New Lease on Television Life

Mark Cuban is predicting a Coming Golden Age of Television on the heels of HDTV. Cuban points to the last mile problem as the broadcast television lifeline. Bandwidth to the home isn't capable of handling the increase of file sizes resulting from the HD transition. On the Internet side of the equation, we need 8mbps for HD (possibly 10mbps for high action sports content). On the television side, digital cable uses about 10mbps per channel. Compare this to 1mbps for DVD quality video online or 2.5mbps per broadcast channel. Greater bandwidth required to support HDTV means unacceptable download times for programming on the Internet side of the equation. With less than 50% of cable customers going digital, squeezing more bandwidth out of the same pipe isn't feasible without losing customers. I can see where the digital cable problem can't be solved due to market penetration, but I'm not sure Mark's right about the bandwidth problem. Comcast seems to have more bandwidth available all the time. Not long ago we were at 3mbps, the basic offering is now 5mbps, for an extra $10/monthly, I'm at 8mbps and there are rumors that Comcast is offering 10mbps in areas where Verizon has fiber. People who buy the premium service will be the same people swapping HD files via BitTorrent and figuring out how to get HD via IPTV. So the real question is, if Mark's right about HDTV giving new life to broadcast television and Cringely is right about Google's multicast capabilities, how long before we get the best of both worlds?

Posted by Jake

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