Television on The Internet – How much Bandwidth is Needed? Where?

There’s no question about it, watching live video over an Internet connection is not something you want to on a dialup connection.  On the other hand, if you receive TV today either over the air (the old way), from a satellite dish, or through a cable, you already have MORE bandwidth coming into your house than you’ll need for watching TV on the Internet.  So why is everyone gonna need a fiber connection to his or her home to be able to participate in the future?  And how come there’s a bandwidth crisis coming?

Short answers: Even though we all do need a lot more bandwidth into our homes than we have on a dialup connection and we’ll soon outgrow basic DSL, we DON’T all need fiber connections.  If we all shift to watching TV on the Internet, the total bandwidth (Internet and other) required INTO our homes will decrease and the load on the Internet backbone and the regional distribution portions of the Internet will be – well – interesting.  It’s a separate subject for a separate post but we most of us need or will soon need lots more bandwidth OUT of our houses for sending stuff.

Just a quick refresher on how TV signal distribution works today.  In most places, there are a number of local channels still broadcast over the air from high towers.  Some of these include high definition programming.  All of these channels are received by your antenna (if you still have one) all the time.  All of these channels fit in the thin wire which runs from the antenna into the back of your TV.  Obviously lots of bandwidth there.

If you have cable, all 200 or so channels including the ones you don’t subscribe to are delivered to your set-top box.  Same thing if your “cable” runs to a satellite dish.  Whatever channel you’ve decided to watch (assuming you’ve subscribed to it) is delivered from the set-top box to the TV.  That (and the vested interest of your satellite or cable provider) is why you “need” one set-top box for each TV capable of watching different channels from the other TVs (unless you’re a TV hacker).

Now let’s fast forward to Internet TV.  You can watch any show you want any time you want although you still may have to pay for some of these.  How many shows are going to be watched at once in your house? Two?  Four?  Not 200, right? So you need LESS bandwidth for incoming shows than you have with cable or satellite today.  The problem – if there’s a problem – is that you need that bandwidth in your Internet connection and it may not be there today.

But wait, you say, my Internet connection already comes into my house on my cable.  And so do all 200 channels.  So I’ve already got enough bandwidth.  You’re right; you do.  It just has to be rearranged a little.  And remember, you’re not even gonna need to bring in 200 channels at once, just the ones you’re actually watching. Maybe you should get a rebate.

Point is you don’t need fiber coming into your house to get all the TV content you can watch – even high def.  Today’s coaxial cable connections have more than enough bandwidth.  Today’s DSL, however, does not although it is possible that successor technologies will be able to deliver enough bandwidth for Internet TV over telephone wires to people VERY close to the telephone office (now you know why, in general, it’s phone companies and not cable companies who are installing fiber).  Fixed wireless Internet access CAN also deliver enough Internet capacity for multiple TV shows and high definition (which needs more bandwidth) although it usually doesn’t today.

The chart below is from a Swedish study.  “Twisted pair” is what is used to deliver today’s DSL.  In all cases, they are talking about what can be achieved with the various delivery technologies – almost always more than is being done today.

 

Fiber is a great way to bring bandwidth into a house, bit it’s not the only way to meet today’s or even tomorrow’s need for last mile connectivity.  However, fiber to the community is becoming increasingly essential; it’s needed for many more reasons than just allowing TV to migrate to the Internet.  Although we’ve seen that Internet TV decreases the total need for bandwidth coming into the house, it will create a huge new load everywhere but in the last mile.

Think of the cable network as it enters your town but consider just the entertainment on it and forget that it’s also being used for Internet access.  No matter how many homes are connected, there only has to be bandwidth for 200 channels.  Everybody has to watch the same show exactly when it’s delivered (except for those people who use DVRs to record the shows and replay them later). I’m ignoring the pitiful amount of video on demand offered on today’s cable systems. 

But let’s fast forward to Internet TV.  Now any of us can watch whatever we want to watch whenever we want to watch it.  Now how much entertainment bandwidth do we need coming into town?  How many different shows are being watched in the whole community?  Even when two families are watching the same show, unless it’s live, they’re probably not watching it at the same time so many versions of the same show will be delivered.

More bandwidth isn’t the only way to allow more choice; I’ll talk about some others in future posts.  But more bandwidth – in most cases best delivered on fiber – must be provided between communities before full Internet TV is a reality.

Television and the Internet is the first post in this series.

Comments

[john]

Good point, but it will cost the cable providers to change the way their networks work. This might take some time and persuasion. Another thing, live TV over the internet is already available on some websites. Quality is below average but very watchable. http://ispsurvey.com

[alexander]

Visit http://www.online-tv-channels.net, here you can watch: Education, Entertainment, Kids & Youth, Movies, Music, News, Politics, Religion, Shopping, Sport and many more online TV Channels.

[Angie]

You can watch movie & TV online on this link :

http://www.tvonline.2ya.com

****

Sci-Fi channel, Advendure movie, Classics channels, trailers, cartoon ...

[Alex]

http://www.mediaplanetaria.com is one excellent portal with online media. They have thousands of online tv, radio, newspapers, etc

[http://tv.stafex.net]

New site to watch free online tv http://tv.stafex.net

[Jack]

Very good post. Internet Television is the next big thing on internet. Recently i have visited wfiTV.com which offers good collection of internet televisions

[Jim B]

Good post!! However, I would like to question your math. You say last-mile bandwidth requirements would go down, because instead of feeding 200 channels to each house, you only need to provide what is being watched at that time (1 or 2 channels). But a neighborhood cable loop can provide signal to well over 200 homes. Wouldn't that mean 200 channels, delivered simultaneously to 200 homes, would be the same as 1 unique channel or stream delivered to each? (Assuming for the moment that all the different types of streams are about the same bandwidth). And as the number of unique devices within the home goes up, the difference would grow as well.

