The Killer Connection: Why A Fast Net Means Great TV
You're at home watching Jurassic Park on video. The kids are entranced, your screen is filled with larger-than-life images, the colors are rich, and the high-quality audio makes the dinosaurs seem to leap from every corner of your living room. Following the film, you tell the kids you've just been looking at a great dinosaur site on the Web, so you fire up the WebTV or Network Computer box and start surfing. The room goes quiet. As you click from page to page, the pace slows as you wait for still images and text to load. The kids yawn and gradually sneak off to bed.
Compared to the high-quality pictures and sound of modern video systems, viewing the Net on a TV screen can be a relatively flat experience. Web designers design graphics with a minimum of colors to allow faster downloads over slow connections. Sound, where it appears, can be harsh and tinny. The quality of video clips is marginal at best. As television-based Internet tools gain popularity, the limitations of standard modem and phone-line connections have become readily apparent.
It's not just our love for high-tech viewing that drives the move to faster Net access. Speedier connections can also mean richer content in what we view. To show how this works, let's say you've just watched a Martha Stewart Living program where she cooked up a batch of homemade dopplebock ale to celebrate the coming vernal equinox. You are intrigued by the originality of Martha's beer recipe and impressed with the elegance with which she brews. You are inspired and decide it's time to mix a batch of your own spring suds at home. You've heard there are plenty of great brewers' resources on the Web, and Martha has even posted her recipe to her program's companion site on the Internet. So while you continue to watch Martha in a minimized frame, cultivating an acidophilus culture for next week's yogurt segment, you click over to the Web and start surfing.
On today's Net, where 28.8K modems are the standard, you're likely to find some text-based pages on the subject, and maybe a few pictures. Visit the same page when 56K modems are the norm and you'll likely see some short animations or jerky video clips. Return to the page when cable modems or high-speed satellite connections are common, and you will probably be able to find full-motion video of the complete brewing process, with sound included.
The gap between still images and full-motion video is one that can only be bridged by improvements in Internet bandwidth. Bandwidth is the measure of a system's ability to send data from one source to another, and it's currently the subject of an industry battle to see from whom, and how, you'll get Internet access in coming years.
Somethin's Gotta Give
If you've surfed the Net lately you've no doubt noticed sluggish downloads and congestion during peak hours, particularly between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. when countless users are coming home and logging on. These troubles are due primarily to bandwidth weaknesses along an Internet that wasn't designed to deal with anything near the traffic it is now forced to handle.
The method the Net uses to transfer information was initially developed for stability rather than speed. When you begin receiving a file, the protocol uses "slow start" technology to test the connection, then gradually ratchets up to the peak of your connection's capability. This system is fairly reliable in making sure that you do connect to the Web site you're after, but it means that even the fastest digital connection suffers from initial delays in file delivery.
To the end user, particularly those viewing the Net on television screens, these limitations in delivery methods have meant a slow growth rate for true multimedia on the Web. The full-motion video and high-quality sound TV viewers have come to expect is at present far too data-intensive to squeeze through a standard modem connection. Viewing applications like Progressive Networks' RealPlayer and Microsoft's NetShow have made great steps in bringing video to the Web, but many wonder whether they'll ever make it to full-motion without some kind of breakthrough in bandwidth technology.
Today the telephone companies control most of our Net access, but many politicians, including Bill Clinton and his former FCC chairman Reed Hunt, are calling for a new openness in the bandwidth marketplace. Along with other government officials, the president envisions a new sense of competition in the bandwidth market, one that would include telephone companies, cable providers, and satellite systems as players. This, they argue, would allow the Net to continue to grow at its current breakneck pace.
"The FCC's fight for meaningful local competition isn't just about whether consumers will have a meaningful choice for telephone service," outgoing FCC chairman Reed Hunt recently said in an interview with a California newspaper. "It's also about whether the great mass of American consumers will have a meaningful and affordable and enjoyable opportunity to use the Internet and its services."
The Plain Old Telephone System (POTS)
For most of us, common phone lines provide our gateway to the Internet, whether we view it on a television screen or a desktop computer. Trouble is, those copper wires are the slowest of any of the technologies now capable of delivering Internet data: Standard "twisted pair" lines are particularly prone to extraneous noise that can disturb data transmission, and their small physical size limits their ability to handle large amounts of information effectively.
If telephone companies are to remain in the running as Net delivery systems progress, their immediate future lies in the new 56Kbps modems. Running at roughly twice the speed of today's standard modems, 56K units are now thought to represent the maximum transfer rate possible over a normal phone line. This means a marked improvement in download times--one that you'll particularly notice on large files--and for TV viewers the larger data stream takes the Web experience one step closer to real multimedia.
Sara Powers of 3-Com, one of the pioneers into the 56K modem market, expects analog modems to remain the most common choice for consumers, despite industry progress in other technologies.
"Cable modems and hardware like them are still not fully developed today--they still occupy what is very much a niche market," she says. "By contrast, analog is available to most users and still carries a lot of potential for the future."
She points to the fact that software companies and Web designers have already begun to work with 56K, what they expect will be the next throughput standard. Companies like Progressive Networks, developers of the RealPlayer, and Microsoft with its NetShow viewer, are "ramping up" their products to take advantage of the faster data capability, and the results are promising. Internet audio is particularly improved with the new modems, boasting near CD-quality over a dial-up connection. Video too is improved at 56K, losing some of the jerkiness users have experienced with 28.8, but it's still a far cry from true full-motion performance.
Regardless of the success or failure of 56K modems, the telephone companies are continuing to develop other, faster delivery systems designed to compete with innovations in the cable and satellite industries. Though they're still costly enough to remain outside the consumer market, watch for new technologies, like the extremely speedy xDSL (Digital Subscriber Lines), to become competitive as prices drop elsewhere.
