Category: Networking

Two companies signup for Microsoft IPTV trial

Two new companies have signed up with Microsoft TV to trial their latest Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) offering. Reliance Infocomm, part of the Reliance Group, the vast Indian conglomerate with US$ 16.8 billion yearly revenue, and Bell Canada a Canadian Cable company, both plan to use their networks to offer TV services. Bell Canada will be the first North American Telco to try the Microsoft solution.

The details of the India trial are not clear as yet, but Bell Canada plan to begin testing with subscribers on their “early adopter” programme, who live in six chosen apartment blocks in Toronto. The Canadians will get to use the Microsoft TV’s Interactive Program Guide (IPG) and video on demand (VOD).

Microsoft feels that they offer a complete end-to-end solution based on Windows Media 9, enabling telecom and cable companies to quickly get involved providing television services over their existing networks. Their previous offering have not been too popular, but they are putting lots of effort behind this version.

Microsoft TV, IPTV

Microsoft Microsoft TV Interactive Program Guide (IPG)

Bell Canada

Reliance Infocomm

IEEE Approves 802.15.4 (ZigBee)

The IEEE has approved the 802.15.4 wireless standard for simple devices. More widely known as ZigBee, designed for low power, low complexity units, applications for 802.15.4 include interactive toys, inventory tracking and smart badges. WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network) devices are intended to operate in the user’s Personal Operating Space (POS), an area of effect of about ten metres.

Based on the broader Bluetooth specification, the standard covers three data rates: 20kbps, 40kbps and 250kbps, but is differentiated from HomeRF and Bluetooth by its greater emphasis on device simplicity and low power consumption.

Of course, there will be more privacy worries raised as inventory tags employing RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags become more sophisticated, smaller and indeed washable. Clothing stores will not only be able to track their products in the warehouse and on the shelves but will know when you come back wearing something you bought there. Gillette recently abandoned (for the time being) plans to use RFID technology in their Mach 3 line of razor blades in Europe.

Digital Sun already have an interesting 802.15.14 product in the market: the S.Sense. There are two main components: a receiver that fits the control box of your garden sprinkler and an number spikes that you insert into your lawn. When the spikes detect that the ground is dry, they notify the sprinkler to do its stuff. Because of the low power consumption of the standard, each spike will fun for about a year on a AA battery.

IEEE on 802.15.4 Link

ZigBee Alliance Press Release (PDF)
Gillette on RFID Link

Microsoft to launch European single music track download service

Microsoft will be partnering with On Demand Distribution (OD2) to launch a European rival to the US-only Apple iTunes service. OD2 currently has 200,000 tracks available from five major record companies, which they hope to expand to 300,000 in the next few weeks.The proposed pricing of single tracks is 75 pence (Euro 1.06, $1.21) with albums being £7.99 (Euro 11.37, $12.86). The Apple service pound equivalent is about 62p and £6.20.The higher pricing of the proposed UK service will re-ignite the debate over the pricing of electronically delivered good compared with their physical CD equivalent. The argument from those that say the download versions are priced to highly is that these aren’t physical good that need to be manufactured, packaged, shipped and justify their place on a retailers shelf – they’re electrons, that once encoded take up a tiny amount of low cost disk space and then have a low cost of distribution. The companies justify the prices saying they have large investments in server hardware. As more providers enter the market, competition lowers prices – in the US, rival pay-and-download services have started dropping their prices, with some offering tracks at 79 cents.It’s widely acknowledged that the Apple iTunes service has been a great success. The problem for the world at-large is that currently it only runs on Apple hardware, which only accounts for around 5% of all computers, and it is currently only available in the USA. Among the reasons that the Apple service has been embraced so heartily, is that is it fantastically easy to use, it recommends related music to you and the licensing terms gives the purchaser a lot of freedom to move their purchased music to different computers and portable music players. Details have yet to emerge as to what the Microsoft/OD2 offering will be like.

UK film council announces world’s first ever ‘e-premiere’

The UK film council is claiming a global first. The new feature film, This is not a Love Song, will be released simultaneously in a number of different formats on Friday 5 September. It will be streamed and digitally projected in selected cinemas across the UK and be made available for streaming and download on the Internet on the same day.

