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Microsoft Media Television

Microsoft and SBC Team Up on IPTV 132

Posted by samzenpus from the bill-tv dept.
rdurell writes "Microsoft is once again trying to get into the television market. This time they are teaming up with SBC Communications in a $400M deal to deliver television via IPTV through SBC's network. According to the article, Microsoft has spent $20B in its attempts to break into the market."
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Microsoft and SBC Team Up on IPTV More

Microsoft and SBC Team Up on IPTV

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  • Oh goodie (Score:5, Funny)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:00PM (#10849364) Homepage
    SBC AND MS? Jee, hold me back.

    Two of my favorite companies teaming up to bring me reality ( which, as near as I can figure, is populated by models. I wish I lived in reality ) TV, complete with watching habit tracking software and security flubs.

    And should I have I have any problems, I can call SBC's amazing tech support. Maybe I'll get Dan, or David, or Gloria, all of whom english is a second language. Overpaid phone jocky being the first.
    • You're a lucky man. My latest tech support capades with my ISP were a display of their policy of "if we ignore the client long enough, perhaps they'll stop bitching".
      • Time for a new ISP I'd say.

        Back on topic, I wouldn't hold my breath on this actually being deployed for 5-10 years. SBC has advertised to customers they could get DSL 3 years ago and still didn't actually do it (in a given area) because the demand wasn't there to actually give them a positive ROI. I'd expect major losses by MS on this. But what's a billion here or there when you've already wasted^Hinvested 20 billion already?

    • should I have I have any problems

      Here's an example of an SBC customer horror story experienced by a real person I know intimately (me):

      1) Move to new house, sign up for SBC DSL through local ISP. Start receiving bills from SBC three days later.

      2) One week after receiving first bill, I call call my ISP. They say there's an issue with SBC provisioning. So I call SBC and on the third attempt make it through their "we designed our phone tree to mimic our corporate structure, not your needs" system. I spe

      • My SBC experience goes like this:

        1) Signup online for service (may 2001)
        2) DSL modem arrives in mail one week later
        3) Call in to activate. no worky!?!
        4) Go through a month of calls to various tech support types and sub-contractors of SBCs. They removed load coils and some other crap. They then figure out I'm to far from the only CO in the area. Never recieved a bill.
        5) Packed up DSL modem and threw in on a shelf where it still sits to this day.

        Still have second phone line for 24/7 connection at 33.6
        • And yet, they have become this juggernaut. Methinks this might not be the case if true competition in telecom were allowed in the US.

      • See you and raise you (Score:3, Interesting)

        by uncadonna ( 85026 )
        My "saga" (the name was given it by one of the more competent SBC employees I talked to) will be even more incomprehensible unless you know that SBC Illinois, SBC Wisconsin, and SBC Yahoo! DSL Internet are served by three separate toll freee numbers and three distinct bureaucracies. Here goes:

        1) Move to Illinois from Wisconsin, both have lines owned by SBC. (Having had nightmares getting 3rd party DSL working I capitulated.) Call SBC number listed on phone bill to inform them of the move. "Oh, that's handl
        • You should have taped your conversations. Especially with the one that hung up on you.

          *sigh* If hindsight were 20/20.

          That is truly a nightmare of epic proportions. I wish I had "management" in a cold room right now being forced to read this.

    • Yeah, but you know what... when your other choice for TV is Comcast (our apartment has no line of sight for satellite) then ANY other television provider looks appealing. It is hard for me to think how SBC and Microsoft could provide a worse quality picture and service then the mega-giant atrocity called Comcast.

  • More power to them (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quickfry ( 799118 ) <stuart...adams@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:00PM (#10849368) Homepage Journal
    Why not throw lots of money trying to get into another market? It worked with the xbox. Maybe they'll have to get someone to make the best damn show ever exclusively for their... IPTV network..

    • Red vs. Blue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ebooher ( 187230 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:14PM (#10849476) Homepage Journal

      Maybe they'll have to get someone to make the best damn show ever exclusively for their... IPTV network

      Well .... they kind of already have a killer show that is exclusively an Internet program. Though it is available on DVD. I know many, many people dislike all that is the Microsoft Borg, but I laughed so hard at Red vs. Blue that it kind of questions sanity.

      While I know that Red vs. Blue isn't offically a truly sanctioned Microsoft product, do you think they didn't at least give a nod to the rabid lawyers to keep from destroying it in it's entirety? Also, since they are such big Halo (and by Proxy Microsoft) fans anyway, do you really think they'd give the rights to stream it as a TV program to anyone else?

