ATSC 3.0, Fiber Get Focus During CES Broadband Discussion
LAS VEGAS -- Fiber is critical as the IoT emerges and traditional broadband doesn’t offer a big enough pipe, said Magellan Advisors CEO John Honker at the CES broadband conference Wednesday. Honker, whose company advises cities and businesses building out fiber, spoke during a panel organized by the Fiber-to-the-Home Council.
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“We used to get on the internet; we would get on and then get off,” Honker said. That’s not the case today, he said: “Everything is connected and it’s being connected everywhere.” The IoT will drive a “huge need for bandwidth,” he said. Upload speed is as important as download for devices on the IoT, but upload speeds still lag, Honker said. Connection speeds “are growing much slower than the devices and the demands that the devices are putting on broadband connectivity,” Honker said.
FTTH Council President Heather Gold said 34 million homes in the U.S. have availability to fiber and 13.7 million are connected. “That’s a pretty good take rate,” she said. “Usually, if they build it, 50 percent will come.” There was a 16 percent growth in fiber connections last year, the best since Verizon launched Fios and the growth seen during the early years of the Obama administration following the enactment of the stimulus bill, she said.
Desire for fiber will only increase, Gold said. There are 5.5 online devices per home in the U.S, based on the latest reports, she said. With the growth of the IoT, that’s expected to grow to 12.2 per person by 2022, she said. Those under age 35 get about half their video content online, she said. Wireless won’t replace the need for fiber, Gold said. “This is no wireless miracle,” she said. “Fiber is enabling wireless.”
Panelists discussed the future of ATSC 3.0, a focus of broadcasters (see 1612050048). “What we now have for the first time is a broadcast IP network,” said Kevin Gage, One Media chief technology officer. “What that means is we can create a multi-tower environment, an SFN [single frequency network], and we can create regional and national coverage, not just local services that you know about today.” ATSC 3.0 will be a “game changer,” allowing mass distribution of information by broadcasters, Gage said.
One Media parent Sinclair remains “very excited” about ATSC 3.0, which is a true “mobile first” technology, said new CEO Chris Ripley. “Unlike the current standard, which was designed primarily to get large pictures onto walls … this was designed with a mobile-first mentality and was designed to be compatible with existing mobile technologies." ATSC offers broadcasters an entry to mobile devices, he said. Sinclair has been testing ATSC 3.0 in Baltimore and Washington since March under special temporary authority from the FCC (see 1603220032).
“No longer will TV be a separate technology platform unto its own; it can work seamlessly with what exists on the internet today,” Ripley said. Netflix “is out there saying” all video will be IP within 10 years, he said. “They’re right.” ATSC 3.0 will also allow broadcasters to do targeted advertising, Ripley said. “That’s big for our industry," which at this point can’t target ads based on a viewer’s profile, he said.
ATSC 3.0 also allows broadcasters to better control access to their own signal, Ripley said. “We need to be able to control our signal, who accesses it, on what devices.” Dedicated short-range communications -- also a subject at CES (see 1701040044) -- allows for subscription-based business models, he said. “You could envision something like Netflix riding over this platform where you need to be a subscriber in order to access the content.”
Meanwhile, Shawn DuBravac, CTA chief economist and senior director-research, said during a “CES 2017 Trends to Watch” session Wednesday that 20 percent of exhibitors at this year's show, which has 165,000 attendees, didn't exist five years ago. The 2017 show has more new exhibitors than the first CES in 1967 had in total, he said. DuBravac outlined five tech trends for this CES 2017: new voice computing; artificial intelligence’s infusion into daily lives and businesses; connections and computations; transportation transformation; and digitizing the consumer experience. With regard to voice computing, DuBravac said the “word error rate” has improved over time, from an error rate of almost 100 percent in 1995 to around 25 percent in 2013. As of 2017, he said the word error rate is at “human parity.” He said this area has seen more progress in the past 30 months than in the first 30 years, with ground gained by Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. Improved word error rate, he said, has led to a cost-benefit inflection where consumers can take better advantage of the technology.