Internode this week announced that it’ll soon offer its complete internet television service package, FetchTV Full, over Australia’s new high-speed National Broadband Network (NBN).
At an event held on Wednesday, Internode demonstrated the service running on the NBN, providing full high-definition quality television served over the Internet.
FetchTV – also available through other providers including iiNet and soon Optus – offers free-to-air television, pay-per-view movies and on-demand television shows streamed entirely over the Internet.
Each provider offers different FetchTV packages, but Internode’s premium Full service includes a personal video recorder, access to a number of subscription television services including Fox Sports News and CNBC, and the ability to pause, rewind and record live free-to-air television.
Realising the potential for high-quality multimedia to be served over the NBN, a draft document outlining a multicast service that would allow providers to efficiently stream multimedia over the network was released by NBN Co last month.
However Internode says its FetchTV service will be served using at least initially using an alternative solution to NBN Co’s own multicast offering, because it wants to provide customers with access from later this year, when the NBN will come out of the current trial phase in five locations on mainland Australia. NBN Co’s multicast solution won’t launch until next year.
“Rather than wait for the NBN to deliver multicast, we have worked out how to use existing technology to deliver high-quality video-on-demand using fetchtv over the NBN,” Internode product manager Jim Kellett said in a statement.
Late last month, Internode commented on the NBN Co’s draft plans for the multicast service, saying it felt amongst other suggestions NBN Co should adapt the proposed pricing scheme to increase competitiveness.
Internode also suggested NBN Co detail what plans, if any, it has for the provision of the service over its 4G fixed network saying; “as the construction tender has been let for the fixed wireless network, surely NBN Co has some idea of whether it will be trying to make multicast work over this technology as part of that tendered design.”
The company’s FetchTV Full service is currently only available to customers using Internode’s own ADSL2+ network, with a low-end service, FetchTV Lite, available for all other Internode customers including customers using the NBN in the trial stage.
Image Credit: FetchTV
This is one area Foxtel will shine if and when it’s realeased over the NBN.
FetchTV as a competitor to Foxtel, is average at best :S
This is one area Foxtel will shine if and when it’s realeased over the NBN.
FetchTV as a competitor to Foxtel, is average at best :S
Content currently being delivered by Fetch TV is limited due to a variety of factors. Most obvious is the current contracts between content suppliers (non-Fox/Foxtel owned channels) and Foxtel/Austar. Once those contracts begin to expire, one may see this content becoming available to more delivery platforms like FetchTV et al across a variety of platforms. Foxtel won’t give up access to it’s own channels to their competitors without a fight or without extracting a large fee. Another reason for limited content on Fetch TV is cost of delivery. Ovation channel recently dropped off the Foxtel platform due to delivery costs and is now available on Fetch TV. No doubt, as alternative delivery platforms such as IPTV become more widely available, contracts will enable this content to become more widely available. Sport such the NRL, AFL & Rugby Union etc., will continue to be locked in to the existing FTA TV, Foxtel/Austar due to long-term 5 year contracts unless the FTA TV/Foxtel/Austar begin delivering this content also by way of IPTV. Money will always win control in this small populated and limited market.
One thing about Fetch TV which keeps being deliberately buried within the marketing hype is that the Free-to-Air TV functioning of the Fetch TV box is NOT delivered via IPTV/Linear TV. The FTA channels are terrestrially delivered the same as a normal PVR/STB. The E.P.G. data is delivered along with the linear (subscription TV)/IPTV channels and the pay-per-view content via the internet. It is over 2 years now since Fetch TV was launched, yet this salient point still remains muddied and dare I say deliberately confused by the marketing hype. The ability to deliver F.T.A. TV via IPTV will remain a contentious issue for some time due to the positions of various stateholders limited by licencing obligations, broadcasting regulations etc. Unfortunately this is not likely to be resolved prior to the roll out of the NBN.
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