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Date and time: Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:30 pm

Date: 8/27/09
Time: 1:30 pm
Location: Room TW-C305 (Commission Meeting Room)
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Directions

Coordinator: James Miller
Phone: (202) 418-7351

Eastern Time (New York, GMT-04:00)
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Program: Broadband
Duration: 2 hours
Description: Topics (Preliminary)
The following are some of the preliminary topics that will be covered at this workshop. If you would like to discuss any other topics, please send us your suggestions.

1) Trends
What are innovative ways consumers are using broadband today?
How are the ways consumers use broadband changing?
How are evolutions in devices facilitating what consumers can do with broadband?
How will applications evolve in the next 5, 10, and 15 years?
2) Needs
What advancements in broadband infrastructure could make possible applications currently limited by the available pipe?
What are the challenges to developing broadband applications for fixed and mobile broadband?
What changes in broadband devices and development platforms could realize new growth in applications?
How may changes in applications drive changes to networks?
What regulatory or legal barriers constrain the growth of broadband applications and devices?
In what ways do applications and devices leverage legal, social, and technical features of cybersecurity?

Agenda

let me know what you thought of this session if you attended – I will be monitoring and recording in its entirety!

N

I read a post on the CED Magazine site that made me smile -  Netflix signs on to stream movies to Sony’s Bravia TVs, just by connecting my TV to my broadband modem, I can access online video, music and content from more than 25 providers, including Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube, Sports Illustrated, Sony Pictures, Crackle, Slacker, Epicurious.com, Concierge.com, Style.com and Dailymotion.com.  Not that I have much time for viewing video, not when “America’s Got Talent” is so fricken awesome!!  I love the Sexy & Dangerous duo!

Judge not lest ye be judged!

Forgive me, I digress…back to my TV — “Sony was first to bring Internet video to the TV, and we continue to deliver one of the largest and most diverse catalogs of content to customers through Bravia Internet Video,” said Jeff Goldstein, vice president of Sony Electronics’ television business. “Adding Netflix gives many of our customers access to a vast library of streaming content through their existing Netflix accounts.”

So, now what does streaming media have to do with old school SMPTE Broadcast?  You be the judge!  Look out….

Read the full post here

Since August of 2008 we have had 5 different Verizon Business sales representatives assigned to our account – not to be confused with our stead-fast team from Verizon Core – Verizon Business sales teams, all of which came down to our facility to “evaluate” our requirements, one after the next… and guess what, now we have a new Verizon Sales team working on our solution.  It is very simple, we have a 1.5G fiber line run from our studio over to Azzurro, it is an FCC regulated “tarif” line that is approved for SDI HD/SD video/audio but what we need is a product that will allow us to use that line for “mixed” content – meaning we need to send “data” in addition to the SDI video, IP labeled packets of data into a Business network that we can control and dial in and out of as we see fit…

The fiber is installed and connected to our HUB, yet we still can not “legally” use it to pass along data in addition to the SDI HD/SD video/audio that we can currently receive and transmit.  The thing is, back in the day these units had an additional  “Ethernet 10/100″ RJ45 jack in the back that broadcaster could just plug into, albeit an illegal use, but they could. The line is just sitting there with its glorious 1.5G’s just waiting to light up.  But, as it turns out the manufacturer no longer makes the units with that additional RJ45 jack… only SDI can plug into it, not that I would even think about hijacking bandwidth like that anyway… but it would have been an interesting experiment in the lab.  Regardless, it is a step back not forward as we think about how independent broadcasters would have the freedom to transmit and receive video, either as a digital SDI or as a bunch of data packets…

But the point is, if the bandwidth is there, just sitting there, why can’t we send packets without having to switch services to something where we are charged for bandwidth on a line that is just sitting there anyway?  I know why, the question is rhetorical.  Because the FCC hasn’t approved that line for mixed use.  But, for accessibility to broadband and usage for all, why should a line that is completely unburdened by traditional ISP, a line that carries a dedicated site-to-site “feed” have regulations on the use of that bandwidth?

It’s not good for this country, it’s not good for business and it sucks for me.

Discovery” can be an arduous process to say the least – 100′s of hours have been spent on conference calls defining the vision of our Broadcast & Streaming Media ecosystem, how it works, the business case for it, the requirements set forth by our core clientele and how we plan to build and manage it.  After yet another series of head-banging “discovery” sessions, we have opted to go a more cryptic route, bringing more “partners” in to fill niche services using “Semantic” applications that scale based on bandwidth usage and requirements.  It could have been so simple, but it will be at least a year before the FCC takes action on this issue regarding the tariff lines – I heard an unconfirmed rumor that ABC may have a case with the FCC for a mixed use line – but alas,that is just a rumor and heck yeah I am spreading it!

Signing off, this is Nico having just spewed out a full months of frustration on you, oh avid reader… thank you and good day.