Canadian telco Rogers goes OTT with video

The answer is that Rogers has a Wi-Fi strategy up its sleeve like the other Canadian, Shaw. Rogers knows that the bulk of OTT video today bypasses cellcos so they cannot monetize it. But, if you have a strategy for bringing OTT on-net by creating a second, Wi-Fi only, net as Steve Jobs wanted to do, you can keep growing in wireless even as cellular declines in its share of the data stream.

The whole concept of video over wireless as a revenue stream, is perplexing. High quality video already goes over the air as omni broadcast. LTE / HPSA and other high speed wireless data spectrum is capacity limited. What needs to happen is not use mobile communications spectrum, but evolution of a chip that accepts an additional band. We already have dual and tri and quade mode smart phones (GSM / CDMA / WiFi / Wi-Max).

This kind of technology is not what incumbent carriers want to hear however, particularly those that have had a monopoly or the largest market share on broadcast rights. In addition, the problem is also one of how many different broadcasters want to build over the top "public" access to their signal in populated regions. By and large, this has been reserved only for the largest media corporations. As we have seen in the U.S. the transition away from 900 MHz to 700 MHz band is taking longer than anticipated with many not making the transition and simply shutting down public over the "air" as an option.

Digital signal reception of television is already available in USB form factor. It's a matter of time before a smart phone has the same technology. It's a question of vendors willing to risk the wrath of their customers in doing so. Hypothetically, wireless smart "tablets" with WiFi and over the air public "digital" signal devices will create new media and communications services enabling upload capability via WiFi and inbound media over digital TV spectrum.

Roger's and others (Shaw, Cogeco, Comcast, Time Warner, etc) are attempting to capture stickiness to its users if they are in the media and wireless industry. It will be interesting to see if Sony, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and others retrench and create the over air investments that they already have, with device makers like Apple, Rim, Samsung and Nokia.

Ether2 has won a DEMOgod Award and been selected to the GEW 50 because we are developing a near-perfect broadcast MAC for wireless Internet Protocol broadcasting. In terms of terrestrial improvement, we put 140 channels on a T1 (1.544Mb) at Illinois Institute of Technology back in 1993. Applied to wireless, Ether2 is targeting a <15% PHY overhead independent of traffic or users, and with stable QoS under any condition.

So if you're looking for a fundamental shift to a true broadcast IP architecture that can support a theoretically infinite number of channels and users, and if you appreciate the potential for market shift from a successful implementation which includes IIT (Chicago), UC Irvine and UPC/CTTC (Barcelona), then we need your help.

We are looking for partners to help develop and test the wireless network that will blend the best of the circuit and packet-switched worlds with a migration path for legacy devices.

$150K funds the project, and you will have a prototype to test in 3-4 months. At first it will be a static WiFi implementation, but we will then add mobile adhoc and 802 coexistence rules before commercial readiness.

Ultimately, the goal of our universal MAC is to eliminate the need for asynchronous hardware in form of middle hardware switch/routers on shared networks. To the extent that we're talking about full-duplex Ethernet at the carrier WAN, that can stay because those links only connect exactly two points. But for removing bottlenecks in the uplink or backhaul channels, let's talk.