PC World and the Fat Pipe

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I don’t read much in hard copy anymore, but I did leaf through the print version of PC World while on the beach last weekend. One article caught my attention as much for what it didn’t say as for what it did report. The piece, Early IPTV Uses Only a Little of Its Fat Pipe, missed a few critical points. And having made my own share of mistakes and errors of omission in the blogging business, I thought I’d make some amends by adding in information where I do have a little knowledge.

First, the IPTV story profiles AT&T and Verizon, but it does so without making the distinction that AT&T delivers all-IP TV, while Verizon uses RF with an IP return path. Essentially Verizon has chosen to use IP only for certain interactive services, and actually more closely emulates a cable network architecture than AT&T’s offering.

Second, the review of Verizon’s FiOS TV talked about the first version of the television interface, but of course the telecom company has already moved on to version number two. If you’ve somehow missed our ZNF FiOS 2.0 coverage, check it out here.

Third, as someone mentioned in the comments online, there are big differences in bandwidth between Verizon and AT&T because of their different fiber strategies. Verizon uses fiber to the home (FTTH), while AT&T uses fiber to the node (FTTN). Verizon’s got a much fatter pipe at its disposal; good for delivering uncompressed HDTV content and lots of it.

Fourth and finally, the authors of the PC World article happen to mention that AT&T uses Motorola set-tops. I have more than a passing interest in that little detail, and would like to add that Verizon too uses Motorola set-tops. If the information is worth mentioning for one operator, I figure it’s worth mentioning for the other.

5 thoughts on “PC World and the Fat Pipe”

  1. Oh PC World where to begin…Too many ads, awful website, poorly conducted reviews, and way too much vista love for my tastes. I gave up on them years ago and haven’t looked back.

  2. “…while Verizon uses RF with an IP return path. Essentially Verizon has chosen to use IP only for certain interactive services, and actually more closely emulates a cable network architecture than AT&T’s offering.”

    Could you expand a bit on what the differences are? Taken as a statement it’s not that much more enlightening the PC mag :).

  3. Touche, Griffon. :)

    RF stands for radio frequency, while IP stands for Internet protocol. The ultimate benefit to an IP platform is a common environment of bits and bytes. When everything is in bits and bytes – your video, voice and data communication – all the pieces will be able to interact with each other, hence the holy grail of converged services.

    My point however was just that Verizon’s and AT&T’s video services shouldn’t be classified the same way. Verizon FiOS TV operates much more like a cable service than like AT&T.

    One note of clarification- Lots of people confuse IPTV with video delivered over the Internet. IPTV works over a service-managed network, not the free-and-clear Internet. Just worth noting.

  4. In cable you take 6MHz bands (an analog channel) and either transmit analog video on them or a digital multiple that would typically have say 10 x 3.75Mbps digital SD channels or some combination of SD and HD (at 15Mbps or so). At least if you wer e using MPEG-2 video. With h.264 (more advanced STB needed) in which case these numbers would be lower, and more channels could be packed into a given frequency.

    In IPTV you assume you’ve got a hunk of frequency and ALL of it is allocated for IP packets, and the TV stuff is simply carried over IP and maybe you have QOS to give those packets priority or whatever. Something cable typically doesn’t do.

    Now cable can carry “IPTV” too. Bond some DOCSIS 3.0 channels together to create a fat pipe, and funnel IP packets over that interface to a cable modem, and use some of those for TV channels and you’ve got IPTV over cable too.

    Mari’s point is that Verizon’s current offering is much more like the current cable model (emulating coax over fiber) that an IPTV model.

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