How Verizon Really Can Take TV Everywhere

FiOS streaming live TV tablet

Slowly but surely we’re getting more access to TV on our PCs, iPads, and smartphones. But a comment on Dave’s post about the IMG 1.9 release reminded me that for some folks, the fact that FiOS TV service doesn’t let you move content around easily today is still a deal-breaker.

Until Verizon has a way for me to get TV off their box and onto my PC/ pad/ phone- the same way that Tivo does, I will continue to be a Tivo customer.

What most folks don’t know is that Verizon has done an astounding amount of work on its infrastructure in order to enable services that make content more flexible and accessible on different devices. We learned in January that the telecom had overhauled its hybrid QAM/IP system, making it possible to switch over to all-IP broadcasting for live television in addition to VOD and widget services. More recently, however, the company announced its new Verizon Digital Media Services platform, which both transcodes and formats TV for different devices, and handles session management so you can start watching a show in one place, and finish up somewhere else. (See Light Reading’s stellar coverage here and here)

Verizon claims that VDMS is a one-of-a-kind digital delivery utility, and it’s aiming to sell the technology as a service to cable companies for their TV Everywhere services. I have serious doubts about the potential success of that plan, but for Verizon’s own purposes, VDMS appears to give the company everything it needs to take FiOS TV to the next level. You know how the new WatchESPN service lets you watch live ESPN broadcasts on the go? I’m betting Verizon will offer more linear content the same way in the near future to FiOS TV users, along with the option to transition viewing sessions of VOD and recorded content to various gadgets for mobile viewing. This could be a good year to be a FiOS subscriber. 

Industry note: Although I’m impressed at how aggressive Verizon has been with its infrastructure in recent years, I would be remiss in not pointing out one major negative to the FiOS expansion plans. As Karl Bode continually reports, Verizon has pulled back substantially on further FiOS roll-outs, and is still stuck on DSL Internet delivery in many places. Improved infrastructure is all well and good, but only for the people who can actually access the services that go with it.

18 thoughts on “How Verizon Really Can Take TV Everywhere”

  1. Yeah, it’s a bummer and I’m a bit surprised Verizon is trailing Comcast and Time Warner in live iPad streaming.

    Although that comment you refer to was specific to TiVoToGo – in truly being able to offload/archive content for playback later on a variety of devices. It’s actually kinda good TiVo isn’t more successful because I expect the content providers would have an issue with it… especially since TiVo’s encryption scheme has long since been defeated.

  2. “It’s actually kinda good TiVo isn’t more successful because I expect the content providers would have an issue with it… especially since TiVo’s encryption scheme has long since been defeated.”

    In one sense, sure. Security via obscurity.

    But, on the other hand, the encryption scheme for DVD’s and Blu-Rays was successfully cracked, as all multicast encryption schemes always are, and the content companies still happily sell as many of those encryption defeated discs as they can.

    And TTG material has quite low filesharing value, since the files are too big, compared to mp4, and of lower quality for compression than Blu-Ray. (Not to mention that movies on TTG are windowed to appear after the Blu-Ray release.)

    So, while I’m happy in a way that TTG is stuck in a niche, I actually think TTG as we know it might survive quite well out in the sunshine.

    And, of course, most of the non-Verizon wireline providers already disable TTG functionality for everything they can under the law, which they do only because most of the non-Verizon wireline providers own content companies. (A practice which ought to be outlawed some day.)

    That’s the core reason Verizon gives good wire. It’s their only priority. They don’t own networks or studios.

    “I’m a bit surprised Verizon is trailing Comcast and Time Warner in live iPad streaming.”

    I’m not. It’s not Verizon’s style.

    Let Comcast unleash their lawyers (as they love to) on the content companies, set the accepted legal boundaries, and then Verizon will jump into the game once the legal rules are set. (TW’s gameplan on this seems a bit more muddled to me.)

