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stepone
20-07-2008, 12:29
Very soon we'll all be on 24/7 STM & this seems to be the way most isps are heading.

In order to get people to upgrade from 20mb to 50mb VM may very well offer stm free 50mb for a while but my bet will be on them implementing it after a year or so & still having fair usage restrictions in the mean time which will mean that if you actually use 50mb flat out for 3 hours a day (every day) then you'll be in for the chop.

On the positiive side this sort of connection speed will make HD VOD a very real & practical possibility.

The service I most want to see is a subscription based VOD service where you pay say £15 a month & have access to a video library of ALL movies for streaming to your PC, Xbox 360, PS3 or settop box offering movies from every studio in one place at DVD, 720P & 1080P resolution (your choice).

This will do more to end movie piracy than any anti-piracy drm measures will ever accomplish but we will need A LOT of unmetered bandwidth, frankly more than isp's can deliver at the moment while still seeing a profit.

Hopefully Docsis 3.0 & 50mb truly unlimited broadband can be the first step to achieving this goal.

What's your vision for the usage of 50mb+ BB in the next 5 years?

*(MS & Netflix in the US just made a deal to allow streaming to the 360 of 10'000's of albeit mostly rubbish movies to current subscribers for no additional cost).

Sirius
20-07-2008, 12:58
Very soon we'll all be on 24/7 STM & this seems to be the way most isps are heading.

There are 2 moves that i feel VM will do in the next 4 months.

1. Introduce both traffic throttling by DPI and 24 hour STM.

2. Introduce 50meg with STM applied.

That will then be the end of VM as THE broadband to have.

VM will not apply any known form of intelligence to the roll out of 50 meg. All VM understand is get as much money for as little outlay as you can and STM allows them to do that very nicely if you ask me.

dev
20-07-2008, 13:06
i don't mind STM type limits (As long as they are actually quoted), but throttling based on traffic type is a PITA.

i've said it for many years, in say 10 years or so everyone will be on 100mbit and you'll pay for how much traffic you use, just like the phones were before call plans. You'll pay like £5/month for the line to be looked after and include a few GB of traffic. A few tiers will exist with higher inclusions for a higher price (like mobile phone contracts)

CrowmanUK
20-07-2008, 18:31
It could go even worse than that, imagine paying for different services on top of your internet account

Basic web browsing account £X
FTP would cost extra
NNTP would cost extra
Accessing torrent type media sites would cost extra

That could end up like sky and their tv packages.

dev
20-07-2008, 18:43
It could go even worse than that, imagine paying for different services on top of your internet account

Basic web browsing account £X
FTP would cost extra
NNTP would cost extra
Accessing torrent type media sites would cost extra

That could end up like sky and their tv packages.

unlikely due to the complicated nature, what happens to protocols not listed? simply blocked? allowed?

CrowmanUK
20-07-2008, 18:51
nothing is impossible in the quest for making money mate, who'd have thought when we had the 4 channels coming through the aerial that we'd be subscribing for extra channels eh? And as for protocols not listed, they could be monitored to see if theyre profitable and worth charging for, its not me saying this anyway its Captain Paranoia sitting on my shoulder ;)

peanut
20-07-2008, 18:57
In 5 years time? Maybe dial up would start to look appealling...

CrowmanUK
20-07-2008, 19:18
or we could all go down the pub to chat, which sounds even more appealing...

Rone
20-07-2008, 20:51
In 5 years time? Maybe dial up would start to look appealling...

It already does. :D

Toto
20-07-2008, 21:26
Having carefully considered the OP's starting post, and taking on board the other comments, I'm uncertain as to how the 50Mb service will be delivered.

Given BT's fanfare announcement of a fully fledged fibre network, Virgin have to think long and hard how they intend to market and retain users on this upper tear. Simply delivering a faster speed is not enough IMO, there has to be content to go with it.

I see no advantage in 50Mb personally, unless they migrate my 20Mb service to the DOCSIS 3 infrastructure. STM has largely passed me by due to my download habits, but anything that reduces the tripping of the system HAS to be a big plus to many here.

Virgin have a chance to make it extremely difficult for BT to get a toehold into this upper market. The question is wether it has the stones and the marketing knowledge needed to make it THE next biggest thing on the UK ISP roadmap.

Fair Use, translated into STM, packet throttling or whatever method an ISP decidies to use IS hurting the casual downloaders as well as the pee takers. I do not dissagree with STM, but it has a long way to go in only affecting those who couldn't give a toss, and have unlimited storage for whatever the hell they are downloading.

stepone
20-07-2008, 22:44
We need the content even more than we need the extra speed right now!

