Another Angle
Matt Kreuch sent me an excellent e-mail last week about broadband, and he graciously agreed to let me share it with you. It raises some interesting questions about infrastructure in the U.S. and how data caps are affecting how we consume media.I said last year that a war was looming between service providers and content providers over data caps, but that hasn't happened yet. I don't see any way that it's not coming, though.
From here on, it's all Matt.
I've enjoyed reading
your analysis on the used games market and the cryptic release notes on the
Xbox One. I mention these together because this speaks to a much larger
trend in gaming and that is the digital delivery of most media today.
First, some back story
and why this is relevant to me. Seven years ago I moved from CT to
Northern Virginia (less than an hour from DC). In selecting a new home, I
thought I covered all the questions I needed to research before committing to
my area. The home was 1 year old in a new build community. Upon
moving in I was hit in the face with the one question that did not cross my
mind at the time which is broadband availability. My town in CT has had
broadband cable service since the mid-1990's so my wrong assumption when moving
to VA was that broadband is like every other utility in a modern home and that
I would have choices. Very bad assumption. My service today is a
local wireless service that I am fortunate enough to have a line of sight to
the tower on a hill several miles from my home. They classify themselves
as broadband but it's a VERY loose definition (up to 1.0 Mbps). The
bandwidth fluctuates greatly. I work from home and often can't VPN in
because the service is too slow. When kids get home from school and on
weekends the service slows to a crawl. It's really horrible. I tell
my kids tales of "true broadband" and they think I'm making stuff up.
They have never experienced broadband connectivity and they play online
games daily (they wonder why they always die in online shooters!).
Lastly, the service is expensive at $70 per month.
Over the course of the
past year, I've been campaigning to my county representatives to deliver
broadband to my area. Here comes the funny part.... My county, Loudoun
County, is regularly reported as the fastest growing county in America with a
high median income and tech savvy residents. I live 18 miles away from
one of Verizon's largest offices. My neighbors are executive for tech
firms (Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, etc.) supporting the government and
almost everyone I know also works from home. We are growing so fast that
a new high school is built almost every year in our county including a new one
on the border of my community. Further, the county has a 15 year
agreement (we are in year 8) in place with Verizon and Comcast to deliver broadband
to the "western" portions of our county which they have ignored--quite
simply, because they can. I've read the agreements thoroughly and the
broadband providers re-interpret specific language in their favor to escape the
density requirements that should govern where they install service. In
October of last year I got really serious about the dire need for broadband in
our area and was quickly struck by what a monumental task this is. It's
literally been a 2nd job for me. I've made tremendous progress including
a recent conference call between the county and a group of Verizon execs where
they state they will make a decision within the next 30 days, however, I'm not
hopeful that anything will ever really get done (I'd bore you to death if I
walked through the bureaucratic nightmare I've been navigating to get this
far). The county even issued a study recently where they identified the
lack of progress in broadband coverage and called out my community as the prime
example.
So why am I telling you
all this? With the primary delivery of media turning to digital delivery,
what consideration is being made to the majority of the US that does not have
access to true broadband? I buy most of my games off of Steam now since
there is absolutely no selection at the big box stores anymore. A typical
download for me is 3 days for an 8-10GB game. I usually start it late at
night and clog my bandwidth for a 3 day period in which my wife yells at me
that she can't get her email. My kids both play the same games I do and
we take turns downloading a new game. They both play World of Warcraft which was a 21GB download and a miserable week + for all!
The service providers
have pretty much stopped installing fiber and cable services. They are
now turning to their branded wireless services such as the Verizon 4G network.
The problem with this model is that these services all require data caps.
For Verizon 4G, 15GB data cap is a $90 per month service. This is
just not acceptable. Below is a map that shows broadband coverage in the
US. I think this is eye opening in that without cooperation by the
broadband service providers to deliver no cap service to the masses, digital
delivery is becoming a deal breaker for many of us. I play games much
less today because of it. I can't enjoy the same experience with online
features, constant updates, new add-on releases that other do so I just don't
bother anymore. This applies to movies (Directv & Dish are only
options in my area) and other digital media today as well (no Smartv for me).
I've rambled on enough
but I haven't heard this side of the story anywhere. I don't think we, in
the US, are willing to commit enough to our infrastructure to make digital
delivery accessible beyond the major metro areas.
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