Cable Providers
Cable represents the most serious threat to the phone company's Internet turf, though cable modems are only beginning to find a foothold in the consumer market. These fully digital devices are capable of delivery speeds dwarfing those of analog modems, and they do it over wiring that already exists in millions of homes. For television Net viewers, they may well be the key to the future: manufacturers of Internet set-top (Net-top) boxes have been experimenting with cable modems and expect to offer them as an option early next year. Companies like @Home, MediaOne and World Gate have already begun delivering cable-ready Internet services to major metropolitan areas, and users report staggering performance at prices close to that of a standard Net account plus a second telephone line (about $40).
Matt Wolfrom with @Home says his company continues to develop features that exploit cable's speedy data path. One such feature, for example, is a "video wall" where users can select interesting news items of the day, click on them with a remote control or wireless keyboard, and be rewarded with a full-motion video and audio feed of the event. The site also has a "tune in" service with digital quality samples of current music.
"We don't see services like ours as replacing TV," Wolfrom says. "But they're a great way to integrate audio and video into the Internet experience. You won't be watching Seinfeld over the Internet, but say you want to visit Tahiti--you'll be able to go to a site and see video clips of the beach, the sights. That's the advantage of this technology: It's enhancing the quality of information."
Since cable modems don't work over a phone line, they eliminate the need to dial up a provider and they're always ready to receive data. It might seem to be merely a minor convenience, but it's one that many feel will change the way we use the Net. Let's say, for example, that as you're reading this article you decide you want to see a film tonight. To see what's playing you could turn on your Net-top box or PC, dial your Internet provider, and surf the Net to one of the sites providing movie listings in your area. With a cable connection that doesn't require dialing, you could maintain a database at your home that constantly receives updated movie information across the cable when it's not busy doing something else. With a simple flip of a switch, you have a searchable, interactive electronic movie listing at your fingertips. Maybe an intelligent agent will have already made some suggestions about which new films you might be interested in, but that's the topic of another article (see The Digital Compass, page XXX).
The point is, with connections that don't require dialing or additional phone lines, industry proponents believe that more of us will turn to the Internet as a resource for news, sports, weather, and events--information we're now getting from print sources or from more unwieldy Internet sources.
Combining cable television signals and Net access will also provide for a new degree of interactivity, says Wolfrom. "You could be watching a television program and see a canoe that you're interested in," he says. "You'd click a link and go to maybe an L.L. Bean site. Or if you were watching a ball game, you could click to an ESPN site to get a batter's average."
This technology already exists in the new Net-top market in products like WebTV or Network Computer, but a dial-in connection required and the information carrying capacity is significantly less.
Direct Broadcast Satellite Providers
Just as cable TV companies have begun experimenting with high-speed Internet delivery, so have a few Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) providers realized that their transmission capabilities are also well-suited to receive data from the Net. Though it may be some time before you can connect a satellite feed to your Net-top box, these extremely fast connections are ideal for PC/TV's.
Internet by satellite works on the same principle--and hardware--as the DBS networks providing video channels for home viewing. A small dish mounted at your home receives data from a designated satellite, relaying it through a decoder box and then to your television or computer. Today there is only Hughes Network Systems offers Internet access as part of its DBS package, although other service providers like the DiSH Network say they're working on the technology and plan to offer service by next year.
The Hughes service is called DirecPC, or DirecDUO when it is paired with a standard video channel package. It's still relatively expensive compared to dial-up services--prices begin at $19.95 per month, but you'll need to purchase the necessary hardware (between $400 and $900 depending on your current setup) and you'll pay per-megabyte charges for downloads beyond a set limit.
For the price, you can get an extremely fast Internet connection capable of delivering high-quality video and audio--up to 200 to 400Kbps, roughly 10 to 20 times the speed of today's modems (see chart). One of the primary advantages of the DirecPC service is that it is available most anywhere, independent of noisy rural phone lines and reaching into areas not serviced by cable.
Who Wins?
Analog modems are likely to remain the standard in the near future--they're inexpensive and relatively easy to install and configure. But as cable providers bring Net access into more areas, we'll see more users migrating to cable's high-speed connections, and similar offerings from the telephone companies as they unveil competing technologies like xDSL. Satellite delivery systems will probably maintain a niche market for users who fall outside cable service areas, but watch for them to become major players in the bandwidth battle as data communications go wireless. Companies like Teledesic are already working on wireless video and data systems that will allow high-speed access on the go, and when this happens cable and telephone companies will be struggling to keep up.
Internet TV aficionados and curios will also want to watch for developments in data broadcast applications. Data broadcasting is a technology that allows HTML-based content to be sent along the vertical blanking interval of a standard television broadcast signal. With appropriate technology on the user level (available in many affordable tuner-cards and soon to be available as part of the Windows 98 operating system), you can receive accompanying Web-type content (news, sports, weather, entertainment, financial data, etc.) to your PC or TV without any Internet connection at all (see Data Broadcasting, page XXX).
With so much competition for our Net-access dollar, it's certain we'll soon start seeing price wars that will put high-speed Internet connections into the range we're now paying for standard phone service. When this happens, we can expect a new focus in Internet development, one that will bring more and better-quality multimedia to the Net, and the richest content to ever be available on a TV.
How Fat Is The Pipe?
Data transmission rates of the various conduits TV will eventually use to receive content.
Plain Old Telephone (POTs): 56 Kbps
ISDN: 128 Kbps
xDSL: 8 Mbps
Wireless: 10 Mbps
Cable Modem: 10 Mbps
Satellite: 400Kbps
Fiber Optics: 10 Gbps
Charles Mohnike is a contributor to the Microsoft Bookshelf Internet Guide and the owner of Zapt Digital Media, an Internet consulting firm.
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