Project Canvas (IPTV) is a goer

[altis]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8426104.stm

The BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body, has given a provisional go-ahead for a project which could kick-start demand for internet TV.

Project Canvas is a partnership between the BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Channel 4 and TalkTalk to develop a so-called Internet Protocol Television standard.

This looks like good news but I notice that VM isn't involved - yet.

[LondonRoad]

It does look like good news and I'm a bit surprised that VM aren't involved from the perpective of their National coverage.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Why would VM get involved, it's just started shelling out loads of money to ontroduce it's own version of 'iptv' across it's own network. If anything, this is in competition to VM and will possibly steal customers from them. If Sky decided to allow their channels to be carried by it, VM would be hit even harder.

[altis]

So what are VM going to do? Tell customers that they can't plug in their Canvas box?

All forms of IPTV is going to be heavily dependent on the routing infrastructure. Best get involved with a major player and find out what's needed, IMHO.

[Chris]

VM hates this, because it will allow the likes of BT Vision to sell its service to punters down the intertubes, wherever they go - including VM cabled streets and right into the homes of VM subscribers. It means VM internet subscribers hoovering up more bandwidth (which costs VM money) and inevitably, some VM TV subscribers cancelling their cable TV and getting a Canvas box instead .. which costs VM money.

However, I suspect their opposition up until now has in part been due to their belief that they could actually stop this from happening. Project Kangaroo, which bore more than a passing resemblance to Canvas, failed last February due to competition concerns. They probably thought Canvas might go the same way, thus saving them the bother of working out how to actually accommodate it on their network.

I would imagine VM will reluctantly engage with this now, however I expect Sky to become more and more vocal in opposition. Graham McWilliam, their head of corporate affairs, gave it a good kicking this afternoon, but then James Murdoch yanks his strings, and he's a chip off the old block when it comes to hating anything the BBC touches.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by Chris

VM hates this, because it will allow the likes of BT Vision to sell its service to punters down the intertubes, wherever they go - including VM cabled streets and right into the homes of VM subscribers. It means VM internet subscribers hoovering up more bandwidth (which costs VM money) and inevitably, some VM TV subscribers cancelling their cable TV and getting a Canvas box instead .. which costs VM money.

However, I suspect their opposition up until now has in part been due to their belief that they could actually stop this from happening. Project Kangaroo, which bore more than a passing resemblance to Canvas, failed last February due to competition concerns. They probably thought Canvas might go the same way, thus saving them the bother of working out how to actually accommodate it on their network.

I would imagine VM will reluctantly engage with this now, however I expect Sky to become more and more vocal in opposition. Graham McWilliam, their head of corporate affairs, gave it a good kicking this afternoon, but then James Murdoch yanks his strings, and he's a chip off the old block when it comes to hating anything the BBC touches.

It'll be interesting to watch how this progresses and how Sky and VM deal with this. I suspect that it may go the opposite way to your thoughts. I don't see VM having too much to offer this project. VM is a cable company that utilises it's own network to sell other peoples TV channels. VM don't have that many of their own channels and always seem to be on the verge of selling any they have. As you've already said, they will probably lose TV subscribers to this if it turns out to be any good. Apart from advice on some technical aspects, which BT and Talk Talk should be able to provide anyway, what else can they really offer. They're already in the middle of their own huge rollout of new encryption in preperation for their 'iptv' type future. This will all be costing them quite a bit of cash and to have a project like this steal their market share will be a big problem.

Sky, on the other hand have channels to sell and as long as they are making a certain margin on their channels they will sell them via any medium. You only have to look at the recent introduction of their Sky Player onto Xbox Live and the re-introduction of Sky channels to VM to see they realise they have to sell their channels to make money and get advertising revenue in. As long as they make the right kind of money from it, I suspect they may get on board later on after trying to fight it at first, purely because they will have learnt from losing revenue during the spat with VM and the introduction of their service onto Xbox Live.

[Chris]

I think the Sky Basics debacle taught Sky that there's a lot of inertia out there, and that people generally choose their platform for reasons other than which specific channels are available on it. Thus, I would agree with you, Sky will sell stuff via Canvas because they have stuff to sell. They would rather be selling the channels via satellite, seeing as that way they control the platform in the sub's house as well as the content, but I doubt they'll quickly repeat the mistake of thinking they can use a handful of niche* entertainment channels to make large numbers of people fundamentally change the way they receive digital telly.

* and let's face it, that's what the basics are - there's precious little general interest stuff on Sky One

[Callumpy]

Cool, a use for the ethernet port on the back of our telly?

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by Callumpy

Cool, a use for the ethernet port on the back of our telly?

Yup.