Where will FTA be in 15 years?

[rjc3895]

Just wanted to get some feedback on this. Considering all the emerging technologies, where does TV from satellites fit into the picture? Do you think there will come a day when satellite TV is replace with IPTV? Any thought on this?

 

[Cadsulfide]

Tough question, if I could see 15 yrs into the future I would have bought microsoft stock in 1980. I think it will still be around, and I think FTA will be too.

 

[colbec]

My feel is that while satellites are still up there, there will be a demand for FTA transmission. Satellites are an effective way of getting a cheap signal into the backyards of a broad swath of people with absolute equality of opportunity to receive the signal.

While the internet is immature, and it is so far, transmission by IP does not ensure equality of opportunity and in fact you could say that current transmission of anything over IP that could be done by satellite is placing an unnecessary burden on the internet.

As internet infrastructure grows with fat optical pipes into our homes and offices it will be the internet that provides ubiquitous cheap access. At that point the weaknesses of the fragility of satellites, weather interference and latency will kill off the FTA use of satellites and we will all be DXing transmissions via the semantic web.

Out here in the country I don't see getting fat optical pipes into my house for at least 25 years. The whole process is stuck in political mud.

Just my 2c.

 

[14karat]

Heh, I live 5 miles from town, in one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S., BUT because I live to the West of a state forest and to the East of the flood plain for that state forest (call it our own little 'island') the only utility we have is electric & phone lines.
No cable
No fiber (dsl)
No water (I have my own well drilled 85 feet into the largest sand filter I've ever seen)
No gas (got my trusty old propane tank tho')
To my knowledge there are no plans on expanding any of the above into my community...
So, I have to rely on satellite TV for anything other than the local stuff.
For internet I have my cell card from work - or use my old dial-up account.
If I should lose the cell card I'll have to go to sat'net...

That said - I know there are a lot more remote places than where I live and will still be remote in 15 years, so I don't see it going away...

 

[Sadoun]

Technology will be cheaper and more affordable. FTA satellite TV will follow the trend and become more main stream. Companies will compete to reach consumers and it will drive more advertising towards FTA channels and broadcasters. Think Europe today (1000s of FTA channels). That is where the North American market will be, maybe

My 2 cents

 

[Blindowl1234]

I could handle 1000 channels or so myself. I'd have to quit my job to stay home and watch them haha. By then 15 years from now I should be to old to work...well I'd be 65 anyway. I see the technology of things getting better, and hopefully some of the networks etc...realizing there are advertising dollars to be made too. You scramble... you limit those you can reach....those who watch your programs, and buy your advertised products. Blind

 

[Tron]

I certainly think satellite television will still be around, as it remains a cost-effective way to send programming from just about anywhere to just about anywhere (I don't think fiber will ever make it out to certain outlying places). Naturally, I believe by then analog will be gone entirely, and there will be new digital delivery systems besides DVB and DCII. I think we may see more file-based transmission, such as the system PBS is beginning to use.

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

While I have no idea (since I've only been at this for 3 years), here's my best guesses:

Best case: FTA grows into a viable alternative for cable and pay DBS - with major cable channels deciding to post up on Ku unencrypted for those who want to go to the trouble of buying hundreds of dollars of equipment as opposed to $20-60 month for 5 channels they want to watch on DishNetwork. International English news channels (BBC, France24, CBC, Sky, NewsChannelAsia) find their way over to the US via Ku. The mainstream TV viewer can be assured that they'll get more than just PBS and a few network feeds for their troubles.

Worst Case: D*, E* and the Big Networks clamp down on every one and demand more money from uplinkers (like Equity) or they realize people are watching good TV for free. Channels have to scramble during NFL games, uplinks have to be encoded, and guys like Globecast cannot uplink foreign channels with Olympic coverage unless they want to face heavy fines.

Of course, that's assuming other technologies don't come around (not many would have guessed the Internet would be the preferred way to get music and video 15 years ago - and certainly not 20 years ago). Still, I think/hope unscrambled Satellite is here for a long time.