I am still absolutely amazed that so far the movie industry hasn't started licensing digital copies of their entire catalogues to sites like amazon. Instead they all seem to be trying to each have their own proprietry services for each of the movie studios.

When will they cotton on to the fact that people want a unified 1 stop shop & give us the choice of decent quality HD encodes (i'm looking at you apple).

Of course the best movie subscription/rental service in the world is going to be useless if we all end up getting STM'd up the wazo 24/7 with stupidly low caps for the age of HD.

piggy
21-07-2008, 21:03
the way to go is 1 speed for all no stm BUT pay for what you download

Sirius
21-07-2008, 21:08
the way to go is 1 speed for all no stm BUT pay for what you download

Problem with that is its commercial suicide. I would say the last to leave please turn off the servers.

piggy
21-07-2008, 21:21
Problem with that is its commercial suicide. I would say the last to leave please turn off the servers.

not if all isp's do it. data should be treated like any other commodity, the more you have/use the more you pay.

Sirius
21-07-2008, 21:31
not if all isp's do it. data should be treated like any other commodity, the more you have/use the more you pay.

Never going to happen. ISP's are in it to make money and if they can get the other isp's by letting the other charge while they don't then that is what will happen.

Do you honestly think they would all go to a pay by download model because i Dont.

piggy
21-07-2008, 21:47
Never going to happen. ISP's are in it to make money and if they can get the other isp's by letting the other charge while they don't then that is what will happen.

Do you honestly think they would all go to a pay by download model because i Dont.

the phone companys make it work and they could easily apply that model to broadband

Sirius
21-07-2008, 22:10
the phone companys make it work and they could easily apply that model to broadband

The mobile phone companys will go unlimited as soon as they have finished there network build ;)

dev
22-07-2008, 03:58
The mobile phone companys will go unlimited as soon as they have finished there network build ;)

and ISPs haven't got the money to cope with demand, so they'll give a set speed out and charge for traffic used, then in years to come when they've got the cash, they'll upgrade and sort peering agreements with everyone and drop the cost to eventually nothing. ISPs have to pay for the traffic so what makes you think the customers shouldnt have to ?

rhysr2k8
22-07-2008, 05:37
don't anyone know you do get content provided with virgin's size L and XL bb on broadbandextras?? even though it not that much u do get unlimited games too play online or download, streamed music vid's, kid's content, 15 free prints each month , and 3 free music downloads every month

---------- Post added at 04:37 ---------- Previous post was at 04:30 ----------

(Simply delivering a faster speed is not enough IMO, there has to be content to go with it.)

as above

Sirius
22-07-2008, 07:38
and ISPs haven't got the money to cope with demand, so they'll give a set speed out and charge for traffic used, then in years to come when they've got the cash, they'll upgrade and sort peering agreements with everyone and drop the cost to eventually nothing. ISPs have to pay for the traffic so what makes you think the customers shouldnt have to ?

Then the first thing VM should do is get rid of those silly retention deals that in some cases has VM paying the customer.

Next stop paying stupid money to Big Brother.

Next get some real encryption and get rid of the free loading cloners and set top box users who have up to 4 modems in a house.

When 50 meg comes out charge a premium for it and never let the retentions free loader's get it cheap.

Stop the court case with sky and forget about Sky basics all together, That should save a few million in lawyers fees ?

Charge a higher fee for a unlimited 10 meg service with no ATM or traffic shaping Say £40.00 a month.

I could go on but i don't think you want a complete list of the little things that VM need to FIX and could give them money to spend on there network.

Just removing the free loading cloners should save them a load of money, But hey i don't get paid money by VM so why should i have to tell them the simple things they need to know to cut down on there costs

Broadband charged by how much you download is commercial suicide these days and you can bet VM and the other Isp's know it or they would have done it years ago to supplement their share holders payments, Don't for one minute think the extra money would be spent on the network. That is pie in the sky thinking :LOL:

zing_deleted
22-07-2008, 09:31
Perhaps they should also stop giving staff a discount hehehehehehe

like the true unlimited 10 meg idea though

Sirius
22-07-2008, 10:07
Perhaps they should also stop giving staff a discount hehehehehehe

like the true unlimited 10 meg idea though

Maybe :)

Jelly
22-07-2008, 10:16
I think (read: Hope) it will go one of two ways:

Virgin finally get around to upgrading the network to make it faster and more efficient. STM will be gone for now.