      Heck, I'm interested in this right now, as I'm currently an SBC DSL subscriber, if it gets me away from my evil and bastardized cable company. I may be clinically insane, but at one point last year I was talking to VC about starting my own cable company for just my subdivision and maybe the one next to it. That's how mad I was at them.

      However, reality eventually set it ..... man do you know how expensive gear to decode then re-encode TV broadcast from air and sat is right now? Not to mention license fees for all the stations you want to offer on the network. I would have been, like, the UPN Cable Company because that was the only channel I think I could have even begged into throwing me a bone to be on the network.

      So sad, so sad. TV started out free, paid for by advertising, with which I was very very fine. You want me to watch a soap commercial to laugh at Gilligan? Hey, fine, no problem. Now, I pay more for freaking TV than I do for internet access, telephone service, trash service, property taxes, housing and groceries combined!

      This has officially degenerated into a rant. I apologize and will end it now. Thank you for your optical time.

      • Re:Red vs. Blue (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        As an exclusively Linux user, am I the only one who has had difficulty in viewing the last two episodes? Mods, please don't just flamebait me out. I rely on Video Lan for my feeds, and RvB just isn't coming through on them even after directly installing the DivX drivers. (Obviously, mov and wmv versions are a no go as well.)
      • well, RvB was on one of the Xbox store demo discs.. presumably some funding and thus official sanction changed hands for that. Warms my heart, really.
      • Having never really watched RvB (the bits I saw didn't seem very funny), I may be totally out of the loop on this...But wasn't the entire series made possible by hacking the xbox? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that MS is fighting tooth and nail to stop?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Not only is Red vs. Blue sanctioned, it is specifically mentioned in the Halo 2 user guide as part of the "7th column", which will help Bungie's goal of "World Domination".

        Read it and weep.
    • Can you say monopoly hungry company. Haven't MS people learned from the pat. IPTV is a good idea but would my favorite show CRASH if I ever got to the good part of a Discovery program? Give it to a muiltimedia company or someone to develop....

  • If you think MS is a monopoly.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Have a little look-see at the babies and other companies SBC has gobbled up in recent years. Ma Bell is back in a big way baby!

    Lets hate on them for a while. I'll start: "Their hi-cap support totally sucks!!!!"

  • Tonight on MSTV (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:03PM (#10849388)
    Just what we need: the blue show of death.

  • Looks in favor of MS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nerd256 ( 794968 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:03PM (#10849389) Homepage
    If they can get the backing for their technology by a by a company such as SBC, with such an infrastructure, I'm afraid it could grab hold of it. Think MS and IBM in the time of MS-DOS and OS/2. And IPTV looks like a promising market, if some company with mega-capital doesn't follow Microsoft, we could see a growing monopoly. Too bad I don't have billions to throw around, otherwise I'd invest heavily here.

    I for one do not welcome our new TV overlords. Remember, CRTs are already equipped with electron guns.
    • I don't "get" the Funny mod here. This is Microsoft cutting another big deal to provide a set-top box for a major service provider. SBC Communications Inc (SBC) [yahoo.com] Hereabouts, broadband cable has become synomonous with Windows XP. The number of subscribers running an alternative O/S is scarcely worth mentioning.
      • Lol, I wasn't telling anyone to switch to MS-DOS or OS/2, heaven help me if I ever did that.

        I am alluding to a time when MS cut a deal with IBM for IBM to buy MS-DOS for a hefty sum. They also had a joint alliance for a while developing OS/2 and part of Windows 3.1. This was a major factor in putting this little start-up firm into the big leagues. This could likely be the case if MS teams up with SBC, but since they're both big corporations, us slashdotters may not care if one gets screwed over.

        Meanwhile
    • As I commented the first time this story was posted, [slashdot.org] never misunderestimate Microsoft's ability to fuck up. The story alleged that MS invested $20billion in this IPTV arena. And what have they got to show for it? Absolutely nothing. MS has already run pilot projects that were an abject failure. [slashdot.org] The TV industry does NOT want MS in their arena, why would they want MS to horn in on their profits? Even those TV stations that were bribed to let MS play in their backyard have learned a hard lesson: MS is full of
  • It will give the people who like it something to watch, and the people who don't like it will just have something else to complain about in their foil lined bunker...

  • Some more ideas for Microsoft industries (Score:4, Funny)

    by nebaz ( 453974 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:04PM (#10849400)
    Electrical Power -- they could have computers only run under Windows Mills Power

    Fashion -- Paris Spring Collection of Bill Gates' sweaters

    Fiction -- wait, they already to that...("innovative?")