 

[rv1pop]

New satellites are still being sent up. They have a 20 year life expectancy.... As 14karat posted, some of us are more in the boonies. I am 12 miles from "town". Only when I-5 is closed do we have much vehicle traffic. A land line to us is promised for 20 days of the month. Commercial AC power is only a dream (or nightmare!). Landline dial up is possible - when we have data quality land line (49K) and cellular is 6kbyts. OTA TV analog is iffy 3 hours a day and digital on 4 stations about 6 or so. The sun shines and the wind blows (hard) almost every day. The wall I had two of my dishes mounted on blew away in the wind 2 weeks ago. (over 120 MPH). Fibre optics is not planned for our area for at least 50 years! High speed internet will be possible with a 4 to 6 foot dish this summer, if we can bolt it down firmly enough!

My guess, FTA will still be around in 30 years --- unless we let the TAX and SPEND government sell off the rest of the spectrum to the highest bidder. With only 4 letters to the FCC against the sellout, --- NUF said.
POP

 

[Anole]

In 15 years, all the good FTA stations will be available on OTA subchannels in major metropolitan areas.
I have 50+ subchannels right now. . . .
. . . more than six languages . . .
( ... English, Spanish, Armenian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese ... )
And two PBS stations competing with each other!

Anything that looks like it'll be entertaining for the next TWO Years gets my vote.
I'm not planning for 15 years from now.

 

[lownote2]

Technology will be cheaper and more affordable. FTA satellite TV will follow the trend and become more main stream. Companies will compete to reach consumers and it will drive more advertising towards FTA channels and broadcasters. Think Europe today (1000s of FTA channels). That is where the North American market will be, maybe

My 2 cents

I think we'll have more available too. Unless OTA starts replacing it. 15 years is a lot for technology so who could ever say. As "advanced" as we are here in America it's funny who places like Korea, England, Germany, etc.. have a lot of technology there that takes 2-4 years sometimes to ever catch on here.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-thu-techbuzz-mobile-dtv-jan15,0,7435899.column

check out the article. Free OTA with a portable device. It's already been available overseas in England, etc and popular there. Actually makes sense too. Portable tv..local networks...local advertising...more viewers.

 

[toucan-man]

Predict the future at the risk of looking very foolish. I think FTA's raw diversity
is a preview of what's to come. Whether any of it arrives via sat is another thing altogether.

What happens if and when broadband access expands dramatically, and
bandwidth capacity of the Internet itself explodes? We don't know if (or
at least, when) the predictions for both access and capacity will come
true. Some government initiative (boondoggle?) might help to get people
near universal wireless broadband access, and an improved Internet with
the capacity to deliver HDTV in realtime without hiccups is said to be
in the works.

People are viewing network shows online right now, directly from the
network's site, with enforced commercials (can't skip past them). Is
this the future -- click on CBS to view CBS? Another idea, AppleTV, has
gotten some positive press, and we are still in the Model T phase of
Internet capacity. Jim Louderback at PC Magazine writes:

"...The Apple TV blows it all away, with a single click that lets you
watch almost any program immediately, without buffering, downloading,
stuttering, or subscribing.... An amazing universe of programming is now
even easier to find. Cable TV spent nearly 20 years trying to create
true video on demand, without much success. Apple got it right in just
18 months...."

AppleTV's movies, however, are slow as molasses to download on the
current Internet.

One thing that is predictably true about capitalism is that competition
is the enemy of profits (Forbes Magazine said, I believe it); competitors
have to innovate in order to survive, and in the end the consumer
benefits. It's why we have our standard of living, and North Korea
has theirs.

If the sat networks are past their prime now, what happens when
unbridled competition puts the squeeze on them? I predict the sat
networks will go the way of AOL, which is still around, but only as a
shell of its former self.

If any of the sat networks had offered a basic FTA package to go with
their premium pay channels from the get go, they might have sewn up
virtually the entire USA -- back in the day. I think true competition
(missing in television distribution in North America) now has a chance.
As a competitor on the vast Internet, the DBS companies will be small time operators,
their fat days are past them; I'd like to know how any of them will ever compete.
AT&T's U-verse is also a dinosaur, what were they thinking?
We don't need central command, we are central command.

 

[rjc3895]

Thanks for the great discussions. With the upcoming switch from analog to digital, I can see local TV stations utlizing the cell phone towers to transmit their signals. Of course, the tower owners will probably invoke higher tower lease prices which could make satellite FTA the more cost effective choice .

 

[Sadoun]

Free OTA ( aka DVB-T Freeview ) is very big in Europe and Asia. The US picked ATSC as a standard for Free DTV OTA.

