating constantly for several hours a day, particularly during peak viewing hours between 6pm and 11pm. This is also the time that home users of broadband are likely to be using the internet for other purposes.
Quite apart from the issue of how one family member might use bandwidth-hungry applications, such as downloading documents, running online videos, or gaming, at the same time as another family member is watching television via IPTV, the assumptions in this argument ignore the habits of TV viewers, which increasingly involve engagement with other online activity while watching television.
In a 2012 Google study, 52% of respondents indicated they were engaged with a mobile device while watching television. Presumably, in the vast majority of cases, this “multi-screen activity” relies on the home’s Wi-Fi connection over broadband.
In whose interests?
It does appear the Coalition’s FTTN model, with its more limited capacity, is more favourable to the business interests of Foxtel, particularly when one considers the interaction between the NBN and the operation of Australia’s HFC network. Coalition policy in relation to the HFC network is unclear, stating:
Subject to an equitable re-negotiation of these provisions satisfactory to NBN Co and the government, our goal would be to remove any contractual impediments to the use of existing HFC networks for broadband and voice. A key consideration in such negotiations will be ensuring open access to networks and scope for enhanced competition in the relevant areas.
This position essentially means the ultimate structure of the HFC network will depend very much upon what Telstra agrees to in a new negotiation. That is, the Coalition appears to have committed to giving Telstra another stab at negotiating an outcome that could allow it to maintain wholesale control of the HFC network.
Turnbull has been clear that, in the interests of avoiding Labor’s “government monopoly” model and promoting competition in the provision of wholesale broadband services in those high-density urban areas in which the market can support it, Telstra would be allowed to offer wholesale broadband bundled with Foxtel services over its HFC network.
This determination to support market competition in the provision of wholesale broadband in metropolitan markets is the crux of the ideological difference between Labor and the Coalition as expressed in their approaches to broadband.
Turnbull’s appeal to the ideology of market competition sounds entirely reasonable and is in the best tradition of Liberal party economics. It is, of course, completely antithetical to the market design of Labor’s NBN, which has always been about restructuring the telecommunications market in Australia and providing equal services to regional and rural Australia by achieving structural separation of Telstra.
Turnbull has acknowledged that, for his desired outcome of wholesale competition in urban markets to work, the HFC network would have to be operated on a genuinely wholesale basis – that is, structural separation of the HFC network would have to be maintained under the Coalition plan.
The rub
The problem – and here we come to the element that has largely been ignored since Sheehan’s piece kicked off the current debate on the weekend – is that the Coalition’s policy guarantees no such thing. In a discussion with Business Spectator’s Alan Kohler on August 1, Turnbull acknowledged that:
[o]ne possibility is that [the HFC network] is operated by Telstra as a wholesale asset, so then you would have a qualification to the structural separation objective …
To put this another way, Turnbull is admitting the possibility that the Coalition’s renegotiation with Telstra could end up allowing Telstra to be both the wholesale provider of broadband over HFC in urban areas where the HFC network currently exists and a retail provider of broadband and pay TV services over that same network.
Such a move would essentially reinstate Telstra as a vertically integrated wholesale provider of infrastructure (to compete with the NBN) and retail service provider in those markets. By providing an alternative wholesale service in only the most profitable markets, this move would almost certainly reduce the financial returns to NBN Co, raising costs that would have to be passed on to retail customers across the national network, or – more likely – result in higher prices outside the metropolitan markets.
At the same time, it will allow Telstra to, in effect, “offer” a lower wholesale access price to its own asset – Foxtel – in those profitable markets than either it, or presumably NBN Co, would make available to other retail customers.
While Turnbull admitted he was personally “uncomfortable with that” possibility, the fact remains: the Coalition policy is that, ultimately, the operation of the HFC network will be subject to a new negotiation with Telstra that could leave Telstra to operate the HFC network as a wholesale asset to its own and Foxtel’s advantage.