OR

BT's new fibre broadband is better and everyone goes with them.

xspeedyx
22-07-2008, 10:27
Perhaps they should also stop giving staff a discount hehehehehehe

like the true unlimited 10 meg idea though

jealous zing?

ragnarok
22-07-2008, 19:04
Then the first thing VM should do is get rid of those silly retention deals that in some cases has VM paying the customer.

They would have no customers... Seriously, everyone I know has some kind of deal with them. Some people got upset when Telewest became VM and their BB doubled in price, so they got a lifetime half price deal, for example. My friend has a discount on his phone because VM can't support Caller ID in our area and BT can.

Next stop paying stupid money to Big Brother.

Just don't watch it, that will get them to stop.

Next get some real encryption and get rid of the free loading cloners and set top box users who have up to 4 modems in a house.

Replacing every single STB or card might cost a few quid though...

When 50 meg comes out charge a premium for it and never let the retentions free loader's get it cheap.

It had better be unlimted then, i.e. no STM.

[/quote]Charge a higher fee for a unlimited 10 meg service with no ATM or traffic shaping Say £40.00 a month.[/quote]

Might not compete very well with Be, who offer unlimited (no STM) for about 20 quid a month and up to 22Mb down and 1.5Mb up. Even if you live some distance from the exchange, 10 meg is not at all unrealistic for ADSL2 and your upload will be better.

Sirius
22-07-2008, 19:50
They would have no customers... Seriously, everyone I know has some kind of deal with them. Some people got upset when Telewest became VM and their BB doubled in price, so they got a lifetime half price deal, for example. My friend has a discount on his phone because VM can't support Caller ID in our area and BT can.



Indeed there will always be the freeloaders.

So to talk about charging by the meg is a joke when the service has so many freeloaders they would never get paid anyway.

Yet those of us who PAY for our service are pulled because we use the very service we PAY for instead of winging at retentions all the time to get a freeloader deal. Tell you what i think i will go for a freeloader deal and really take the **** as we seem to be the enemy anyway. ???

xspeedyx
22-07-2008, 19:57
Indeed there will always be the freeloaders.

So to talk about charging by the meg is a joke when the service has so many freeloaders they would never get paid anyway.

Yet those of us who PAY for our service are pulled because we use the very service we PAY for instead of winging at retentions all the time to get a freeloader deal. Tell you what i think i will go for a freeloader deal and really take the **** as we seem to be the enemy anyway. ???

Totally agree

Sirius
22-07-2008, 20:01
and ISPs haven't got the money to cope with demand, so they'll give a set speed out and charge for traffic used, then in years to come when they've got the cash, they'll upgrade and sort peering agreements with everyone and drop the cost to eventually nothing. ISPs have to pay for the traffic so what makes you think the customers shouldnt have to ?

Hey i know another way of funding the network upgrades, To supplement the charging by the meg idea, Let get them to earn money from our private data as well ????

where is PHORM when you need them :mad:

They could charge for sending emails
They could charge for pages surfed.
They could charge for how many hours of iplayer everyone watches.

Where would it stop ????????

piggy
22-07-2008, 20:24
Hey i know another way of funding the network upgrades, To supplement the charging by the meg idea, Let get them to earn money from our private data as well ????

where is PHORM when you need them :mad:

They could charge for sending emails
They could charge for pages surfed.
They could charge for how many hours of iplayer everyone watches.

Where would it stop ????????

it dosnt stop
if you want it you pay for it. imo data has a value like gas/electric the more you use the more you pay a very very simple idea that ultimately will be implemented.

Sirius
22-07-2008, 20:48
it dosnt stop
if you want it you pay for it. imo data has a value like gas/electric the more you use the more you pay a very very simple idea that ultimately will be implemented.

So you don't mind paying for anything you do, Emails, Surfing, Paying a bill over a secure connection, they could if we go to your model charge you for anything they want, Is that what you want.

They could have charged you 5p for that last post for instance ???? Oh hang on they would not have as your with Tiscali, now i understand why your saying cable should be charged by the meg.

How about how long your modem is connected, It uses bandwidth even when idle, Do you pay for that as well.

Maggy
22-07-2008, 20:53
it dosnt stop
if you want it you pay for it. imo data has a value like gas/electric the more you use the more you pay a very very simple idea that ultimately will be implemented.

Would it be zero rated for VAT though like newspapers and books are?