    Film Making -- all digital films, but an EULA flash at the beginning of the movie

    Power Tools -- wait, this is a conflict of interest, and would actually be useful

    Agriculture -- They've already got lots of fertilizer, especially of the bovine variety

    Pharmacuticals -- Given their track record of anti-virus protection in cyberspace, expect this to be a real winner

  • ... Since 1993? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 ) <[fireang3l] [at] [hotmail.com]> on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:05PM (#10849411) Homepage
    They invested 20 billions since 1993? I was on a 28.8k at this time (like 95% of internet users I suppose)... how could they think of delivering video feeds? Even with my current cable connection, video need to "buffer" for 20-30 seconds (and we're not even talking of Real(Choppy)Video). And with download quotas most ISP are enforcing, I can't see my net connection replace my TV... the infrastructure just isn't there (yet).
    According to the article :
    "A major hurdle for SBC, however, is how to increase the speed of its network to deliver the television and Internet services it promises. SBC will have to increase its current connection speeds by seven-fold, which may make the company's goal of providing television programming within a year difficult to achieve. The projections are going to look completely ridiculous by the time we get to the end of 2005, said Albert Lin, an industry analyst at American Technology Research, an equity investment firm."
    I wonder is the projections will look completely ridiculous because they'll reach their goal... or not. With Verizon digging holes everywhere [slashdot.org], I can't see this happening this soon :)
    • Trying to wrest residential customers from cable rivals, SBC will launch TV over fiber by late next year, the regional telecom said today. http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3434 931 SBC is pushing hard for fiber. If they can finish what PacHell was trying to do, they'll be able to stream IPTV, internet, and voice.
    • the 20billion is just a big number they pulled out of their asses.

      and a marketing tool. sadly some people will think that it's good no matter what since they spent X years and X billion dollars on it.
      • A fairly big chunk of that $20 billion would be MSNBC, which continues to draw huge audiences with market shares of .1 and .2 on cable. Do they still have that synchorized animated character on the screen interacting with the hosts? And people wonder why MSNBC isn't taken seriously.

        The article also mentions that some of this supposed $20 billion was minority investments in cable TV systems outside of the US. The author seems to confuse "Spend" with "Invest", which is completely understanable, since the
    • I would still be on 28.8K (I could never even get 33K much less 56K to work reliably) if it weren't for (overpriced) Comcast. I've have been waiting for DSL service for over 4 years here in the telephone backwater of Dallas TX with no end in sight. They keep telling me how expensive it is to run fiber close enough to my home to provide DSL service and I keep reminding them of how much money they've spent buying other baby bells (billions) and filing lawsuits to keep me from being able to use a competiting s
    • I do hope some form of broader band service is made available.

      If MS is using Windows Media Video HD, they'd need a 8Mbps sustained connection to bring it near-real-time. The best I've seen anywhere near me is 3Mbps for DSL, if you are lucky, and close to the CO; and 6Mbps for cable.

      Another issue is that the service has to be more stable. With broadcast, if any radio station or transmitter goes down, I can just listen to or watch something else. If this hypothetical fast connection goes down, I can't cal

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...this bring about the change to IPv6 that much sooner? A few million TV-IPs is just what we need to make sure we address responsibly. Think of all those TVs hooked up to your local pipeline, DSL speeds will be amazing...SBC can't even keep a decent DSL speed in a college town in AR, wtf is this going to do to us?
    • Well, I doubt the IPv6 part. With all this natting going on ( or patting, for you Cisco freaks ), we don't really have to worry about addresses for a while yet.

      Further, do I really want my IP device ( tv in this case ) addressable directly from the internet? Especially with MS software on it?
      • If you are into goat sex, hell yeah.

        Else, might not be for the best...

        (Has any viruses targeted the XBox yet?)

  • Some have been watching IPTV for decades. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Iowa Public TeleVision has been around a while, after all.
    Wait, you mean this a different IPTV?

  • IPTV? (Score:3, Funny)

    by enderwig ( 261458 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:13PM (#10849472)
    Man, what a great acronym

    IPFreely?
    IPU?
    IPUP WeAllP!

    For a golden night, showered with passion, it's IPTV!

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:14PM (#10849475)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • or your TV suddenly shutting off, freezing up, require hardware upgrades/service packs to watch certain TV shows.
  • ...the joke was that we should buy MCI so we could FORCE someone to buy our transport devices (OC-192). MCI was the target.

    The world we live in dictates that you can only sell what others will buy. I dount Bill's ability to sell IPTV, so there goes IPTV.

