Media Convergence: Broadband in Every Household? Not so Fast…
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Written By Noah Mallin | August 13, 2008 | Share This
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If you hear broadband partisans tell it, in a few years everyone will be sitting at home watching Wall-E vs. Batman on their home theater/computer/portal systems while downloading season 29 of The Simpsons to the family hard drive. Is this really the future for most families or even most internet users, or is this the stuff of moonbeams and applesauce, like jetpacks and airship mooring masts?
Don’t get me wrong, I love my broadband connection, I couldn’t imagine going back to dial-up. If you want to take it away you’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands. My wife found this out when we moved in together. She had lived without home internet access and cable television prior to then, quite happily. When she saw the first bill for cable plus broadband she was floored.
The reality is that the United States is in a recession and plenty of folks are looking at the cost of broadband and saying “No way.”
Still, a new study revealed today claims that spending on online videos will grow from $1 billion currently to $6 billion in 2013. The big assumption underlying this study – consumers will migrate to web based television and pay for new sets as well as the cost of broadband monthly plus the cost of downloading or livestreaming each movie or episode.
On the other hand we get another study, also released today and based on actual data which shows that new broadband subscriber rates fell by half in the second quarter of 2008 – the first time this has happened in the seven years that Leichtman Research Group has tracked broadband. Clearly consumers are feeling the pinch of broadband prices.
From a marketing perspective the growth of broadband usage affects sites like YouTube and Hulu which can be prohibitively slow to use with dial-up. With Google eager to find new ways to monetize their YouTube investment and the TV folks behind Hulu in much the same frame of mind, growth slowing (or even contracting) is not good news.
On a deeper level, broadband access is a measurement of technological priorities. There is certainly ample evidence that the United States lags behind other countries in broadband adoption. A recent study sponsored by the Communications Workers of America (who obviously have a stake in the results) suggests that connection speeds lag those of other industrialized nations on average. The Phoenix Center lists the United Sates as 15th in the world when it comes to broadband adoption.
The FCC has taken notice of this and along with several members of Congress, has been calling for an auction of part of the available spectrum for free broadband. Of course the FCC has also mucked things up by stipulating that the free usage should come with blocks on potentially obscene material – an object lesson in why private public partnerships are frowned on these days. I suppose it’s true what they say - freedom ain’t free.
Our position is that the more people who have access to free unfettered broadband, the better. This is rooted in our belief in the internet as the most incredible marketplace of ideas and innovation ever invented. More people online leads to more access to ideas and brainpower for everybody – across the broadest possible range of experiences and backgrounds. Let’s not let short term considerations get in the way of long term benefit.
Topics: Advertising: Online, ECommerce, Media Convergence, Online Video |
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