Jelly
22-07-2008, 20:55
Wouldn't happen. The internet has become a vital part of everyday life, and it would be too easy for one ISP to take over the market by offering data transfer the old way.

Sirius
22-07-2008, 20:56
Wouldn't happen. The internet has become a vital part of everyday life, and it would be too easy for one ISP to take over the market by offering data transfer the old way.

Thank you someone in the real world :clap:

piggy
22-07-2008, 20:59
So you don't mind paying for anything you do, Emails, Surfing, Paying a bill over a secure connection, they could if we go to your model charge you for anything they want, Is that what you want.

They could have charged you 5p for that last post for instance ???? Oh hang on they would not have as your with Tiscali, now i understand why your saying cable should be charged by the meg.

How about how long your modem is connected, It uses bandwidth even when idle, Do you pay for that as well.

my ideal model would be tierd but all the same speed so for eg

1. upto 15gb (imo this would cover 90% of users)
2. upto 40gb and so on

ultimately this would apply to all isps not just cable so can we keep the personal digs out of the debate.

Sirius
22-07-2008, 21:01
ultimately this would apply to all isps not just cable so can we keep the personal digs out of the debate.

So would it be forced on them, Because you will never get them all to go to that model ?

There at each other throats as it is so one will see a wedge and get in there signing up everyone while the pay by the meg isp's lose all there customers.

You see VM would not have me as a customer if that came in as i would go to a forward thinking ISP that could handle what it sells ?, Instead of hiding behind STM and not spending money on upgrades, They would also lose my phone and TV, A big amount of money i can tell you.

piggy
22-07-2008, 21:12
Wouldn't happen. The internet has become a vital part of everyday life, and it would be too easy for one ISP to take over the market by offering data transfer the old way.

the point im trying to make (obviously not very well) data should have a value and all the isps who offer "unlimited" services will ultimately suffer the average file nowadays is just to big and people need to alter there downloading habits or pay more

dev
22-07-2008, 21:55
So you don't mind paying for anything you do, Emails, Surfing, Paying a bill over a secure connection, they could if we go to your model charge you for anything they want, Is that what you want.

They could have charged you 5p for that last post for instance ???? Oh hang on they would not have as your with Tiscali, now i understand why your saying cable should be charged by the meg.

How about how long your modem is connected, It uses bandwidth even when idle, Do you pay for that as well.

traffic should be charged for, the ISPs are charged for it so why shouldn't they pass the cost on? Having a server in a data center means you pay for the electricity it uses (yes! you pay for what you use!!!) as well as the traffic.

i am not suggesting you pay like £30-£40 for a 20mb connection and the traffic on top, you pay like £5 for a 20mb connection (£5 covers support costs/modem rental etc). You then get a small amount of traffic included (say 5gb/month) and you pay a set fee for every GB over.

there would be various prices, eg £20 for the connection with 50gb/month included, what's wrong with that idea?

take TV for example, we all pay the same for the STB but others pay more to get more channels

piggy
22-07-2008, 22:20
traffic should be charged for, the ISPs are charged for it so why shouldn't they pass the cost on? Having a server in a data center means you pay for the electricity it uses (yes! you pay for what you use!!!) as well as the traffic.

i am not suggesting you pay like £30-£40 for a 20mb connection and the traffic on top, you pay like £5 for a 20mb connection (£5 covers support costs/modem rental etc). You then get a small amount of traffic included (say 5gb/month) and you pay a set fee for every GB over.

there would be various prices, eg £20 for the connection with 50gb/month included, what's wrong with that idea?

take TV for example, we all pay the same for the STB but others pay more to get more channels

this will happen

Sirius
22-07-2008, 23:18
this will happen

When ?
This year, Next year, Willing to place a bet on how quickly the isp that brings that in lose's 50% of its customers and then how quickly they change there mind when there rivals brings in a unlimited tier to take the other 25% of there customer base. ??? ?, That then will leave the mugs who are willing to pay by the byte :LOL:.

Do you remember what happened to NTL when they tried to introduce a 30 gig cap ???, My some people have very short memory's :LOL:.

Well you can dream about your by the byte charging but i for one will still be on a unlimited package with VM this time next year and i am willing to place a bet on that :)

Jelly
23-07-2008, 08:19
Taking TV as an example, are you charged for how many hours of TV you watch, or are you charged for your package? It's the same with Broadband and will stay the same.