This outcome would be much more favourable to Telstra’s Foxtel partner, News Corp, than the current deal between Telstra and the Labor Government to decommission both the Telstra and Optus HFC networks and migrate users onto the NBN.
Neither Murdoch’s tweet on Monday, questioning Labor’s plan to finance the NBN, nor Foxtel’s statement this week insisting it’s in favour of fast broadband for Australia, have acknowledged these issues, choosing instead to focus on the benefit of “fast broadband networks” to Foxtel’s recent forays into mobile and on demand services. It’s a nice attempt at misdirection, and one that leaves consumers and voters in the dark as to the real implications of the competing broadband policies for Murdoch’s business interests in Australia.
News Corp has repeatedly defended its right, as a privately-owned media company, to use its newspapers to campaign for particular policies or political parties. It also has a strong record of calling for transparency and accountability in political debate. But in its arguments against the NBN, it would seem News Corp Australia’s campaign is less than wholly transparent in representing its own interests.
Emma Dawson was previously an adviser to former Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy, in which role she provided advice on broadcasting, digital television and media regulation. She is a member of the ALP.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article. Image credit: Michal Zacharzewski, royalty free
Until the Coalition rollout FTTN to the HFC areas, if they ever do, they have simply handed Telstra a monopoly market for the most profitable areas in Australia.
So, it’s not that they’re opposed to fast broadband, per se, it’s just that they demand we have competition at all costs.
Which, in the case of a natural monopoly like last-mile communications infrastructure or power lines or roads, leads to higher prices to users of that infrastructure and a net drain on the economy.
Good to see they’ve got the best interests of the country at heart…
As Television is a broadcast medium, satellite or terrestrial broadcasting is just as efficient, if not more so, than HFC. The only advantage HFC really has is a) easier to upgrade than Satalite (but not terrestrial broadcasting) b) doesn’t require the owner to have spectrum assets and c) bidirectional (on demand/interactive) content.
Although I agree with the premise the authour is trying to present I found this statement detracts from it.
“As Television is a broadcast medium, satellite or terrestrial broadcasting is just as efficient, if not more so, than HFC.”
Completely false.
When you want to provide a video service,bandwidth is king.
How many channels can be squeezed into wireless vs HFC?
How many more can be squeezed into FTTP?
Efficiency != able to deliver maximum payload. Especially when you’re talking about economic cost.
What is cheaper, a tower or sat that broadcasts half a dozen high definition channels to tens of thousands or millions of people respectively, or a network of coax or fibre that delivers many dozen individual multicasted channels to between a dozen and just over a thousand (1200) depending various factors like the node split per node?
I’ll give you a clue: it’s the one that doesn’t involve billions of dollars in public works.
I am a supporter of the NBN, but saying that HFC is the only efficient way to deliver payTV to urban markets is false; completely and utterly.
That should read:
…HFC is the only current way, pre NBN,…
“Efficiency != able to deliver maximum payload.”
By that definition, wireless loses out dramatically.
“What is cheaper”
Cheaper is not necessarily more efficient. If your TV tower is not delivering the content I want, then every penny spent on it is a complete waste and it is infinitely inefficient.
Pay tv delivered over cable can provide a return because it can tailor programming to an audience, wireless has very limited capacity to do this and so must tailor it’s programming to the lowest common denominator and in doing so, lowers the unit value of the content it delivers.
“HFC is the only efficient way to deliver payTV”
By it’s nature, pay tv has to deliver something NOT being delivered by FTA tv, which already caters to the mass market, ie, you need more variety and more channels and there simply isn’t the spectrum to do that. It is. It is simply too inefficient.
What? != is a symbol used to mean NOT equal to. Wireless’ only disadvantage in BROADCASTING is its payload. Payload is the very reason wireless COMMUNICATIONS isn’t viable in isolation, especially when you consider that area also has contention to deal with.
I concede this point in principle, however would point out the cost vs benefit argument here. The costs of delivering lots of channels or on demand content are not insignificant. If the tower is not delivering something you want to watch but you are literally the only person who does, even in payTV, they’ll be willing to cut their losses and you’d miss out.