ATSC adopted thus far in USA, Canada, Mexico, South Korea.
DVB-T (and the upcoming DVB-T2 ) All of Europe and most of Asia, including Taiwan.
ISDB-T Japan and Brazil
China is set to develop their own system.

There are a huge number of devices in Europe now available with built-in DVB-T tuners. Including Car radios, portable media player devices, small portable TV (4"-10"), etc. Reception is achieved using a small antenna, which is maybe 6" high.

However, in Europe 70-90% of homes (depending on country) use cable or satellite so OTA is a small market.

 

[GreatFTA]

I hope we would get PLENTY more choices on the FTA channels like the Europeans have! But the thing is the Almighty Dollar rings it head on this and it would be hard to find plenty of free FTA channels. I am scare that FTA would turn out like the "Free" channels that the C Band had before the SCRAMBLING bug hit. I still remember when I first got into C Band in the middle of the 1980's HBO, Showtime, CNN, and many other channels were free to watch. Then HBO found a way to scramble its feeds and all others followed.
I am sure the Europeans have some pay channels they can subscribe to, but the "free" FTA channels is amazing to choose from. They are way ahead of us!!!

 

[GreatFTA]

Heh, I live 5 miles from town, in one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S., BUT because I live to the West of a state forest and to the East of the flood plain for that state forest (call it our own little 'island') the only utility we have is electric & phone lines.
No cable
No fiber (dsl)
No water (I have my own well drilled 85 feet into the largest sand filter I've ever seen)
No gas (got my trusty old propane tank tho')
To my knowledge there are no plans on expanding any of the above into my community...
So, I have to rely on satellite TV for anything other than the local stuff.
For internet I have my cell card from work - or use my old dial-up account.
If I should lose the cell card I'll have to go to sat'net...

That said - I know there are a lot more remote places than where I live and will still be remote in 15 years, so I don't see it going away...

Ahhh, we Mississippi folks...
Same here, except I got community water after 10 years of raising hell (had 90 foot well and lots of brown underwears)... Get internet from Wildblue (no DSL in the country)... Directv since cable won't come here (and I really don't give a rat's ass about cable) and good choices from FTA. My old propane tank was built in 1945 and hold that expensive propane...
Plus my cell phone is a whole lot cheaper than the land based dialed up phone.

 

[colbec]

What happens in one segment of the FTA market is dependent on the advertising industry. It seems (from second hand reports I am getting) that the advertising market is currently in the process of morphing into a new model which is being shaped as time goes on. It started many years ago when department stores began pulling major page ads from the newspapers. It continues today with reports of significant layoffs in the radio industry.

Are there any experts here with knowledge of the advertising world and how it relates to FTA?

 

[toucan-man]

What happens in one segment of the FTA market is dependent on the advertising industry. It seems (from second hand reports I am getting) that the advertising market is currently in the process of morphing into a new model which is being shaped as time goes on. It started many years ago when department stores began pulling major page ads from the newspapers. It continues today with reports of significant layoffs in the radio industry.

Are there any experts here with knowledge of the advertising world and how it relates to FTA?

That seems the all important question. Everything is not as it once was, heck, the Chicago Tribune ("Worlds Greatest Newspaper") was forced to sell the Cubs, and still bled to death anyway, and is now under bankruptcy protection. You can't depend on advertising dollars when you are bleeding customers.

If the pay sat services start bleeding customers to the wide open frontier of the Internet, how will they come up with the payments they now offer to their programmers? The flyer that every household in our city gets EVERY WEEK from DN says you don't have to watch tv ads at all (via the DVR), how do advertisers feel about that? That's like saying "throw this flyer in the garbage immediately without reading it".

I had thought that FTA would be an advertiser's dream, but others have commented that demographics are all important, and we're not the demographics advertisers are generally looking for.

But tell that to Google, the advertising revenue King.

 

[pedrogarcia]

I have homes in 2 european countries and 1 in the middle east and I can say terrestial broadcasting is a thing of the past and cable for TV is starting to follow since satellite is cheaper than maintaining ground transmitters. C band is almost non existent except in the 3rd world areas of asia and africaand is clearly only on the older sartellites so will be gone in 5 years.
The world recession could help FTA as many many people in europe at least are cancelling subscriptions. Now the most popular FTA is the MBC and FOX channels from Arabsat 26east and Nilesat 7 west (all in English). If they join there compatriots on 97 west Dish and Direct will really notice the difference.