(Image courtesy of dslreports.com)

When Comcast (Etilities Forum) announced a 250GB per month cap on broadband usage, our analysis was twofold: First, most customers will never get close to the cap, and will therefore not be impacted by the limit in the foreseeable future.  Second, Comcast should provide a tool to monitor the entire home’s use of its broadband connection, rather than just on each individual PC.

It now appears that Comcast has stepped up to the plate and prepared a tool that will assist their customers with monitoring and controlling their home’s broadband usage.

According to Comcast insiders, customers will gain access to a web-based monitoring tool sometime in January.  This methodology will avoid the primary pitfall of PC-based monitoring tools: not every network-dependent device is a PC.  Many homes have voice-over-IP systems (like Vonage and Skype), gaming platforms (XBOX360, Playstation 3, Wii), and countless new streaming devices including Roku, Apple TV, and even the venerable TiVO.

Each of these growing number of devices rely on a broadband connection to enhance the consumer’s experiences with their services.  Bandwidth monitors that only report on a single device would complicate users’ ability to determine how much of their 250GB is used by a movie rental or video game.

Only time will tell whether broadband providers will increase their caps to keep pace with the growing reliance on broadband Internet.  However, a means to monitor usage at the account level is a good sign that Comcast sees the forest from the trees.  We’re anxious to see how long it takes for other providers to follow suit. Gallop will continue monitoring the changing landscape of the market to see how technology developments affect bandwidth caps placed on consumers.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Back in July, we blogged about the industry trend towards more versatile entertainment hardware, but never in our wildest dreams did we expect it to apply to pizza deliveries.  Yet now it does. Tivo (Etilities Forum), which has already formed partnerships with Amazon (Etilities Forum) to sell products and movie tickets and Netflix (Etilities Forum) to stream movies, just added Domino’s pizza to its menu!  Users will now be able to order pizza online both directly through the TiVo interface and during Domino’s commercials, giving a brand new meaning to the phrase ”TV Dinner.”  This service will be accessible to TiVo users through their broadband connection.  You can set up and save your Domino’s profile online and place orders for pick up and/or delivery.  Of course, the estimated 30 minute delivery time still applies.

This type of alliance is representative of a more general industry trend. In many areas of the industry, advertising has been suffering, in part because of the flailing economy.  The positive effect has been that media and technology providers have been driven to develop new ways of piquing clients’ interest.  We at Gallop are excited by this partnership, especially since it’s a good example of the kind of solution that we can expect to see in the future, as well known companies work together to provide innovative technology and entertainment offerings to consumers.

Now… if only Domino’s delivered beer!

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

In what has become a recurring theme, Tivo (Etilities Forum) announced that its customers will soon have full access to the “Watch Instantly” streaming feature from Netflix (Etilities Forum).  The move brings over 12,000 titles from Netflix’s streaming library into the homes of TiVo’s many customers.

The service will be available at no additional charge for those who already subscribe to both TiVo and Netflix services.  While there is no mention of whether HD content will be included now or in the future, Netflix has already announced an HD streaming service, so it’s a safe assumption that TiVo users will soon have this feature as well.  The TiVo hardware that will support Netflix – TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL – is all HD-capable.

Understandably, the press release focuses solely on the announcement of the partnership, but let’s take a brief look at the total footprint now served by the two companies:

• TiVo owners can access the traditional content recorded from their cable TV or other video provider, and use streaming services from Amazon (Etilities Forum) Video-on-Demand (Unbox), and now Netflix (Watch Instantly).
• Netflix customers can access the full library of over 100,000 DVD titles via the original by-mail model, and can stream a growing subset of that library by streaming to the Xbox 360, Roku set-top box, some Blu-ray players, home PC (and soon Mac), and TiVo units.

This development brings a number of benefits to consumers.  Aside from expanding the menu of choices, increased competition will drive prices down and innovations up.  For example, one factor in the development of this cooperative effort between Netflix and TiVo may be iTunes (Etilities Forum) growing customer base and wide availability of movies and TV content.

This convergence of media and products will only become more prevalent as broadband connections become as universally available as electricity and running water.  Consumers will also appreciate that they don’t need to purchase a different piece of equipment for each entertainment service that they use.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Most technology services users have heard of FiOS, the popular Verizon (Etilities Forum) service using fiber to the home (also knows as FTTH) to deliver High-Speed internet and High-Definition TV to home users.  This broadband connectivity enables improved delivery of services across the internet pipe resulting in Verizon’s ability to not only sell the bandwidth capability but also bundle other services such as Phone, TV and Internet through its FiOS offering.  

In addition to the simple bandwidth, Verizon, like the popular TiVO, offers Digital Video Recording services whereby shows can not only be recorded and played back but also be viewed in many rooms.  The FiOS offering has been very popular with consumers counting a total of 1.4 Million subscribers to date.  

In response to Verizon’s success, ::att-verse:: is expanding its U-verse service, which can now play movies in eight rooms instead of Verizon’s seven.  Sure, the additional one room is trivial and most of us don’t have eight rooms to play movies in, but with a price range from $44 to $99 a month, AT&T clearly intends to give FiOS and cable providers a run for their money.  

With other DVR providers such as Tivo (Etilities Forum), Dish Network (Etilities Forum) and DirecTV (Etilities Forum) expected to offer a multi-room service soon, the choices are broadening, resulting in higher quality services with lower prices.  So what’s not to like?

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

The way media finds its way from producers to consumers is ever-evolving. It used to be clear which medium was delivered through what product: newspapers produced written content and radio produced audio content. You would have never expected your radio to provide you written news because it was just never built with that end in mind.

Fast forward about 70 years and all the sudden the lines are not so clear. More and more the trend is for all products to provide all different types of content. For example, you probably only expect your gaming console to play video games. But there has actually been a recent push to make them deliver more than that, for example movies that are streamed through your internet connection and that you can choose and watch without leaving your couch or even having to power up your DVD player.

Netflix (Etilities Forum) announced during this year’s E3 plans to partner with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in order to turn the XBOX 360 into a streaming media center. Last week, Tivo (Etilities Forum) also announced that it was partnering with Amazon (Etilities Forum) to allow customers to shop for media online without leaving their couch.

This constitutes a clear trend of essentially ‘making your hardware do more’. You should expect more and more that the functional boundaries around physical products are going to be going away, and that long gone will be the days when the only way to watch a TV show was to tune in to the right channel at the right time and sit through 20 minutes of commercials per hour.

Although it was already possible to hack your existing products to make them do more, the difference here is that the big names are streamlining this concept and making it a supported industry solution as opposed to a hazardous hobby that is likely to cost you more in voided warranties than it is worth.

Now what does this all do for us consumers? Well, for one more choices, and that – of course – means more competition which inevitably leads to lower prices and higher quality.

©2008-2009, Gallop Services, Inc. All rights reserved.