False dichotomy. Deliver the most popular content wirelessly and allow niche content on demand via broadband. This is inline with my initial premise: that cable is not the ONLY way to efficiently deliver payTV.
This is untrue. In Australia especially the problem isn’t lack of spectrum, it’s inefficient use of spectrum. There are two primary issues with Australian FTA that means getting spectrum to provide scrambled channels is expensive.
1) Australian FTA uses MPEG2 despite widespread equipment support for MPEG4. They could fix this tomorrow in all likelihood.
2) Australian FTA uses DVB-T rather than DVB-T2. Granted this is a harder problem to fix as it requires set compatibility.
In New Zealand there is a provider who offers 12 scrambled channels over DVB-T2 and can do this because the spectrum used for FTA is a lot less because they use MPEG4. They could offer more, and probably will, if NZ switched to T2 or as more spectrum becomes available from the digital switch.
“Wireless’ only disadvantage in BROADCASTING is its payload.”
But it is a killer disadvantage.
“Deliver the most popular content wirelessly”
Again, the most popular content will most likely be delivered for free since there is no problem covering the cost by advertising. If you want to charge money, then you will have to deliver something that is not available free, either by stitching up exclusive delivery deals or providing something that advertising would not cover the costs of.
“This is untrue. In Australia especially the problem isn’t lack of spectrum, it’s inefficient use of spectrum.”
No THIS is untrue. Sure, more efficient compression can allow more channels OR higher quality video, but twice bugger all is still not much.
HFC can deliver hundreds of channels, FTTP thousand or hundreds of TRUE HD.
“Australian FTA uses MPEG2 despite widespread equipment support for MPEG4. They could fix this tomorrow in all likelihood.”
When Blueray standards were specified, they chose to go with MPEG 2 even though more efficient codecs already existed. The reason? These more efficient codecs added more artifacts to the picture stream than they considered acceptable.
DVDs have an underlying bit rate of 28Mbps, more than enough for “HD” using codecs like MPEG 4.
Yet, if you watch the same movie on BD and HD-DVD, the Blueray is superior because MPEG 2 on a 40Mbps channel throws away less information than MPEG 4 on a 28Mbps channel.
So Foxtel, BSkyB, etc, who all deliever PayTV via satalite are just kidding themselves? They are just killing time until they can afford to deploy a HFC or high bandwidth broadband network?
It’s a disadvantage, it doesn’t make any of the other options discussed unviable, it doesn’t “kill” their viablity as an option. Please, learn the difference.
Which is exactly that Foxtel, BSkyB, etc, do. Heard of Game of Thrones? That’s more than popular enough to support itself on Advertising, but Foxtel signed an exclusive deal with HBO. People also are willing to pay a premium to watch content without advertising, for example, uninterupted movie broadcasts.
No THIS is untrue. Sure, more efficient compression can allow more channels OR higher quality video, but twice bugger all is still not much.
HFC can deliver hundreds of channels, FTTP thousand or hundreds of TRUE HD.
This is an arguement known as “No True Scotsman”. People deliever PayTV with limited content, but that isn’t “true” PayTV according to you. You can’t dimiss providers like Igloo in New Zealand who broadcast a limited number of channels over Terrestial using DVB-T2 just because “they only have a few channels”. They fact is they are charging for them, and their business model is working.
The fact that you can deliever more TV over FTTP or HFC is irrelevent, because the statement I was arguing against was the statement that “HFC is the only way to efficently deliever PayTV to urban enviroments”. You may not like the fact the providers who do it via Satalite or Terrestial offer limited content, but that is nothing more than your proagtive. You want more content? You choose a provider that offers it. If they need FTTP or HFC to do that, then fine, you should probably get that. I support the NBN by the way.
Your preference in content no way changes the fact that providers can offer PayTV using DVB-T and DVB-S technology efficenctily and have been doing this for at least a decade..
