Chorus trialling a direct broadcasting service over its fibre network

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Chorus trialling a direct broadcasting service over its fibre network

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steve98

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#1984514 27-Mar-2018 21:49

rugrat: If the ONT is no where near the TV can wifi be used or does it need to be wired directly to TV?

Netflix does UHD over wifi fine, using 5 gig hertz frequency.

The ONTs don’t have wifi.

Which brings up an interesting question about how your average consumer will actually connect to the second port on the ONT. It will be beyond most people even though to you and I it sounds easy.

Presumably it will require an STB and technician install. Which smells a lot more like a Sky offering than a Freeview one.

Maybe Chorus should just buy Sky while the share prices are down! They have the workforce to deliver it already!

Another thing... if this takes off, one would assume the other LFCs would pretty much have to follow suit

DarkShadow

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#1984566 27-Mar-2018 22:18

steve98:

The ONTs don’t have wifi.

Not yet. It's in the pricebook since 2011 actually and Chorus is working on bringing it to market I think.

psychnurse

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#1986340 31-Mar-2018 12:25

steve98:
rugrat: If the ONT is no where near the TV can wifi be used or does it need to be wired directly to TV?

Netflix does UHD over wifi fine, using 5 gig hertz frequency.

The ONTs don’t have wifi.

Which brings up an interesting question about how your average consumer will actually connect to the second port on the ONT. It will be beyond most people even though to you and I it sounds easy.

Presumably it will require an STB and technician install. Which smells a lot more like a Sky offering than a Freeview one.

Maybe Chorus should just buy Sky while the share prices are down! They have the workforce to deliver it already!

Another thing... if this takes off, one would assume the other LFCs would pretty much have to follow suit

Would you be able to plug a WiFi router into the ONT?

Eitsop

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#1986345 31-Mar-2018 12:39

hio77:
yep, announced it for sky and then later freeview today.

It's a win for everyone really, scale-able via multicast over the existing fibre network, offering a cheaper product that supplies more bandwidth.

For chorus, It's money in their pocket. Not only for the STB connection but then it just makes sense to uptake fibre over DSL or Wireless..

I'm keen to see how it all plays out, Certainly something I'm supportive of.

Will we still be able to use STB box like VUplus box running openvix but with a cable input?
Or will it be custom boxes?

DarthKermit

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#1986346 31-Mar-2018 12:39

psychnurse:

Would you be able to plug a WiFi router into the ONT?

Yes. That's exactly what everyone with an ONT does now to get Wifi from their fibre connection.

psychnurse

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#1986364 31-Mar-2018 13:31

DarthKermit:

psychnurse:

Would you be able to plug a WiFi router into the ONT?

Yes. That's exactly what everyone with an ONT does now to get Wifi from their fibre connection.

So you would end up with 2 routers, that seems ok.

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#2007594 4-May-2018 08:17

rugrat: If the ONT is no where near the TV can wifi be used or does it need to be wired directly to TV?

Netflix does UHD over wifi fine, using 5 gig hertz frequency.

Actual useful technical data and details on the service seem very hard to come by, but I think it's fair to say there is a very strong chance that some form of set top box will be required between the ONT and the display. However since the data is being provided to the STB from the ONT using industry standard ethernet, there is no reason that a transparent wireless ethernet bridge couldn't be implemented between the devices without them having any awareness of it being there (assuming RF conditions allow for the data bandwidth required to bridge the packets without loss).

noroad

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#2007607 4-May-2018 08:44

Oh, how times have changed. Many years ago when I was working for a certain power company that did not win the Auckland UFB bid I remember going to visit Sky to talk about a multicast broadcast capability over the proposed GPON network. Sky's answer was, well that is interesting and all but we are perfectly happy with the satellite transponder space we have and we are not really interested in 4k multicast streaming (or whatever you call it). If you build the capability then we might have a look but meh.

So everyone is on the same page, the way multicast works in GPON is every line card effectively re-broadcasts the stream at every point. What this means is one stream containing all the "live" channels is fed from the ethernet transport network into each OLT, each OLT streams this to every ONT even if no one is using it. This way a single feed can "broadcast" to every end point while only ever using a fixed amount of capacity and this is the only real scaleable way to "broadcast" live streams. Unicast live streams are extremely inefficient and really not scaleable when you look at fully shutting down the existing over the air networks. Multicast capability is actually baked in to most transport networks (at a hardware level) but rarely used as every point in the traffic path has to participate in the regeneration of the stream in a collaborative way. To pick up a multicast stream you will need an ethernet connection from a port on your ONT to some sort of set top box or media-centre. Cabling will certainly be an issue with many of the ONT installs I have seen that have been put in the easiest place for the installer.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2007623 4-May-2018 09:22

For me the question is, what market is this service trying to address?

If it's intended as a pay TV service, it's significantly easier to install a single Cat5E cable from an ONT to the main television in the house than it is to install, align, and cable a satellite dish. The maintenance costs are also going to be lower. Most customers will probably be happy with that.

As a means of delivering FTA television however, it seems quite useless. Most homes have multiple televisions, but don't have Ethernet cabling in to every room. Those of us who do, probably already use PVR systems or media centres, so adding more boxes is an unnecessary expense, and won't fit in with how we do things currently.

I would like to see 'Freeview' (or similar service) offering broadcast services, paid for by broadcasters, that remain free and open to everyone, including commercial interests. Then we can use those streams in our PVR setups, and companies like Sky or Fetch can access those streams with their hardware, while offering additional paid services. Eventually, coax cable would be replaced by Ethernet, and we'd be able to shut down the OTA broadcasts, freeing up space for other services.

rb99

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#2007652 4-May-2018 09:56

Don't actually have one, but couldn't it (somehow) just be plugged into a HDHomeRun thingy ?

Edit: for FTA I mean.

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2007679 4-May-2018 09:59

rb99:

Don't actually have one, but couldn't it (somehow) just be plugged into a HDHomeRun thingy ?

The HDHomeRun provides tuners which can be used via Ethernet. I have two of them, a dual and quad tuner, providing all FTA channels to my network via tvheadend. TV via the ONT would not require any tuners.

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rb99

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#2007692 4-May-2018 10:12

Yeah, was just looking on their website in the meantime and see its aerial or coax or something in and ethernet out. Pity. Suppose yet another box is required (as has been mentioned). Would be nice if some router that has two ethernet inputs could be used, or two into a PC maybe. Sorry, don't know what I'm talking about. Just hoping it'll work easily and be distributable (distributible ?) round the house easily for OTA what with us living in a area with no DVB-T and hence no HD OTA TV.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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