Derfor vil ikke Internett løse alt

There seems to be a common misunderstanding among a lot of journalists, experts, trend analysts and consultants that the Internet will solve all distribution problems in the world. In their opinion there is no need for broadcasting as a way of getting content to the thousands and millions and billions of people out there.

This is a very tabloidized, and a very wrong picture.

Unfortunately this seems to be creating a perceived truth among politicians, regulators, bureaucrats and other decision makers in a variety of countries. The perceived truth that the Internet can handle distribution of all content in the world. But why is this misconception a problem?

Well, because the Internet cannot cope when a lot of people want to watch or listen to something at exactly the same time. That is why broadcasting was invented. A broadcaster (owning TV channels or radio stations) send the signals out in the air, and EVERYONE in the coverage area can receive the signal, even if EVERYONE means 300 million or a billion people. And because telecom operators are trying to lobby governments around the world into taking frequencies from broadcasters, handing them to telecom operators so that there will be more bandwidt for wireless Internet. If they succeed, there will be a shortage of available frequencies (space to broadcast) for broadcasters. The victims will be viewers and listeners not able to receive their favourite TV or radio programmes.

There are various broadcasting standards for radio and mobile TV out there. In Norway we are using DAB and DAB+ for radio and DMB for mobile TV. For TV most countries have already chosen DVB-T, ATSC or ISDB-T. For radio and mobile TV there is only the DMB family of standards (including DAB and DAB+) that is open, accessible through widely available devices and that has allocated frequencies in most countries. I do therefore examplify broadcasting through the usage of DMB, DAB and DAB+.

The 8 list

I have listed 8 often neglected reasons for why broadcasting is still needed.

1) Telecom networks go down if too may people use them. During emergencies and disasters, a broadcasting network is the only effective (and sometimes the only possible) way of getting information out to those affected. This is a reason why governments are considering legislation that will require a broadcasting chip in all mobile phones.

2) Broadcasters are in editorial control of their content, and should remain so. Having a gatekeeper acting as an additional editor or censorship manager is limiting democracy and free speech. A gatekeeper can be a government that cencors you through threats or force, an ISP or telecom operator that limits content or users' access to it or someone controlling what applications/contents/services that will be made available on their platform. James Cridland covers this issue (for radio) on his blog.

3) The Internet is vulnerable to hacking and sites may relatively easily be taken down or halted. A broadcasting network is more secure. Bigger operations will usually be needed in order to hijack a broadcasted signal or a broadcaster.

4) DMB consumes a lot less power than GPRS/3G/WLAN. It is in other words a greener and much more environmentally friendly technology. And it makes batteries last longer.

A DMB/DAB/DAB+ chip uses 25-60mW. A WLAN/GPRS/3G chip uses 1-7W. That means that DMB chipsets use between 0.025% and 6% of an IP chip. 0,025% is one twohundredandeightyeth (1/280).

5) Broadcasters must pay around 3 Euro cents per GB that is being transferred from their server park to the Internet. This may not sound like much, but if Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) in little Norway with less than 5 million inhabitants were to distribute its radio and TV offering throughout a year via the Internet, we would be loooking at an amount of 4.9 Exabyte (which is 4,901 Petabyte or 4,900,662 Terrabyte). This is based on average viewing and listening times from NRK. The average Norwegian person over the age of 12 listens to NRKs radio stations over 35 hours a month and watches NRKs TV channels more than 40 hours a month. This would set the public service broadcaster back over 150 million Euro a year. This is highly hypotetical since there is no way that the Internet would be able to deliver this

6) Internet is not free and you have to pay for access. A subscription is needed (unless you find an open WLAN zone). If every average Norwegian was to watch TV via his/her mobile broadband subscription (the 11% of TV viewing that happens outside your home in Norway), the telecom operators would be generating 275 million Euro every month from Norwegian subscriptions (again given that the network could actually cope and that every Norwegian subscribed to the cheapest possible plan). Broadcasting is the most cost effective way to reach a vast number of people in a geographically large area.

7) The Internet is not wide enough when it comes to bandwidth. I will examplify this through some numbers which applies to mobile broadband. But of course LTE will solve everything. We are being told.

There are some problems though. To build an LTE network (often referred to as 3.9G or 4G) for 90% of the population in the UK would require 16,000 transmitters (and then a lot of roads and railroads would still not be covered). To cover the same with DMB, DAB and DAB+ would take less than 300 transmitters. Every LTE transmitter costs around 250,000 USD with running costs of around 60,000 USD every year. That requires an investment of 4 billion USD and operation costs of over 1,8 billion USD a year. If a telecom operator was to build such a network, 4 million customers, each paying 550 USD a year would be needed to break even.

LTE furthermore has a capacity of 31,68Mbps (given a 10Mhz channel) per transmitter. If all the users are located very near and with a direct view of the transmitter. If even one user is further away or behind a hill or a house, a different modulation scheme is needed, something that severly lowers available bandwidth. LTE may need up to 11 modulation schemes to reach users at different distances and locations from the transmitter.

31,68Mbps would give 78 users mobile TV at the same time (at a bitrate of 384Kbps) if all of them were very close to the transmitter and no one was using the same transmitter for any other kind of Internet surfing (mail, news, Facebook, downloads, etc.).

The LTE estimates were presented by Arqiva, a British company building and running various kinds of networks in October, 2010.

8) The Internet works poorly when the receiver travels at high speeds, or some times if moving at all. And a lot of people are listening to radio and watching TV while on the move. In cars, trains, trams, boats or even by walking. Streaming services (when large amounts of data are transferred continously as is the case with TV and radio) do not work well, even if there is coverage. And big areas are difficult and expensive to cover with Internet technologies. In Norway, 40% of radio listening is experienced outside peoples own homes, in most cases while travelling. DMB, DAB and DAB+ works well in speeds up to 900 km/h (tested on planes), and such broadcasts can cover vast areas.

Combination is the new king

Does this mean that I am not in favour of the Internet? Of course not. The Internet is amazing and opens up for unlimited possibilities. But it is not constructed to be used as a distribution platform for the same content to many people at the same time. What I do believe in is a combination of technologies. Anyone with a little DIY knowledge knows that you need the right tool for the job. Broadcasting is great for some things, the Internet great for others. Combination is the new king. Combination of broadcasting and on demand content (the Internet), combination of content and services (when a return channel usually is needed, i.e. the Internet), combination of TV and radio and combination when it comes to partnerships between industries and even competitors. Not to forget a combination of technologies, also for live content that is being broadcasted. Some people will in certain situations or contexts prefer i.e. webradio at work.

All the great TV and radio channels and programmes out there need be distributed unfiltered via at least one distribution platform, without any gatekeepers (i.e. ISPs, telecom operators, Apple) that in effect act as editors by possibly filtering out the content or as bouncers by turning the users away.

The goal of this article? To contribute to a more fair and balanced discussion when it comes to distribution platforms. The Internet will not and cannot solve everything.