Actually they didn’t, care of Wikipedia:
For video, all players are required to support H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2, H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10: AVC, and SMPTE VC-1.
They can be encoded in MPEG2, however more, in reality, most from my experience are encoded in VC-1. And according to Wikipedia, again…
…users could deliver progressive content at data rates as low as one-third that of the MPEG-2 codec and still get equivalent or comparable quality to MPEG-2…
MPEG2 is a terriably inefficent codec. MPEG4 has some artifart problems, but again, stop presenting a false dicotomy between the two. I suggested MPEG4 because it is the more IR efficent of the bunch, and very widely supported.
As for artifacts in TV broadcasts, unfortuantely that is trade off the provider has to decide to make. It isn’t one I will make for them, but if they want to push more content they can by switching to more efficent content. If they feel using their spectrum inefficently is worth the extra quality, that is their progative. If they want to cram more channels in, they can.
And a loseless format throws away less information than both of those combined! Just because one is better quality doesn’t mean a provider should use it. There is again another CBA you need to consider here. Is the loss in quality by using a more efficent (read, more lossy) storage mechanism worth the extra content a PayTV provider can push?
The PayTV business, much as we would like it to be, isn’t about delieverly high quality content in high volumes, it’s about deleiverly of content that people are willing to pay for. That is why Igloo, despite only have 12 channels, works. That is why Terratial or Satlaite based PayTV works. It may not be what you want out of PayTV, but that’s your problem, not the providers. They can deliever it however the hell they want, and if they make a profit on it, they will continue to do it.
It’s no surprise, then, that the LNP policy implies HFC-covered areas may be the last targeted in their roll-out.
If Foxtel wants to use the FTTP NBN to deliver multicast ipTV then every customer that takes a multicast AVC must also take a unicast AVC, with free voice capability, from Foxtel. The logical upshot of this imo is for Foxtel to offer triple play over the FTTP NBN. It could provide it’s ‘broadcast’ content via the multicast service and its on-demand content quota-free via the internet service. It could strike a wholesale deal with Telstra to resell re-branded Telstra internet and voice services. This seems to me to be much more of an opportunity for Foxtel than a threat. An opportunity I don’t think the Coalition NBN supports.
The main argument comes down to monopolistic pricing and Rupert hating competition. The NBN will not kill Foxtel, it could kill its monopoly, but (if Foxtel doesn’t want to die) it will definitely kill Foxtel’s profit margins so that they have to compete on price and with less of the “filler” they use to justify the pricing. So, even if Foxtel can benefit from all of those things – here’s the important bit – so can anyone else.
Its not about the NBN. Murdoch is one of the big owners of content, like movies, and he can sell it to even more people with a taxpayer-provided high speed broadband than he can with a satellite network.
No, its about Murdoch wanting to own political leaders. He wants them to believe that they got the job because his papers supported them, or at least didn’t attack them, and that they keep it only whilever they please him. He’d like to own a President, but America’s politicians are already bought and owned by far richer and more powerful people than him. The military lobby. The health care lobby. The Jewish lobby. He owned a British PM, Tony Blair, but his papers there got caught out doing too many dirty nasty things, and now no British politician dare be seen anywhere near him. That leaves Australia. Julia belonged to him. And just like Latham didn’t, Kevin doesn’t. So he’s going to destroy him too to prove he is that powerful.
Actually Gordon
Tony Blair and Murdoch had a close family “friendship, Murdoch is Godfather to Blair’s children until Blair refused to obey Murdochs demands to withdraw certain bills. Note Camerons advisors were News Ltd people and actually had to resign and have faced criminal charges.
I suggest read this article again
http://theconversation.com/murdoch-and-his-influence-on-australian-political-life-16752
It is also worth revisiting
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/20/bernstein-murdoch-ailes-petreaus-presidency
Really Deja Vu, just not Ailes running the campaign but another of the same cloth
The authors statement,
“Despite the over-excited claims of “tech-heads”, there’s little evidence viewers are completely abandoning “linear” (traditional, scheduled programming) TV in favour of downloading content on-demand. Rather, on-demand viewing is an additional activity to traditional TV consumption. The viewing of news and sport, in particular, will remain an activity conducted “in real time” over traditional linear TV delivery.”
is by and large incorrect on only has to look at the huge losses faced by both the 9 and 10 networks and 7 being propped up “Murdoch style” by Kerry Stokes very profitable businesses.