The whole process of film-making has been extremely rapid. Written by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) in under two weeks, then shot on PD-150 DV cameras in just 12 days, under the direction of Bille Eltringham (The Darkest Light) and digitally edited on Avid.

Richard Morris of Juggernaut Pictures, the online producer of the event, told us that they wanted to use a mixture of different distribution formats to cinemas around the country. The ‘e-premiere’, as it’s being labelled, will be at the following four cinemas in the

Watershed, Bristol – Live projected streamed video
Cornerhouse, Manchester – 35mm print
Showroom, Sheffield – Digital projection
The Other Cinema, London – Digital projection

The streamed video will be delivered in Microsoft Media 9 format at 700k, giving VHS quality that will then be projected. Both of the digital projections will be driven by Digi Beta tape.

Online viewing will be available, on the same day, from www.thisisnotalovesong.com at a cost “less than renting a video”. As the non-UK film rights have been sold in other territories, the films distributor have insisted that its viewing be restricted to the UK only. To try and ensure this the Internet-delivered versions will be protected by Digital Envoy’s Geo-Targeting technology, which attempts to understand where the viewer is using information such as their source IP address.

The UK film council tells us they are in the process of gathering lottery funds to put low-cost digital projection into 150 cinemas around the UK. Digital distribution makes it far more economic to show non-blockbuster films in smaller venues.

ZigBee – The everywhere PAN

In the current flurry of new wireless networking, we have a new player on the block – ZigBee, the new PAN (Personal Area Network) protocol.

It’s been designed to be very low in power consumption and for most of the applications being targeted, its 2 AA batteries should have a life of 6 months to 2 years, but that does vary by application. One of its secrets is that the devices will only communicate when their application deems necessary.

With it’s maximum data rate is 250kbps, compared to 1 Mbps for Bluetooth but as we know, modems speeds are around a fifth of this, so it’s not painfully slow and many applications for devices don’t need loads of bandwidth.

Range is expected to be ~30 meters in a typical home, compared to ~10 meters for unamplified Bluetooth products.

ZigBee networking capabilities include 254 devices per network, compared to 8 for Bluetooth networks. There can also be up to 100 co-located networks.

With its small stack size (28Kbytes), which is about 10th of the Bluetooth – so the computing spec required to run it will be lower.

The entire bill of materials for a radio module is expected to initially be $6.00, coming quickly down to $2.00 to $3.00. Significantly lower than any other wireless network technology.

Products are expected to be available in middle of 2003 and it’s projected that over 400 million units will be produced per year by 2006.

Low cost wireless control within the home has a chance of becomes a reality.

Denham leads by Broadband example

Another UK local community is setting up their own wireless network – and hats off to them.

96 households in Denham, Buckinghamshire had already registered their interest with BT in ADSL-enabling their local exchange but as BT the minimum required that had been set was 450, they fell well short.

Not seeing this as the end of the boad; two of them decided to set up Denham Broadband to provide wireless access around the area. Subscribers will receive ADSL-like speeds via a small, rooftop antenna, all for an estimated setup cost of 150 UKP plus 30UKP a month.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this people-power action will mean that other will go to these lengths to live The Broadband Dream.

The figures in the UK still don’t look great. In the current BT ADSL Demand Tracker only five of the 2323 listed have been converted, and of these 2323, more than ¾ of these exchanges haven’t even had a trigger level set yet.

At the end of the table, they’ve been kind enough to not order it the by number of households signed in an exchange. To some of these people where none of their neighbours are interested in ADSL like the Bod in Onich (North west of Glasgow, Scotland), The Broadband Dream must feel a long way off.

I tell you what would be interesting – installing a large number of Denham Broadband-type community networks across the country, as consume.net have been discussing for a long while.

Then sell the subscribers SIP phones (normal phone handsets that can use the Internet to carry the calls) and give them the benefit of making close-to-free phone calls to other subscribers. If enough people and especially businesses subscribed, it could start to hit BT’s cashflow.