Sizing up store-for-play: the new approach that could help differentiate video from DSL

America's Network, April 15, 2004 by Joan Engebretson

There's a new term in telecom that hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves. Called "store-for-play," it refers to some fresh thinking that's going into how to deliver video over DSL.

Although telcos have begun to view delivery of video services as an unavoidable defensive play that they must make against cable companies, they've been struggling with how to differentiate those services. Store-for-play could provide that differentiation. The big question is whether it might be too different from what people are used to. But the more I learn about it, the more I'm beginning to think it could be a winner.

HOW IT WORKS

With store-for-play, customers will use a device similar to a TiVo box to capture movies or other programs downloaded to them by their local telco over their DSL line. Digital rights software will enable users to view the program a certain number of times, after which it will be automatically erased from the storage device.

The advantage of this system, in comparison with broadcast or streaming video-on-demand, is that it could serve more people with a wider range of programming using last-mile infrastructure that is available today. Because the programs are not sent in real time, the access network doesn't have to be engineered to deliver huge swaths of delay-free bandwidth.

How long a program will take to download will depend on a customer's DSL speed. The goal is for it to take about twice the time that it would take to view the program, says Tom Nolle, president of consulting firm CIMI Corp. But because people can start watching while the program is still downloading, the wait until viewing time starts could be in the range of an hour-and-a-half for a feature film. Since this is comparable to the waiting times that one sometimes encounters with pay-per-view, it's probably acceptable--and, as Telechoice CEO Danny Briere points out, TiVo has already trained people to watch television off of a hard disk.

What will make or break store-for-play is content. According to Nolle, the hope is that Hollywood will have sufficient confidence in the system's anti-piracy protection that it will release movies to this medium before they appear on DVD or cable. Projections are for that type of content to command a price in the range of $10 for a maximum of three viewings--also probably a reasonable assumption, considering the cost of the average movie ticket today.

What appeals more to me about the service, though, (and what I'm sure will appeal to others as well) is that it could also support some more offbeat content. Because of the on-demand approach and because the cost of storage has decreased so substantially, telcos theoretically could make thousands of seldom-seen titles available. The cost here would be in line with what you pay to rent a movie from Blockbuster--and you'd be able to get titles that you can't get at your local Blockbuster. Potentially store-for-play might also be a way for people to get channels not offered on their cable systems through a subscription service.

SHEDDING ASSUMPTIONS

Although "thinking outside the box" has become a telecom cliche, there's no denying that the ability to shed assumptions has been at the heart of some of the most significant technological innovation--and what appeals to me most about store-for-play is that it exhibits that kind of assumption-free thinking.

Advances in data storage have touched telecom only peripherally until now but are poised to play a much larger role. In the same way that caching reduced the need for bandwidth at the Internet core, customer premises storage might reduce our need for last mile bandwidth. Certainly today's voice grade lines are insufficient. But if we could eke more out of DSL without having to upgrade to fiber-to-the-home, that would be a good thing,especially considering how slow FTTH rollouts are likely to be.

We should have a better idea of how all of this will shape up by this year's Christmas season, according to Nolle. That's when he says set-top box manufacturers aim to have devices available to support store-for-play.

Joan Engebretson is a contributing editor to America's Network