Satellite TV

By Sharil Dewa

Want to watch TV? Buy a PC.

For decades since the invention of the television, global broadcast, cable and satellite television has generated a huge amount of income worldwide from service fees, advertising, equipment and subscription. Dominated by giant media conglomerates such as Disney, News Corp. and Viacom, it was widely expected that the massive revenues brought in through this industry would only climb each year.

However, after six years of making USD 20 billion annually, global television revenues will at last dip below the 20 billion mark. According to BIA Advisory Services’ first edition of its quarterly Investing In Television^® Market Report, 2009 is only expected to bring in some USD 17 billion, the majority of this will be through advertising. The same report estimates that this figure is expected to fall further in coming years.

Nevertheless, it is not quite yet the death of television or TV. In fact, it is quite the opposite as television is now making its gradual global transition to the Internet. Loosely called Internet TV, this new technology launched some time in 2007 in North America and is quickly gaining popularity among Internet users as compared to traditional television media.

There are two types of Internet TV available at the moment. The first is called P2PTV, which refers to real-time video streams which are redistributed over the Internet on a peer-to-peer network (P2P). This is the most popular method of Internet TV due to its huge potential to make available any TV channel from any source available anywhere in the world in real time (with several minutes delay depending on connection speed).

However, despite being more popular, this is the least widespread method due to a variety of reasons. The most significant factor is the fact that many Internet Service Providers in many countries place limits on the use of P2P connections, sometimes blocking them out altogether – mainly because of the huge strain on bandwidth that P2P connections have. Most business or company firewalls restrict users the same way, meaning that the average Internet user will find difficulty in accessing P2PTV.

The other alternative is called IPTV or Internet Protocol television. In this system, digital television service is delivered to end users using the Internet Protocol suite methods of networking over packet-switched networks infrastructure, which is a structure that is used by the Internet. Although already introduced as far back as 1995, it is only recently, through broadband Internet access, that IPTV has really improved in terms of quality and speed, making it a strong competitor to the existing traditional formats of radio frequency, cable or even satellite.

Adding to the improvement of the actual technology and service providers behind Internet TV is the fact that computer makers have made it increasingly simple for home users to plug their computers into high-definition TV screens (HDTV) by just using simple plug-and-play video graphics array (VGA) or HD cables. For more and more people, all they need to do now to watch television is to plug into the internet, and watch whatever programmes they want to on their normal TV screen, watching channels from Internet TV.

There are obvious advantages of Internet TV compared to traditional TV that are making users switch over. Probably the best is pricing. Most Internet TV service providers ask for a one-time setup fee. From there on, it is a lifetime, no-cost membership. Compared to ever-increasing subscription fees from cable or satellite televiison, Internet TV can be relatively cheap, and in some cases, even free.

Next is the ability to watch television on demand. Users can use this service anywhere, on any PC or laptop, simply by using an Internet connection. This truly makes it such a mobile application – people can watch news, sports and entertainment live, on their favourite channels. All this with the ability to record and store programmes for future viewing.

The variety on offer is another big plus point as Internet TV allows users to choose from literally thousands of channels from countries all over the world. Traditional satellite or cable TV offers only a fraction of the selection.

Naturally, there are drawbacks. For the time being, most of the Internet TV providers serve only North America and Europe, although global users can still access them through proxy servers. This means that users would need to be a little more technologically inclined than the average person to be able to watch Internet TV.

Also, because of the unrestricted access, users are also in danger of being exposed to questionable material through adult channels, extreme political channels and hate channels. Just like the Internet itself, Internet TV is so wide in reach and content that the bad is just as easily viewed as the good.