DSTV IPTV service here soon

Uhm 12 megs....LOL
unless they work out some agreement i cannot see how one would pay for the bandwidth and the speed?
 
And then? Who is going to have the broadband to use it????
 
I don't understand this at all then. So why launch a service if it is not possible to be delivered?

Sure, for gated communities. I'm sure both [sic] those communities would be more than glad, but are they really suggesting that they are wasting R&D on a product that will not be able to be mass marketed in any case? I mean why bother at all? From where I'm sitting it looks like all they are doing is spending money for no gain, hence rather don't and lower the monthly cost to those of us who actually do make use of the realistic services?

How do they realistically see a return of investment (here or in the rest of africa) if this is to be such a little used service?
(Here you go sir, your bill for one night's stay at our hotel, see that 5k charge, that's your DSTv bill...)

Am I going crazy or am I missing something really obvious?
 
From what I understand they are not going to use the internet they are going to use the private fibre networks to deliver the service.

I also think it works slightly different to how they explain, because IPTV services exist elsewhere in the world where they only have 8Mb lines.
 
How can this be anything other than a failure? Bandwidth costs are going to make it immensely more expensive than the usual satellite dish and monthly subscription.
 
Nerfherder said:
From what I understand they are not going to use the internet they are going to use the private fibre networks to deliver the service.
Click to expand...
Correct. MultiChoice will focus on gated villages, hotels and apartment blocks with high speed networks - typically fibre - to deliver the service. Out current local Internet connections are simply not suitable to IPTV - both in terms of speed and the low usage limits.
 
I also think it works slightly different to how they explain, because IPTV services exist elsewhere in the world where they only have 8Mb lines.
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I get the impression they are talking about HD here, do the existing ones you mention not perhaps only provide SD?
 
Lazy said:
Sure, for gated communities. I'm sure both [sic] those communities would be more than glad, but are they really suggesting that they are wasting R&D on a product that will not be able to be mass marketed in any case?
...
How do they realistically see a return of investment (here or in the rest of africa) if this is to be such a little used service?
(Here you go sir, your bill for one night's stay at our hotel, see that 5k charge, that's your DSTv bill...)

Am I going crazy or am I missing something really obvious?
Click to expand...

What R&D do Multichoice have to do? There set top boxes exist overseas, and the consumer pays for that. Multichoice already have the content. Multichoice already have a nice big interweb connection (They already put some content up on their site). So its not really going to cost them very much.
Worst case, nobody signs up... So what, in some number of years (hopefully) we will have decent connections in this country and they will be waiting to sign us up for a tried and tested service, of which they are the only provider.

And you only need 12Mb for the HD, SD will need substantially less speed.
 
roberth said:
What R&D do Multichoice have to do? There set top boxes exist overseas, and the consumer pays for that. Multichoice already have the content. Multichoice already have a nice big interweb connection (They already put some content up on their site). So its not really going to cost them very much.
Worst case, nobody signs up... So what, in some number of years (hopefully) we will have decent connections in this country and they will be waiting to sign us up for a tried and tested service, of which they are the only provider.

And you only need 12Mb for the HD, SD will need substantially less speed.
Click to expand...
I think need to find out what it will cost them to deliver the service... and how many people per "village" need to sign up before it is viable.

Yes I agree that SD will be less bandwith but even if its 1Mb then how do you deliver 150 SD channels ?
 
roberth said:
What R&D do Multichoice have to do? There set top boxes exist overseas, and the consumer pays for that. Multichoice already have the content. Multichoice already have a nice big interweb connection (They already put some content up on their site). So its not really going to cost them very much.
Worst case, nobody signs up... So what, in some number of years (hopefully) we will have decent connections in this country and they will be waiting to sign us up for a tried and tested service, of which they are the only provider.

And you only need 12Mb for the HD, SD will need substantially less speed.
Click to expand...

Well, from experience it's hardly ever a case of just plugging it in and it works. If things were that simple we could use the Sky Digital PVR here since that particular set top box also exists overseas. Why was it then that so much work was involved in getting PVR's into our market? Because it's different.

Also, no company worth it's salt will buy a device and all of a sudden mass [sic] market it. They will prod it a bit with a stick, test it plenty and only once they are ready to put their stamp of approval on it will the project proceed...
This process involves endless meetings, proposals and later on, lots more input from techies and testers.... and that's just the product team.
Now comes the implimentation and and hardware requirements since they will need to plug into the fiber cable in order to deliver the content. And don't forget, what about failover and redundancy?

It's just not as simple as buying a box and handing it to customers, thus there's R&D, which incurs costs. Then, nobody signing up really is a worst case.
 
I live in one of Multi Choice's smart villages. The whole estate has fibre so internally there aren't any issues with bandwith internally. We are not the pilot site for the services above so they just pipe the raw DSTV feed to each unit where it is decoded by a normal DSTV decoder. There about 6 other estates like this in the country so assume this is their target market for the time being.
 
Who will be partnering with Multichoice to provide the fibre to the gated communities, etc?
 
I think this might have to do with those increased caps and higher speeds that we have all been talking about!!! :D Seems like Multichoice and XXXXXX know something that we don't know... yet! ;)
 
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telkomsuig said:
I live in one of Multi Choice's smart villages. The whole estate has fibre so internally there aren't any issues with bandwith internally. We are not the pilot site for the services above so they just pipe the raw DSTV feed to each unit where it is decoded by a normal DSTV decoder. There about 6 other estates like this in the country so assume this is their target market for the time being.
Click to expand...

That sounds like RF and IF over fibre... Converts to fibre and then back to copper before going into your house. There is quite a few more than 6.
 
telkomsuig said:
I live in one of Multi Choice's smart villages. The whole estate has fibre so internally there aren't any issues with bandwith internally. We are not the pilot site for the services above so they just pipe the raw DSTV feed to each unit where it is decoded by a normal DSTV decoder. There about 6 other estates like this in the country so assume this is their target market for the time being.
Click to expand...
Do they charge you more than normal DSTV?
 
Yup not sure about the numbers. The fibre goes up to the outside of the unit and then it is split between RF (DSTV and TV), Telephone and Cat 5 for internet.

Good market for MC as you are locked into their services (ie there are no Telkom lines installed and you are not allowed to install your own dish).


Link to the partner's website

www.smartvillage.co.za
 
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Same amount. Currently we are not part of the trial so the fibre is just a distribution mechanism for the normal dstv signal, internet and telephone.
 
Multichoice / Smartvillage use a PON to deploy the IPTV on Wave 7 optic equipment,ones got to worry whats going to happen to the voice and data QOS....on a PTP (point to point network) there's no worries....I would be interested to see +500 users on HD and make a call while using P2P .... I guess watching pixcelated DSTV is really something of the future....
 
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