This is an interesting topic, and I look forward to the convenience of TV on demand.

[jim]

Great post! I never thought of it in those terms. In that sense the cable companies are perfectly hedged! If business migrates to IPTV no problem - cut back on the number of channels from 1258 to only 106 and the bandwidth appears. Consumer bandwidth costs go up but their cable bill goes down. Im sure i have oversimplified but a very interesting piece.

[Mark Tomin]

Good point, but it will cost the cable providers to change the way their networks work. This might take some time and persuation. Another thing, live TV over the internet is already available on some websites. Quality is below avarage but very watchable.

http://bandwidthbuyersguide.com

[Richard Bennett]

Interesting post, but misleading in some respects. Internet TV actually combines TV on Demand - the mode you talk about - and Multicast live streams. Putting live TV on the Internet as multicast isn't a huge problem, the BBC did it for the last Olympics and it was fine.

Providing multiple HDTV on-demand streams is the interesting part. You need 20-30 MB/s for HDTV, so the Internet core isn't equipped to handle very many of them using the obsolete end-to-end model, hence we need to discard it and develop some more advanced technologies. Unfortunately, our ability to do that is hampered by the Luddite net neutrality regulations, so we're going to be in deep water if they ever become law.

That being said, it's OK for the Internet to remain a text-based medium; literacy is a good thing, and watching TV makes people dumber. So the problem of delivering TV over the Internet may be better left unsolved.

[Rene Churchill]

Once Internet TV becomes a possibility to a significant portion of the population, the disruption to the existing TV business model is going to be very interesting to watch.
Why should a show have to pitch it's existence to the major networks in order to survive? Through iTunes or some equivalent, they can sell their content directly to the end consumer. There may well be two versions of each show available, a free/low cost version that contains advertising and a higher cost version that does not.
Why should I, the consumer, have to wait an entire week to see the next episode of a show that's sitting on the studio shelf somewhere? If a show is hot, I'll buy into the whole series and watch them in a weekend binge. From the studio's standpoint, if that show is hot, they can sell episodes as fast as they crank them out. Why wait to schedule them into some specific time block?
However, without a network providing the up-front money for a season's worth of shows, how the production is funded will have to change as well. Once the money starts flowing in a pay-per-view fashion, actors (and their slow to change unions) will need to negotiate their contracts on a percentage basis rather than a flat rate. No more million dollars per episode contracts ala Friends, etc.
Sites like Digg will evolve to review and rate shows that perhaps were never even broadcast. Much like bands, how well a show does will depend on how they can rally and motivate their fan base to introduce their show to other viewers.
Perhaps something similar to a book-publishing model will evolve, where a script is proposed, an advance made and the author gets a percentage off each episode sold. No need for a "book publisher" firm in this model either, anyone with some money to invest could play in the TV show market. Of course this could bring us full circle back to live theater's model, which thrived before TV. A TV show version of "The Producers", que up "Springtime for Hitler"!

[bill]

I want to be able to subscribe to channels a la carte. This iTunes store as an alternative to cable is getting a bit expensive.

[Jay Bowen]

Great post!

I want to propose a thought... What if each broadband household in the last mile were pushing out the same stream of the TV show they were currently watching to another viewing household in the same neighborhood, city, state, or world?

Tapping a portion of unused upstream bandwidth each broadband household has available. Think Bittorrent...But for LIVE! Television. (not "Live" as in moving pictures on your PC screen as some marketers have confused it. But "live" as in "as it happens" moving on your PC screen)

Example: If you have four households pushing 150kb streams the receiving household is viewing a 600kb stream or TV program (near broadcast quality).

Now, with this scenario where do you see the bandwidth provider’s position?

[Patrizia Broghammer]

Good post, as usual ; Mr. Evslin.
And, as usual, Patrizia has something to say.
It's amazing how you always touch subjects I am very fond of and my husband is working at.
How much bandwidth is needed?
On the receiving site: Since, as you say, you are supposed to watch at a channel at a time, and since when you watch is most likely that you do not surf, considering the high and good compression available on the market today, you can have a stream of 1 Mbps steady bandwidth. (which is much more than you need for surfing, because it is STEADY) That is what most broadband connections allow now a days.
Providing that NOT all the ISP users are watching TV at the same time, because 1 Mbps of STEADY conmsuming bandwidth would crash most of network, admitting that if it is not possible right now, it will be possible in the near future (and I am talking about big cities, for small town it will still be a dream for long, at least in Europe...)but then : how much bandwidth is needed on the sending site?
And I am talking about real TV, the full screen at a quality close to the TV now.
I mean looking at TV on a decent monitor size, sitting on a couch, a full movie or a TV program for at least one hour or more of STEADY streaming... that is TV and not Youtube or all the similars, short clips of a size of a cell phone screen, sitting in front of your PC monitor.
Of course you agree, you cannot talk about TV in this case.
Well how much bandwidth on the sending side?
So huge nobody right now can afford, at least the TV we are talking about.
And very likely not tomorrow and not the day after tomorrow.
So what?
You have to create something that gives on one side the chance to see full screen at a decent quality, using less than 1Mbps bandwidth and on the sending side THE SAME.

It is not impossible, you say. It is possible, and we are working on that and hopefully we will be succesful one day soon.
Believe me THAT is the only possible WAY to have real IPTV