Property Rights in

Broadcasting over IP:

Infrastructure and IPRs
Chris Marsden
Warwick Business School
Phoenix-Center.org
ctmarsden@yahoo.co.uk
For IvIR 21 September 2001
What is broadband?
 Broadband is faster, always-on,
richer
 Narrowband is up to 128Kb/s (ITU
defn)
 Broadband pipes:
 Mobile and satellite
 Fixed copper, cable and fibre
 Huge sunk costs
Broadband Services/Speed

p ro fe s s io n a l c o n s u m e r e n te rta in m e n t

m b p s
1 0 ,0 0 0

H D TV
1 ,0 0 0

PAL
100

10

T1
1

IS D N
0 .1

C hris M arsden 0 2 -0 4 -01

3 3 .5 k b p s m o d e m s
0 .0 1
Network Broadcast Video over IP Infrastructure
properties Improvements Needed

Bandwidth High ADSL: ‘Last Mile’ DSL, Cable, 3G

3-6Mb/s 512Kb/s+ 500-10,000kb/s
POTS: 56/33k
Two-way Very limited ADSL: High High Bandwidth Return Path
Interactivity? in MPEG2 Satellite: Low
Packet Size Huge Low And MPEG4 Standardized 2001
Reducing
Monitoring NA – closed Low But Digital Rights Management
network Increasing
Reassembly NA Good And Improved IPv6 Internet
Improving
Delivery Consistent Poor But ‘Middle Mile’ Hops Between
Improving CDNs
Cost Low High But Virtuous Scale Economies
Decreasing Circle
Wireless broadband
 Satellite:
 Asymmetric 8Mb/s (with copper/ISDN return:
Teles)
 Bidirectional 4Mb/s (384Kb/s return: Kokua)
 WLAN:
 11Mb/s symmetric NOW at £1000 per base station
 22Mb/s 2002 -> 72Mb/s 2003
 Broadband Fixed Wireless:
 Tele2; Telewest; NTL; PipingHot Networks
 3G anyone?
 64Kb/s@£100,000 per base station
 Re:Thinking Wireless LANs:
I Want my WiFi!

www.re-think.com/knowledge1.htm
Fixed Broadband
 Residential/SOHO/SME duopoly
 Cable/telecom networks
 Digital cable: shared bandwidth?
 Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL):
 VDSL: 10Mb/s+
 SDSL: 1.7Mb/s+

 ADSL: 512Kbit/s+
Why’s it taking so long?
 Stranded costs
 Copper/ISDN investments written off?
 Uncertain revenue streams
 Is anyone making money off convergence?
 Threat to voice
 8Kb/s application; UMTS licence costs
 Monopoly control?
 LLU process; leased line costs
 US Market Maturing Fast
Online Subscriber Forecast
80 75
72
Millions of US Households

70 65

60 57
50
50

40

30 26
20.2
20 14.7
9.6
10 5.1

0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Over a third of all online homes will subscribe to high speed access by 2004

Source: The Yankee Group, 2001

 US Access to Broadband
90%
% US Households with Access to High Speed Internet Service
80% 79%
77% 78%
73%
70% 74%
70%
62%
60% 62%

54%
50%
46%
45%
40%
36%
34%
30%

20%

10% 11%

0%
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
DSL Cable Modem
Satellite-delivered services will also be available to 90% of US homes
Global DTV Homes (m)
400
350

300
250

200 Digital
Interactive
150
100

50
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Source: Ovum 2001
Broadband Take-Up to 2010

                                                                                                                      
IPR Holder Dilemma Example
International Internet Who owns the Olympics in
rights quagmire Germany or Switzerland?
Plethora of rights third UK: Writers’ Guild; BPI;
parties Mechanical Rights
Society; BECTU; Equity;
PACT; Musicians’ Union
No IP rights pre-1995 Assignment of rights
completely omits on-
demand network delivery
QoS concerns Film majors refuse to
prevents release of release sub-VHS buffered
VHS and enhanced content; talent refuses to
formats allow degraded delivery of
product
Piracy concerns with DVD code cracked; MP3
public Internet solution for video now
possible with DVD
Lack of customer Advertiser dollars diverted
information prevents from authenticated brand-
true eCRM value in building experience in
exposure of rights broadcast to ‘anarchic’,
holder property identity-theft prone
delivery over public IP
Narrowband Answer Loss of Market
Value
Clear all international Failure to release
IP rights, or none at all full value from
– loss of control over rights; cannot be
rights territories windowed and
leveraged; ‘one
sale equals all’
Use only pre-cleared Free content sites
or promotional clips pirating IPRs;
produced for proves value of
marketing purposes experience but not
value from archive
Use post-1995 rights: All classic archive
no classic content; lost to IP; over-
rights inflation for valuation of non-
modern properties compelling newly
created content
‘Close to the edge’ Only low video · 
delivery using Akamai grade content
and others; MPEG4 released:
permits greater animation;
compression pornography; audio
Watermarking (SDMI), IPRs holders refuse · 
DRM, standardization to release content,
initiatives using editorial integrity
BCDForum etc. offline – e.g. via
DVD
Value in rights hidden; Stakeholders refuse · 
existing ‘rich media’ to ‘cannibalize’
advertising offers existing revenue
fractional value of true sources for low-
rich media gradealternative
despite user
demand