All of the companies in the television businesses in Australia are suffering from falling advertising revenue and are resorting to advertisers “owning programming and personalities” and using personalities to promote their products within programmes, rugby league and cricket have become unbearable with things in game being named after advertisers.
These companies are going the way of the Video Store.
Worth noting Australian content and programs, FTA are obligated to produce and air Locally produced drama and programs which cost big dollars and contribute to their difficulties.
Foxtel spends nothing supporting out Movie/Film/Production with the exception of Sky News and current affairs and Sport programs. Basically a parasite making negligible real contribution to Australia’s creative media industry
I think Murdock’s preoccupation with the NBN goes beyond Foxtel.
There is no doubt that the NBN poses a threat to the MSM as the main provider of news and info (and threat to its advertising revenue). The political clout the MSM has had is gradually diminishing and the NBN will play a part in accelerating the process.
FTTN is anti-intellectualism, wake up ozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Telstra reported today that FoxTel has 2.5M subscribers and revenue of $3.1B – this is a monopoly worth protection. Supporting LNP during this election ensures this stays in place for many years.
A vote for LNP is a vote to keep Middleman Murdoch rolling in FoxTel $’s, without competition from other services or the live sports providers like AFL, NRL, etc. Will this be enough to payout for the News Ltd corruption in the UK.
“Despite the over-excited claims of “tech-heads”, there’s little evidence viewers are completely abandoning “linear” (traditional, scheduled programming) TV in favour of downloading content on-demand. Rather, on-demand viewing is an additional activity to traditional TV consumption”
This is a chicken vs egg scenarion, the evidence of users downloading on demand can only be observed after FTTP-like bandwidths are available. As internet speeds increase so does activity, take the example of dial-up to ADSL and consider how much more productive internet usage has become.
I think this article captures the flaw in the LNP policy very early in the piece in that consumer internet habits will, and already have for many, changed to using the Internet for multiple things at once. IPTV, VoIP, VoD, eHealth, gaming and general browsing will all occur at the same time in the very near future and consumers will demand the same performance when the are doing multiple things as they get when just doing one thing on the internet. The issue is service/function contention.
The LNP policy will mean that we will reach that contention limit per consumer much earlier than with the current NBN design and will require reinvestment to meet the growing needs of consumers to go to the same technology that will be delivered by the NBN in a pretty similar time frame.
That is the key message that needs to be communicated here and that reinvestment/replacement to get the FTTN to FTTP will cost a lot more when you consider Time/Value of Money.
Mind you, I come from South Australia where we built a one way freeway (which swaps directions twice a day taking an hour each) for $80m and are expanding it to a two way system 10 years later for $300+m. Just sayin’.
The reason why the NBN is being criticised is not hard to work out:
-No cost benefit analysis in the first place. It is basic requirement for all major projects, especially those conceived on a whim for short term political gain;
-Slow roll out. Or more accurately delay after delay after delay. With a litany of excuses along the way;
-High cost, a great deal of money has already been spent and the NBN is far from finished. Who really knows the true cost or timeframe?
-Labor has not rolled out one successful policy in 6 years, plenty of duds though.
Your blind liberal zeal could not be any more obvious. None of us care which party rolls out the FTTP version of the NBN, and Labor is at least trying. FTTN will never deliver the speeds and stability that full fibre can.
It certainly must be lonely where one only has LNP propaganda to read.
MT has stated he wont be doing a CBA on his FTTN either.
There are reasons for the delays (like the asbestos in the pits most recently) – they’re not excuses.
Big projects always cost a great deal of money at the outset, and we’ll only KNOW how much it costs when it’s finished. But we can make very informed predictions.