    What got me here was that $20 Billion would have bought MCI in, like, 1996. Now?....

  • Not as silly as it sounds (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lancaibheal ( 813222 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:17PM (#10849505)

    My first instinct is to scoff and laugh at this, but then again, I scoffed and laughed when I heard that Microsoft would be developing a gaming console.

    Lets face it, Microsoft have a lot of cash lying about, and they're not stupid - if they want it badly enough, they'll get in on the market. Which isn't entirely a bad thing, competition is a good thing, as long as they behave.

    Plus, with another TV provider, maybe there'll finally be something decent on to watch.

  • Connection? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:17PM (#10849506) Homepage
    Does this have anything to do with that new Sewage To The House initiative?

    There are times I'm glad I don't watch TV, and with the prospect of the future of TV being controlled by Microsoft's shitty DVR products now is one of them. That and who the fuck would pay $80+ a month to pointlessly chew up 5 hours of their life _every day_? I'm not suggestuing you do anything radical like go outside, but something even slightly interactive might be a good start.

  • Hedging their bets (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Magickcat ( 768797 )
    If I was in Microsoft's shoes, I'd want to get out of the operating system as quickly as possible too.

    I can't really blame them, after all, they may as well diversify because they're losing ground left right and center. I imagine that they'll want to stream public executions of software pirates.

    They should get into films like Sony - now that's where corporate evil would be appreciated.
  • SBC and MS - both monopolies

    Yes, I know there are other telcos, but none of the incumbent (eg ones that descended from or bought out the original bits of the AT&T/Bell monopoly) telcos actually competes in any signifigant manner with each other for any wireline phone service.

    Everyone knows why MS is evil - you can read more about why SBC is evil at http://michigantelephone.mi.org/

  • IP-TV (Score:2, Informative)

    by solune ( 803114 )
    Okay, I just tried the link to the IPTV and it almost seems like a funny joke.

    Maybe my head is swimming in too much IP--er, intellectual property--matters, but that's what I thought at first. "Intellectual Property Television."

    Then it occurs to me, why not? With the Broadcast Flag [slashdot.org] in play the slogan could be "Welcome to the new ownership class. We 0wn you."

    Would there be a EVLA (End Viewer License Agreement)? Would people that devise new, analog and/or digital delivery schemes be barred by algorithmic

    • "You, the viewer, agree not to look at what you are seeing. You are allowed only to stare vacantly at the screen and laugh when you hear a laugh track. Any violation of this EVLA will result in immediate disconnection of your IPTV and confiscation of the infringing eyeballs."

  • News at 11

    An interesting side effect of IPTV, BPL. Wait, is that BPL is an interesting side effect of IPTV. Argh! I've given myself an ice cream headache. Let me start over again.

    BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) looks to allow your electricity provider to offer you other services, namely internet access. With IPTV they can now also offer you TV over the power lines as well. Who needs cable, satellite or telephone services?

    Frankly I welcome the new Power Transmission Owner Overlord Emperor, Yeah!

  • I just don't get how digital cable as it is today isn't good enough. It does everything I need it to do, and the built-in DVR makes it even better. Why is anyone even pursuing TVIP? I suppose that I just don't understand.

    Later,
    -Slashdot Junky
  • After getting ass raped with broken glass and chainsaws by SBC for many years I finally told them to get f*cked and I took a pair of bolt cutters and a screw driver to my lines. I physically cut the wire at the boxes and removed the boxes from the walls, then standing on a milk crate, I cut the dangling wires at the poles as high up as I could reach. They now dangle cut, swinging in the wind, at my home and at my place of business. I operate totally from cell phone alone now, I have no land lines, no POT
    • "I finally told them to get f*cked and I took a pair of bolt cutters and a screw driver to my lines. I physically cut the wire at the boxes and removed the boxes from the walls, then standing on a milk crate, I cut the dangling wires at the poles as high up as I could reach. They now dangle cut, swinging in the wind, at my home and at my place of business."

      Please, by all means, let me know when you install solar panels on your roof, and decide to dump your local electrical co.
      I'll bring a camcorder.
      • Please, by all means, let me know when you install solar panels on your roof, and decide to dump your local electrical co.

        Trust me, that's another of my ultimate dreams.
        Since I was 14 years old when I toured an underground home in New Mexico (it was like a log cabin buried under a mound of dirt) I fell in love with "disconnected living"

        Nothing in the world would please me more than to live on a mountain in a home made from rocks that is totally self sufficient with no connections to the outside world, s

  • Duplicate (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sakusha ( 441986 )
    This story was already posted [slashdot.org], almost a month ago on Oct 20.
  • Don't MS already have some deal with NBC? What is "MSNBC"? Are they actually merged, or is it some partnership thingy between MS and NBC? Is this going to make them MSNBCSBC?