  3. “Although I’m impressed at how aggressive Verizon has been with its infrastructure in recent years, I would be remiss in not pointing out one major negative to the FiOS expansion plans. As Karl Bode continually reports, Verizon has pulled back substantially on further FiOS roll-outs”

    They stopped the build-out a year or more ago, no?

    Verizon FIOS is like Apple. They’re not after market share. They’re after profits.

    They’ve laid down the best infrastructure in the most lucrative markets, and now they can just sit back and make some money.

    If you want fibre-to-the-home in rural Arkansas, turn to the Federal Government, not Verizon. It ain’t a profit-maker.

  4. Chucky- Yes, on the infrastructure note. It’s all great news for VZ as a business and for shareholders. But I really would be remiss in not pointing out the dark side of expansion as well. Consumers only win where it’s in Verizon’s best interest. (Hey- that’s capitalism, right?) The original VZ FTTH rollout was so amazing because consumers saw upside before Verizon did. A calculated risk on the company’s part, but one that has obviously turned out immensely well for everyone.

  5. The one thing I will say in Verizon’s defense (for now at least) is that TiVo and Windows Media Center are much more powerful with cable card on FIOS than any other provider. I just got my Ceton card and now can record 4 channels of unencrypted content and do whatever I want with it. More than I can say for most other providers. Yes the HD content on FIOS isn’t as good as Blu-Ray but it is better than anything else out there.

  6. “Chucky- Yes, on the infrastructure note. It’s all great news for VZ as a business and for shareholders. But I really would be remiss in not pointing out the dark side of expansion as well. Consumers only win where it’s in Verizon’s best interest. (Hey- that’s capitalism, right?)”

    See, that’s the thing. We don’t live under a pure theoretical feudal-style “capitalistic” society. We’ve got this nice “we the people … in order to form a more perfect union” thing going on that lets us do lots things that capitalism can’t do or won’t do.

    It wasn’t capitalistic to establish landline phones to every home in the nation, even if it wasn’t profitable. It wasn’t capitalistic to deliver mail to every house in the nation, even if it wasn’t profitable.

    The sad thing is that we recently had the first Bank Panic in 80 years, and Bank Panics usually produce a follow-on a General Glut, which leads to decade-long dramatic underemployment, which both hurts overall economic growth, and causes much human misery.

    Way back 70 to 80 years ago, when we last had one of these episodes, we developed a lot of practical wisdom about how to optimally deal with such situations, best popularized by the writings of Keynes. And if the Central Bank couldn’t lower interest rates because of the “zero bound” problem, the next response was to have the government borrow lots of money, if it could at low interest rates, and spend the money just paying people to do work. As Keynes put it, it didn’t even matter if you just paid half the people to bury treasure in holes, and the other half to dig it up, just as long as you were building up the demand-side by employing those who wanted work. (Though it obviously would be better to spend the money on more productive investment the nation could use down the road.)

    Well, wiring FTTH all across the country would have involved paying to do work, and had the poetic benefit of actually fulfilling Keynes joke by having most of that work being digging holes. It would have helped the economy recover from the Bank Panic, and it would have created something that was a benefit for the economy down the line.

    Too bad we didn’t have a Democratic President to go along with the heavily Democratic Congress in ’09-’10. Amazing things could’ve gotten done.

  7. As far as VZ trailing TW and Comcast, given that their DVRs are so much better, their channels not locked down, and their HD better than the others, I’d live with the slower rollout of live channels on my iPad thanks. First things first. Not saying I don’t care about the iPad stuff either.

    As far as VZ switching to all IP, well the obvious problem is I think that would kill all the Tivo’s on their system no? Don’t the Tivo’s rely on a fixed channel map of frequencies and program numbers for their digital decoding? If the system still used cablecard, could a Tivo HD function if the signal was sent via IP? Maybe somebody more informed can tell me…

    As far as VZ’s backbone of capabilities–yeah, yeah, tell me about it when they roll the features out to the users.

