Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

Dream on. It won't happen.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

I don't see why that would happen, I know Voda owns some fibre but it's hardly monopoly territory, even with VM on top of it.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

Sorry if I was not clear. I actually have serious doubts as to whether it will happen due to the regulatory issues.

Having said the above, I know there is also quite serious interest in the deal between parties involved. Let's see how the Netherlands experiment works out.

---------- Post added at 21:20 ---------- Previous post was at 21:18 ----------

It's not just the Fibre. It's the DOCSIS network. DOCSIS has recently been opened up in Australia as part of the NBM project so it is in the realms of possibility.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

DOCSIS (HFC) hasn't only recently been opened up in Australia. NBN was a project to transform broadband access and forced utilties providers to offer access through the exsiting duct/cable systems and then offload at the Edge network, this started pre 2010 and HFC access has been in play since 2010. In Australia you can have (for example) Telstra cable at home but be able to choose either Telstra or NBN for your connection, different CPE required and then the handover happens at the Edge network (CMTS). NBN also has access to proprietary FTTP and FTTN connections as well as upgraded a lot of existing copper plant to a mix of FTTP and VDSL2.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

There's no reason to open up the DOCSIS network, it was privately built and already has a public competitor with the OpenReach network.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

I think you perhaps have not kept pace with the story in recent years. Initially it was just an access agreement with NBM, however more recently this was renegotiated with both the Telstra and Optus HFC DOCSIS networks being completed sold to NBM rather than just gaining access to these networks. With that in mind, Telstra and Optus no longer sell these networks to customers. You can only now buy DOCSIS network access via NBM. In turn NBM supplies this to all the major providers, therefore turning the network into a multi-provider network which I believe is the first of its type globally. I am of course aware of the project here in the UK where BT shared its cable with Virgin in Westminster and Milton Keynes, but the project is Australia is many steps up from that.

As a side issue, the Optus HFC network whilst relatively new has been deemed to be worthless to the NBM project due to the large number of modems per node. It therefore is apparently going to be scrapped. The story is being re-spun by NBM is that this was all just a transfer agreement, but considering the re-negotiation back in 2014 turned the access agreement into a full transfer of ownership, its fairly obvious what is really going on based on the modem/node issue. Telstra's HFC network on the other hand is apparently still viable with obvious upgrades to the CMTS being required. How long it will maintain viability is questionable should providers decide to roll out higher speeds. Regardless the Telstra network is no longer Telstra's and instead now part of the larger NBM project going forwards. Apparently the first set of customers to move to NBM on cable fairly recently went live. :)

---------- Post added at 13:53 ---------- Previous post was at 13:51 ----------

We are not disagreeing with one another. Just relaying other parts of the story along with possible outcomes. Regulators have been re-looking at the strategy around this recently - in fact a good friend of mine has been working on the response. :)

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

US cable giant Liberty Global and European pay TV operator Sky have invested in Malaysia-based SVoD service iflix to help it expand into other markets.

http://www.c21media.net/sky-liberty-...0m-into-iflix/

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

Liberty Global is “evaluating” whether to offer Amazon’s video service, after striking a global deal last year to distribute Netflix through its set-top boxes, according to Eric Tveter.

http://www.digitaltveurope.net/67020...n-partnership/

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

What, you mean like having the app on the box but not bundling a subscription with the service? Don't see how it could make a difference.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

Presumably about dosh - how much do LGI make out of the deal, what's the formula? If it's too good a deal then maybe LGI's other content providers will want the same deal.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

This is partially what is driving the cable companies in the US to buy the content producers (e.g. Comcast now owns NBC Universal) as none of them want to simply be dumb-pipes for everyone else. That way even if customers cut the cord, they still buy content from the company but via another medium.

The problem with LG is that it has sold quite of content production over the years.

At the end of the day, IPTV is the future, whether that be for live streams or VOD.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

It's both, but VOD will be key.

Cloud based STB is the next step. No need for 2,3,4 hard drives in a STB, just record all your
content to a data centre in the cloud.

Your recordings become VOD, well you don't actually record.

Anyway, STBs as they are now will be a thing of the past in 3-4 years.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

Well that was what the original TV Drive did. VM would record certain shows as they were broadcast and then you could then view them on demand. This was in the days before iPlayer and other things were common, and it didn't use the cable modem in the box but the actual cable tv infrastructure.

It was impressive technology wise, there was even a few behind the scenes things explaining it, basically a PVR running remotely and broadcasting like a tv channel what you were playing. Rewind/Fastforward worked much better than they do on any of the streaming services on VM's boxes, though there was a little bit of latency it didnt skip around like they do now, it was like using a locally recorded recording.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

I thought the problem with cloud recording was the copyright holders lost their **** at it and took anyone trying it to court? From my understanding, the "record for personal use" exemption only applies if it's recorded and stored on the personal premises.

Re: John Malone/Liberty/VM General News Thread
 

Barring any 'off air' recording, the rest of that system is still the one used for the main On Demand service now i.e. all On Demand except BBC iPlayer on TiVo / V6.