Intel is apparently preparing to announce a new set-top box that will stream television and movies over the internet without an existing subscription to a cable or satellite provider. Instead of paying for hundreds of channels as part of a bundle, users will reportedly be able to subscribe to certain networks or even certain shows.

What do you think? Are you on board?

Source:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellycla...icrosoft-cant/  

Problem for many people is that they'll have to stream through the connection provided by their old cable providers. Who knows what kind of shady **** cable providers will do, for example throttling the connection to this service, or giving them another push towards $/bandwidth plans.

As someone who has ****ty internet and no hope of upgrading, it sucks how much the world is pushing for everything relying on fast and stable internet while our infrastructure sucks ass.  

Exactly what Dusty said.
My Internet is terrible and it's already hard enough with the wifi on everyone's phone and laptop in the house downloading and doing who the hell knows what. Trying to stream hi-def tv or even standard on that same connection would be impossible. There's always at least one tv on constantly in my house too.

But yeah the infrastructure is still lagging behind these services they're coming up with.
Kind of like that OnLive streaming videogames that failed...great idea but the infrastructure can't support it, for the masses anyway.

It could work if I was living in a small apartment by myself but not in a household like mine.  

Well Netflix already has more subscribers than Comcast, and there are a large amount of these subscribers that stream HD movies to their television/computer/mobile device, so I'm not sure if that will be a huge road block for the industry.

That is a really scary point about cable providers making the connections for this service automatically weaker though, hopefully new internet providers will pop up if that happens, seeing this as a good opportunity to strike. Its kind of sad how all these cable companies are monopolizing the whole "cable packages" deal and forcing you to pay a ****load of money for channels you don't want. They know its a shady plan, but they're all just so greedy and corrupted that they don't give a ****. I could easily see them screwing over this device.

Of course, if you only pay for individual channels the prices for each one may go way up because people would need more money to account for the loss in subscribers. Who knows how much cheaper this intel device may be, the whole television market is just a piece of crap anyways.  

in civilized countries, like sweden, this would be awesome  

Posted by Crono

in civilized countries, like sweden, this would be awesome

It's really just the fact that its much easier to distribute a connection like that to a small number of people (around 9 million) in a relatively small area than a large number of people (around 320 million) in a very large area. Its not profitable for large countries yet, but it may be soon with all these upcoming technological innovations in the industry.  

Posted by Pimpsy G.

Well Netflix already has more subscribers than Comcast, and there are a large amount of these subscribers that stream HD movies to their television/computer/mobile device, so I'm not sure if that will be a huge road block for the industry.

That is a really scary point about cable providers making the connections for this service automatically weaker though, hopefully new internet providers will pop up if that happens, seeing this as a good opportunity to strike. Its kind of sad how all these cable companies are monopolizing the whole "cable packages" deal and forcing you to pay a ****load of money for channels you don't want. They know its a shady plan, but they're all just so greedy and corrupted that they don't give a ****. I could easily see them screwing over this device.

Of course, if you only pay for individual channels the prices for each one may go way up because people would need more money to account for the loss in subscribers. Who knows how much cheaper this intel device may be, the whole television market is just a piece of crap anyways.

Netflix has a lot of subscribers, but that doesn't mean they're a threat to cable providers at all. Do you think someone like Comcast is going to succumb to their cable service failing to streaming without a fight? Of course they could innovate and get in the game... but they won't.  

Posted by Pimpsy G.

It's really just the fact that its much easier to distribute a connection like that to a small number of people (around 9 million) in a relatively small area than a large number of people (around 320 million) in a very large area. Its not profitable for large countries yet, but it may be soon with all these upcoming technological innovations in the industry.

i r aware of dis.  

I though Google was trying to spread some kind of fiber optics Internet thingy all over the country. I dunno, too lazy to google it.  

Posted by Rexx

I though Google was trying to spread some kind of fiber optics Internet thingy all over the country. I dunno, too lazy to google it.

They're experimenting with providing insanely fast speeds... but they've only done one town I think so far. Whether or not it's a success... *shrug* but it'll take a very long time to get done. However I don't think Google's intent is to redo the entire infrastructure themselves... probably the idea is to put pressure on other providers to do the same to remain competitive.  

The best speed at my house for internet is 1 MB/S  

Posted by The Doctor

The best speed at my house for internet is 1 MB/S

Mine is 250 KB/s  

Posted by PoeticFolly

Mine is 250 KB/s

That's mine on average  

The cable and satellite providers could already do this if they wanted, the technology was never a problem. The gatekeepers (who also have ties/deals with cable and satellite providers) of the content however have made it extremely hard (with profit) to do so.