Broadband Developments

This is a completely voluntary post by me to promote NewTeeVee’s event. I’ve put the logo on the site because they are doing great work in covering a new emerging sector. Blogging and professional coverage set by the standard Om built at GigaOm. Liz and team have very focused and relevant content when it comes to new TV models.

Want to know why Hulu is successful? Want to know why P2P might be a reality sooner than you think? What are the programming formulas online? What’s the big ‘real’ trends. How do you invest in this market online? What moves should you make? How do you make money?

All the holy grail questions will be raised. Answers maybe? It is definitely worth going. Here are some discount specials for late sign ups.

NewTeeVee Live is a must-attend event for anyone who develops, distributes, invests in or sells online media products and services. Last year’s conference sold out early and garnered rave reviews for it’s mix of influencers, tastemakers and media industry thought leaders who made the deals.

Come meet the senior executives from ABC, FOX, Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Lucasfilm, Comcast, YouTube, Sling Media, Level 3, Microsoft, and more who are driving the decisions that effect the future of online video. Hear from the producers of hit shows CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and HEROES as they discuss how online video is changing the art of storytelling.

Also, we can’t leave out the biggest breakout video stars from online shows Fred, The Guild, What the Buck, Boing Boing TV, Alive in Baghdad and Ill Doctrine.

Be there this year as we ask the tough questions. Hear from the best business brains in online television as they answer your questions on what has worked for their business and what have been lessons learned.

NewTeeVee Live: Television Reinvented

November 13, 2008
Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA

Sponsorship Opportunities

Don’t just attend NewTeeVee Live this year. Get in front of this highly influential audience of digital media executives and be seen as a market leader. We can create a customized sponsorship package that fits your goals. Get in touch with Mike Sly at sly@gigaom.com or call at 415-235-0358.

Here’s a selection of the speakers with whom you’ll want to meet up and swap ideas

• Anthony Zuiker - Executive Producer, TV Show CSI
• Reed Hastings - CEO, Netflix
• Jason Kilar - CEO, Hulu
• Jesse Alexander - Writer, Producer, TV Show HEROES
• Alexis Rapo - VP, Digital Media, Disney-ABC Television Group
• Hardie Tankersley - VP Online Content & Strategy, FOX Broadcasting
• Blake Krikorian - CEO, Sling Media
• Dan Beldy - Managing Partner, Steamboat Ventures
• Miles Beckett - CEO, EQAL
• Ben Ling - Director of Platforms and Syndication, YouTube
• John Edwards - CEO, Move Networks
• Mark Taylor - SVP, Emerging Opportunities, Content Markets, Level 3
• David Verklin - CEO, Canoe Ventures
• Eric Schmidt - Director of Media Delivery and Monetization Evangelism, Microsoft
• Tania Yuki - Senior Product Manager, comScore
• James Slavet - Partner, Greylock
• Greg Douglass - Managing Director, Media & Entertainment, Accenture

We’ll be exploring the following topics

• The truth about online video advertising
• Bridging the gap between television and online
• Online video investment trends
• Managed versus unmanaged content
• Live webcasts of major events: the inside story

Register Now

Take advantage of our Late Bird Special to celebrate the finalized speaker lineup. You’ll receive the Early Bird ticket price again (that’s $100 off). Get it until midnight October 31. Register now with code LATEBIRD.

Over at ZAYNE HUMPHREY’S BLOG he posts that Verizon is saying that they need the freedom to delay p2p packets in favor of VoIP?

Layne is sourcing an ArsTechnica story.

Finding a balance of cost, performance, and service quality depends on an optimized traffic flow, and to Lynch, this means dividing traffic into two classes: time-sensitive and everything else. Such a management technique amounts to protocol discrimination, though Verizon commits not to deal in content discrimination—all VoIP calls, from all services, will receive the same treatment. Under heavy loads, the network would prioritize the time-sensitive protocols and delay the others until capacity is available. Lynch believes that few customers would even notice the “22ms delay” in other services.

Why not look at the critical service of video delivery? Why just voice?

Cnet has an interview with Mark Wegleitner, Verizon’s senior vice president of technology in charge of broadband and consumer services. It’s an in depth interview worth reading, but what I find interesting is his one line answer on Unified Communications.

Verizon’s track record in broadband is not so good although their EVDO service is good (still technically fast dial up).

So when you talk about new voice services, are you talking about offering unified communications in the home?
Wegleitner: Yes, we can offer a unified communication experience in the home today with point solutions. And we have run way left for more sophisticated and converged services.

When will we see these services?
Wegleitner: We can already provide the ability to forward calls. But the find-me and follow-me services haven’t caught on as rapidly as we thought. Sometimes the first time an application comes out of the shoot, it doesn’t catch. But then later, it does. I don’t think we’ve created enough selection or a compelling-enough template to drive mass-market adoption of some of these services yet. But that will come. I don’t think we’re talking more than a couple of years away

Other notable question and answers from Cnet’s Marguerite Reardon

Q: As you know, Comcast got caught slowing down peer-to-peer traffic on its network. As a network provider yourself, do you think it’s necessary to manage your customers’ traffic?
Wegleitner: I think we can come up with scenarios where network management would be necessary. While there might be plenty of bandwidth out there, you can’t really guarantee that you can get an error-free transmission of, say, a video file that will be guaranteed at a specific point in time. That is why you might need rational network management.

But is it acceptable to identify and slow down specific types of traffic like BitTorrent or other peer-to-peer applications?
Wegleitner: Well, it’s sort of a glass-half-full situation. Degrading traffic for one application enables another to work better. But we have to allow people who use the peer-to-peer applications for lawful and legitimate purposes to do so.

Verizon is working with several peer-to-peer companies to find ways to use the technology to distribute content more efficiently. How can the P2P protocol benefit service providers like Verizon?
Wegleitner: Peer-to-peer is a distribution enabler. But often when people talk about P2P, it gets lumped into a category with things that are bad, mainly because it takes up so much capacity on the network. But whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, there is underlying technology for P2P that can be used to everyone’s advantage to get content like video, which everyone is asking for, distributed in the most efficient way.

Update: Karl at DSLReports has a post covering this -always good opinion from Karl’s comment section.