  • TV (Score:2, Funny)

    by loid_void ( 740416 ) *
    Does someone want to tell them that TV's passe before they spend another 20 billion. Geez. They're thinking about getting out of the MSNBC deal while they do this, oh, right, it's two different divisions not talking... so much for Microsoft oOfice integration.
  • Microsoft keep trying to break into whatever market makes money. I think we will soon see the title "Porn over IPTV" (PoIPTV) push by microsoft.

    you might ask, we already have "Porn over IP" (PoIP), why would microsoft want to do that. Afterall, they are a "innovative" software company, that they would do anything (ethical and unethical) to break into the market that makes money.

    mod me flamebait if you like, this is just how I feel.

  • Confused for a second... (Score:5, Funny)

    by aduzik ( 705453 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @01:00AM (#10850585) Homepage
    I'm from Iowa, and here, IPTV = Iowa Public Television. I was very confused when I first read this headline! Microsoft is about the only thing that could make Iowa Public TV worse.
    • At least you still show science fiction from the UK on IPTV, unlike NETV (Nebraska Educational TeleVision) where it has been banned from our airwaves for decades. I've even driven for miles weekly to get close enough to receive Red Dwarf and Doctor Who on a 5" TV.
  • microsoft is wise to throw some of the cash they generate at new technologies where they can be a monopoly for the forseeable future... the nice thing about being the biggest is if you're loosing one battle you can open up a dozen new fronts and change the rules of the game...
  • Ok the downside is that Microsoft extends it's monopoly. The upside is that it serves as a catalyst for the phone company to speed up it network (ie fiber to the home). The other plus is that it creates more competition in the cable TV/satellite market. Now the other downside is that there is currently no viable open source or business alternativeson the market today. But since the service providers are upgrading there networks there is nothing to technically preclude them from offering or allowing altern
  • Ok so there is upsides and downsides of Microsoft's IPTV The downside is that Microsoft will extend it's monopoly. The upside is that IPTV will serve as a catalyst for service providers to speed up their networks (ie fiber to the home). The plus is that IPTV will provide more competition and lower prices. But the other downside is that there is currently no viable OSS or commercial IPTV in the US today. This said there is nothing technically to preclude the service prodvider from offering a alternative.
  • I don't have cable right now, but I do have SBC DSL, and I would consider using this service if it allowed me to choose the channels I wanted to subscribe to, included a TiVO-like service, and cost less than cable would.
  • In the mid- to late-90's, Bellsouth tried an over-the-air subscription TV service. It used microwave technology which required a line-of-site location (which was a big problem for lots of folks). There were (and still are, I think) lots of shiny little antennae at the top of trees around Atlanta. People who had the service loved it. But, it wasn't profitable and Bellsouth pulled the plug. The costs of entering the TV distribution market are so high. Since MS has a 10-year commtment, perhaps they and SBC ca
    • Just to point something out..


      The same thing has been tried here in Ontario (Look TV [www.look.ca]) and has been at least moderately sucessful..


      Of course it helps to be able to beam transmissions off of the CN Tower..

  • Fibre to the home is what I'm excited about in this SBC deal.. look at how much money [yahoo.com] SBC just committed to Alcatel to provide the FTTH gear [alcatel.de]!

    I'm doubtful the MS IPTV [microsoft.com] stuff will work - look how long they've tried [cnn.com] to sell a cableco their cable tv product. 20 billion, is the number I'm seeing. But they have zero tv ip real world experience.
  • I personally think this is just an attempt to get Microsoft Janus [slashdot.org] on televisions. I imagine that watching IPTV will be much like the title segment of "The Outer Limits [theouterlimits.com]" television show.
  • ...MS and SBC are also working on ways to deliver water, heating gas, and electricity via IP.
  • I know that nobody remembers what happened the last time SBC and MS tried to do this. It was 8 or 9 years ago... SBC and MS teamed up to build an "on demand" network in Richardson, Texas. They worked on it for a long time, spent lots of money, and failed.

    So what, that was a long time ago and technology has advanced. Yep, but it wasn't the technology that failed. MS simply decided to take their marbles and go home. Called it a "change of strategy" and quit. Bill Gates stopped taking Ed Whitacre's phone call
  • Leave Iowa Public Television ALONE!!!
    http://www.iptv.org/

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