Have and Have Not

Call this a rant. The future of media is digital online access. It's already here in many ways. Newspapers are largely online today as the print versions have declined in advertising revenue. Check out the NYT. It is much more accessible online and frankly, a better experience if you have the right environment. The right environment has two factors. The device you use to access media and the bandwidth available. Both if these factors are highly dependent on the type of media you want to access and the viewing occasion. Back to my NYT example. If I want to read the morning news, any device will work; PC, laptop, tablet, or phone. The tablet is probably the most preferred today. Also, just about any bandwidth will work. Free wifi at the coffee shop, OTA 3G access all do just fine for reading the news. Now lets go to the other extreme. I want to watch a streaming video over Netflix with my family. So now, my preferred device is my home TV. No problem. I have bought enough devices that allow for that. I have an Xbox that streams Netflix through my home theater system. I have a TIVO that will do the same. Now what about bandwidth? Well, if you live in the Bay area, or probably any major city, no problem. I get 15-20 mb here which will deliver an HD experience quickly. Now, lets try the same thing at our vacation home in Chester Ca. I am provisioned there at a max bandwidth of 1.34mb, which means I get about 1mb on average. Try streaming media at that rate. Forget it. You are better off getting a DVD. One of two things has to happen to make streaming in places like Chester happen. One is better bandwidth. My guess is a minimum of 3mb is really what is needed. Don't make me wait for the service providers to add bandwidth. That is pure economics and probably not like to happen in Chester for quite awhile. Or the software and device people have to come up with better or smarter buffering methods. Really, my Xbox has 250gb of drive space. I'll keep trying things to make it work better, but so far its very frustrating to consume digital media in a place like Chester.