Sirius
23-07-2008, 11:53
Taking TV as an example, are you charged for how many hours of TV you watch, or are you charged for your package? It's the same with Broadband and will stay the same.

well put. :)

dev
23-07-2008, 12:17
Taking TV as an example, are you charged for how many hours of TV you watch, or are you charged for your package? It's the same with Broadband and will stay the same.

no because TV is broadcast to everyone, the signal is sent whether you watch it or not. VM do however pass on costs, eg they pay more for sky sports than bbc channels so to get sky sports you have to pay more. similarly it costs VM more for you to download 500gb than 5gb so they should pass on the costs

better comparison would be [contract] mobile phones. you pay a set amount per month and have a certain included allowance which is higher the more you pay.

brundles
23-07-2008, 12:52
traffic should be charged for, the ISPs are charged for it so why shouldn't they pass the cost on? Having a server in a data center means you pay for the electricity it uses (yes! you pay for what you use!!!) as well as the traffic.

i am not suggesting you pay like £30-£40 for a 20mb connection and the traffic on top, you pay like £5 for a 20mb connection (£5 covers support costs/modem rental etc). You then get a small amount of traffic included (say 5gb/month) and you pay a set fee for every GB over.

there would be various prices, eg £20 for the connection with 50gb/month included, what's wrong with that idea?

take TV for example, we all pay the same for the STB but others pay more to get more channels

The problem with that is that at the moment the low users (some of whom will be on high packages if sales have done their job) who don't know/understand this are subsidising the heavy users (yes I know - worms, can, of). As sirius has mentioned, a chunk of the heavy users (who by the way are often the same people that recommend an ISP to the light/medium users) will up sticks and leave while the low users will have lower bills. Overall giving VM much much less revenue and profit than they have now. When introducing such major changes to your pricing model you need to take into account these factors - not just how to force a bunch of people to pay for something when you know it will drive them away taking the other services (telephone that VM love people to take for example) with them.

I do think introducing usage based charging is the way forward but you need something to introduce it with - think of it as the carrot and stick. Decent content that's not included in your usage allowance for example. Of course the introduces complexity, setup and running costs etc, meaning VM will steer well clear of it.

Berealwith
23-07-2008, 12:57
Then the first thing VM should do is get rid of those silly retention deals that in some cases has VM paying the customer.

Next stop paying stupid money to Big Brother.

Next get some real encryption and get rid of the free loading cloners and set top box users who have up to 4 modems in a house.

When 50 meg comes out charge a premium for it and never let the retentions free loader's get it cheap.

Stop the court case with sky and forget about Sky basics all together, That should save a few million in lawyers fees ?

Charge a higher fee for a unlimited 10 meg service with no ATM or traffic shaping Say £40.00 a month.

I could go on but i don't think you want a complete list of the little things that VM need to FIX and could give them money to spend on there network.

Just removing the free loading cloners should save them a load of money, But hey i don't get paid money by VM so why should i have to tell them the simple things they need to know to cut down on there costs

Broadband charged by how much you download is commercial suicide these days and you can bet VM and the other Isp's know it or they would have done it years ago to supplement their share holders payments, Don't for one minute think the extra money would be spent on the network. That is pie in the sky thinking :LOL:

The best comment i have seen on here for ages..........Well said Sirius :clap:

Sirius
23-07-2008, 13:30
The best comment i have seen on here for ages..........Well said Sirius :clap:

Thank you. I aim to please :)

dev
23-07-2008, 18:16
The problem with that is that at the moment the low users (some of whom will be on high packages if sales have done their job) who don't know/understand this are subsidising the heavy users (yes I know - worms, can, of). As sirius has mentioned, a chunk of the heavy users (who by the way are often the same people that recommend an ISP to the light/medium users) will up sticks and leave while the low users will have lower bills. Overall giving VM much much less revenue and profit than they have now. When introducing such major changes to your pricing model you need to take into account these factors - not just how to force a bunch of people to pay for something when you know it will drive them away taking the other services (telephone that VM love people to take for example) with them.

I do think introducing usage based charging is the way forward but you need something to introduce it with - think of it as the carrot and stick. Decent content that's not included in your usage allowance for example. Of course the introduces complexity, setup and running costs etc, meaning VM will steer well clear of it.

yes heavy users will jump ship to "unlimited" ISPs (and so reducing VM's costs), small timer users will increase (as the connection will be very cheap for low traffic amounts included) so the revenue will drop but not by as much as you suggest

also, revenue itself is meaningless, it's the profit that matters. heavy users leave, revenue will drop but costs will drop by more so profit increases