3 thoughts on “Verizon to acquire Intel’s Internet TV unit and launch virtual TV service”

  1. I see this all as more bad news for us consumers. One would think this would be good for consumers but all this cloud or IPTV infrastructure is going to do is lock down the programming. We’re not going to be able to record the content and watch it our way and on our equipment. Maybe we’ll have access to content for a few days or with certain restrictions but it’s not going to be the way we have it now. I want to be able to record what I want and hold onto to it for as long as I want. I typically record a lot of stuff and then watch it over the summer or sometimes even years later when I finally get around to it. I don’t want an over the top service that forces me to watch my content on their terms, especially since we all know this won’t actually lower prices.

    All this is going to do is push more and more people to using other means like torrents to watch their shows. I personally like things the way they are now. I can watch stuff whenever I want or where ever I want (via an ipad) all with no commercials.

  2. Well, this Intel sale doesn’t really change anything. The Intel product never made it to market, and if it did would have been a failure since it was not possible for Intel to negotiate the content deals they wanted.

    And honestly the technology Intel developed doesn’t even seem that interesting. Its the deals and the competition that will drive this space. Hey, maybe VZ will use this technology to gird up for a true challenge to Comcast, delivering an over the top video service into Comcast territories. If so that would present a real challenge to the incumbent/dominant/only video providers in a large percentage of the country and perhaps even a mild price/service war, which would be good for all of us.

    As usual of course you have to caveat this to death. Probably there are contractual reasons they wouldn’t be allowed to do this. Comcast could respond by either blocking access or simply enforcing caps and slowing down traffic, making the service not work (at which point we’d see if the FCC has any balls left at all). Etc.

    Look, it almost certainly won’t happen. But this particular transfer of technology is no great loss. Probably VZ should have just let it go in the dustbin honestly. But hey, we can dream…

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