[CAnet - news] Free triple-play for university dormitories and soon homes

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[Recently there has been an explosion of new telecom companies and business models in the UK due to the recent telecom deregulation and the imposition of strict structural separation on the telecom local loops. One such example is small company, based in Wales called Inuk Networks which has formed a unique partnership with the UK R&E network - SuperJANET to deliver free triple play services to university residences and dormitories throughout the UK.  Inuk makes its money by selling eyeball-hours to the various public broadcasters whose authorized TV channels are carried over the SuperJANET network. 

Inuk also offers program distribution services to the universities so that they can also distribute their content throughout the UK and elsewhere. Inuk takes care of all the video storage, encoding and scheduling on behalf of the universities.  The university content can be distributed free with some limited advertising, or be also offered as pay per view service, or revenue shared as with the public broadcasters.

Inuk uses IP multicast to distribute their services.  The TV Channels can be watched for free on the PC, at full broadcast quality including HDTV, or on the TV by purchasing optional set top box.

I expect very soon the Inuk business model will be adapted by commercial  distributors who will probably offer the same deal to the retail consumer marketplace with free broadband, free broadcast TV and free telephony.  Already we are seeing companies like Sky in the UK offer similar free broadband deals along these lines.

These companies cross subsidize the cost of the broadband local loop through advertisement and the sale of eyeball-hours.  This model works because of the unrestricted availability of network neutral facilities in the UK - either through the national R&E network or unbundled local loops.

The impact of these new business models on traditional peddlers of bits will be interesting.  I don't think differentiated services or technologies like FiOS and DOCSIS 3.0 will be sufficient to counter the attraction of FREE broadband.

However it does beg the question of how the underlying infrastructure will ever be paid for. The muni fiber networks and/or user owned networks may be one possible model to get around that problem.-- BSA]

Inuk Networks
www.inuknetworks.com

Sky's Free Broadband service
http://broadband.sky.com/showmeskybroadband.htm


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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those  of the CANARIE board or management.

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