So ABC and "Desperate Housewives" have started the free, ad-supported streaming media trend, but is the Internet ready for it? No, says the Associated Press. Running small clips on YouTube is one
thing, but what about longer streams at HD-quality? Not a chance--not yet, anyway. Most home Web use still comes in small bursts, an e-mail or news story here or there, a couple IMs, etc. A two-hour
movie is out of the question, however, not until ISPs seriously beef up the bandwidth capacity of their networks. And that's going to cost a lot, which is why ISPs like Verizon and AT&T say a
two-tiered Internet is essential to the medium's future: it gives them another revenue stream (from Web companies like Google and AOL) to offset the enormous cost of the upgrade. Otherwise, consumers
will have to pay for it. Here's a gauge: one estimate says that at 1 meg per second, it costs an ISP $10 to $20 per month wholesale to provide service to one customer. BellSouth estimates that its
cost would increase four-fold if consumers started regularly downloading TV-quality movies on the Web. If they started watching Internet TV at 8 hours per day, say, that cost would skyrocket to $112
per month. Yikes. To deal with this issue, BellSouth execs say they're thinking about putting a cap on the amount of data residential users get per month for free. This is a real problem, and the crux
of the net neutrality debate, so stay tuned.
Read the whole story at Associated Press »