  8. I wonder why Directv never launched their own TTG version a few years back?
    Getting ready to go on vacation and would love to offload shows from the DVR. No easy way to doi it!

  9. @Jimpa,

    VZ FioS runs on fiber to the home. Currently for the live channels they run an emulated 1GHz QAM network (digital cable compatible), and for the VOD stuff they run IP.

  10. “VZ FioS runs on fiber to the home.”

    Look, if you want to play their silly intercap spelling game, it’s officially “fIOs“, not “FioS”.

    But for me, I refuse to play that intercap game. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a happy customer of veriZon FIOS…

  11. @ Chucky — there are a lot of markets Verizon hasn’t brought FIOS to, not just “rural Arkansas”. I live in Houston, formerly an exclusive domain of Time Warner, currently under a thumb of Comcast with only some areas with U-verse penetration. Highly unlikely to ever get FIOS down here because it’s an AT&T area and, to quote a response from Verizon, “We will not be going to the areas where AT&T owns the local lines”. :(

  12. I should also point out of course that lots of what were once VZ FIOS customers but got sold to Frontier a while back won’t EVER be seeing this app, nor the 1.9 IMG client discussed recently. Sad.

  13. YEp – near Charlotte NC and no fIOs here either. It is not about rural areas but about the backhaul Verizon would likely have to pay to competitors.

    I am all kinds of onboard on letting the Feds bring fiber to all homes. The spark in innovation and industries that would result would fire up a lot of sectors of the economy

  14. “YEp – near Charlotte NC and no fIOs here either. It is not about rural areas but about the backhaul Verizon would likely have to pay to competitors.”

    I’m not sure what you mean by “backhaul”, zeo.

    AFAICT, the economic constraints on a wider FIOS rollout are that the premium Verizon can charge over the incumbent coax providers is limited. For example, I absolutely adore the FIOS wire, but even I have a maximum price premium I’d pay Verizon over the competition before I’d go back to one of the multiple coax choices I have.

    So Verizon invested the money to lay down infrastructure in the deepest pocketed, most dense geographical locations. That’s where the biggest profit per dollar invested exists. And now they’ll just sit back get some return on their investment.

    Of course, the fact that we had a Bank Panic followed by a (what is likely to be decade-long) General Glut, which reduces demand, which reduces the incentives for business investment, it may be quite a while before Verizon next sees any reason to expand the FIOS footprint.

    “I am all kinds of onboard on letting the Feds bring fiber to all homes. The spark in innovation and industries that would result would fire up a lot of sectors of the economy”

    Yup. A national buildout of FTTH really would be a long-term boon to the economy.

    And looking at the limited case of FTTH really gives you a good example of how and why Keynesian economic theory works during a General Glut.

    One of the reasons Verizon isn’t continuing the FTTH buildout is because it envisions a decade of weak demand because of the General Glut. Fine. So because the Federal Government can borrow money at basically zero interest because of General Glut, it can borrow the money, pay people to build the FTTH network, increase employment, which increases demand, which helps end the General Glut, and we end up with a national FTTH network that citizens can use at reasonably low cost, which will help the economy grow faster in the long-term as a bonus.

  15. Good point by Karl about the Verizon slowdown. If Verizon isn’t moving into new markets, then subscriber growth will likely slowdown as well. But I figure Verizon is planning on something else, perhaps going all IP to drive future growth.

    Part of the problem is that there is a limit to Verizon’s market, because it doesn’t extend to all of the U.S. AT&&T has a big chunk, and there are so many other smaller local telcos in the U.S.

    For anything to change in a big way, AT&T and Verizon would have to be able to bypass their respective U.S. markets and be able to market to all of the U.S. Not sure that can happen, however, without legislation or at least new content rights.

    AT&T will likely move into the Xbox 360 soon, and Verizon (as well as AT&T) may do more with the iPad. But they’ve been kind of slow about it.

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