Web TV: on broadband or en masse?

Strangely, he opened with an account of Belgrade-based B92 - a pirate radio station that has broadcast independent news since 1996. The point of the story was that in spite of the destruction of their transmission equipment, B92 kept broadcasting early this year over the internet, using RealAudio software.

It's a product endorsement to be sure. But putting issues about good and bad taste aside for a moment, would B92 have opted for internet broadcasting by choice? For us in the freer world, there are really two questions - how technically feasible is internet broadcasting to a mass audience, and in terms of content, is it going to be a poor relation to radio and TV?

The technical problems have been well aired and fall broadly into two categories - the bandwidths available for user connection and network performance. With present compression technology, to receive online video of a standard even approaching VHS requires bandwidths of around 300Kbits per second as a minimum - about five times the bandwidth available to most users.

Increased bandwidth for home users is in the hands of cable and satellite operators, and telcos like BT, which has been required by OFTEL to begin unbundling the local loop - giving competitors floor-space in exchanges - by mid 2001.

There is no single remedy for congested public networks. The terrestrial option, taken by Madge Networks in Europe, for example, is to build a private, high-speed overlay cable network, while companies like PanAmSat, active in the US and Latin America and launching European operations later this year, route internet traffic via communication satellites in geostationary orbits.

None of this comes cheap, which raises the question - where is the audience to pay for the investment and what content will draw it?

A recent survey by NetSmartAmerica showed that only 9% of US consumers have broadband access and the typical audience is male, aged 34 with an annual income of $60,000. So, sport seems like a safe and obvious bet.

In this country, the Premier League is in the process of negotiating exclusive internet broadcasting rights, with bidders rumoured to include Sportal.com, 365 Corporation, Teamtalk.com, Eurosport and NTL, with BskyB waiting in the wings, all prepared to pitch in a rumoured 15m to 70m.

The report concludes that widespread consumer use of broadband technologies in the US is at least 2-3 years away. Given Glaser's estimate that if BT drags its heels, the UK will lag the US by around two years, internet broadcasting in the UK will be a niche market in terms of both content and demographics for a long time.

Perhaps the most significant - but unglamorous - point in Glaser's speech came when he demonstrated streaming video at 40Kbits per second. The footage of a newsreader was grainy, with jerky movement and dull colour contrast, but it was the best result available from current compression technology, and accessible to anyone with a bog-standard modem.

Later, Jeff Pancottine, RealNetworks VP marketing said: “There will always be a requirement for smaller bandwidths, because of considerations like technology, location and price. We see it as a ubiquitous technology.”

So, perhaps we should try and get our oversized broadband-hungry fantasies into perspective. Web-casting for some time yet won't look great, but broadband may not be the answer. The technology that eventually draws a mass audience might be not satellites or thousands of miles of cable, but some smart compression algorithms.