I would have thought the strength of our economy and the fact we have low unemployment compared with the rest of the OECD showed good policy has been enacted.
“Turnbull rejected the crux of Sheehan’s argument: that Labor’s NBN is a greater existential threat to News Corp’s pay TV company Foxtel than the Coalition’s own policy. On his website, he wrote a rebuttal to Sheehan’s Fairfax piece, claiming: “[t]he Coalition’s plan for the NBN will bring the day of reckoning [for the Foxtel business model] much sooner”.”
This is classic Turnbull and why I went from being a big fan once upon a time to being extremely wary of him. He manages to create an argument that seems reasonable when taken in isolation but dig down deeper and the argument is contradictory with the reality.
Cheaper? Lets inflate the other sides cost and ignore the completely obvious fact that FTTN will face significant upgrade costs sooner in its life.
Faster? Lets focus on a false discussion about rollout in ideal circumstances. If the last mile copper is good, FTTN will be significantly faster in the ideal case. In reality, the issues causing a slow rollout to date are not to do with the speed of stringing up fibre to each premise. You have so many parties involved in this project – government (as owner of NBN), major contractors, small contractors and local council. The project depends on these parties coordinating action (the cynical among you are already smiling) and when something unexpected comes along …well asbestos anyone (even though it was spelled out in the 2009 contract with Telstra and they should have been on top of it). It is not a streamlined small or medium sized business and despite Malcolms many talents it will never run like one. But again, let’s not talk about reality, lets have a false argument about theoretical cases.
Competition? We will say you are getting more competition while we let the major players force a fragmented market that keeps the barriers to entry of their market high. Instead of competition happening at the retail end, the competition will happen in private conversation with Malcolm.
One of massive failings of the current NBN is that there is no penalty for Telstra in delaying and holding out for a better outcome. Sure there is incentive in terms of payments for connecting to the NBN but that is minuscule in comparison to what could be gained from a new NBN concept.
Your blind liberal zeal could not be any more obvious. None of us care which party rolls out the FTTP version of the NBN, and Labor is at least trying. FTTN will never deliver the speeds and stability that full fibre can.
^– That was for the lone gunman, not RyanH.
Saying there is no change is incorrect.
Using myself as a case study I used to have foxtel and now have Netflix with a roku and a smart TV which can view iView and SBS on demand Commercial networks catch up is terrible with almost nothing available.
So what has changed well previously with Foxtel I would flick till I did not find something I wanted to watch then chose the least bad option and watched that.
Now what I do is say hmm I feel like watching an episode of Top Gear, Dr Who and something from the ABC and watch it. For the football I have the AFL app on my tablet connect it to my TV and watch my team live or replayed when I like. There is a massive difference in my viewing behaviour now I don’t look at the time for when to watch a show if I want to go for a walk or cook dinner I just do it at any time there is no I have to cook dinner right now as X will be on or don’t do something because I will miss Y. Being free of the shackles of broadcast TV is amazing and I would Highly recommend everyone try it.
The real point seems to be missing in all the minutia and analysis (at least IMHO).
NO single company or group should be allowed to own/control the majority of what amounts to a country’s major source of information. The ownership of the press should be far more regulated and be protected as the public service it was originally supposed to be.
Sorry?
The key here is revenue. That “paywall” is now a common term (hint, you don’t massively restrict viewer numbers because Advertising is working really well) when in the past it was barely know, speaks volume.
Consumer demand is increasingly for bespoke, push content. This is why Foxtel is actually throwing money into their online products. They know, over time, that is where the money will be.
Old money methods, old models, are disappearing at a frightening rate. That FTA is floundering, is a sign of the times. Innovate, or die. This is why paid-content type shows are becoming more common.
The coalition won’t touch HFC because it will impact the Telstra, Foxtel deal. It would be interventionist. I’m not sure Liberal party diehards could forgive themselves for allowing a state-sponsored corporate to come in and replace a profitable commercial entity.
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