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Broadband Television:
Anytime, Anyplace and Anywhere
Narrowstep evolves into international video-over-IP distributor
By John Goedegebuure
When Digital Media Net first published a company profile on Narrowstep
Inc. (“ Paint A Thousand Words ”- April 2003), the company had just
launched High TV as the first of a series of unique broadband TV
channels. Two years later, April 2005, we will take an in-depth look
at the company’s current status.
* Narrowstep has completed and deployed both the platform, TV
Station-in-a-Box (TelVOS) and the network – the Narrowstep Network –
to enable the Broadband Revolution.
* The company has proven Broadband Advertising as a business model to
support the delivery of broadband video content with advertisers such
as Sony Ericsson, Nissan, Nike, Philips, Hong Kong Shanghai Bank and
the UK Government.
* Narrowstep has launched over 35 Broadband TV Channels, ranging from
sports and entertainment to education, shopping, government and urban
communities.
* These achievements have resulted in the company rapidly nearing
profitability in only its third year of existence.
* Broadband Internet continues to expand exponentially.
* Businesses are more and more moving from mass marketing to niche
marketing.
Narrowstep has established a new business model for delivering video
content online and has proven that its platform “TV Station in a box ”
(TelVOS) provides its clients with an affordable way to build and run
their own TV channels, with content owners now being able to unlock
substantial additional revenue streams from existing video product.
Already today, Narrowstep, enables viewers to experience the future of
television , by connecting to a wide range of “Broadband Internet TV
Channels”.
Communication and Broadband
Communication is a vital part of our daily social and economic lives.
The quality of the level of communication directly correlates to
economic activity and therefore determines economic growth levels.
Since the early days, mankind has always found ways of communication.
From cave drawings and smoke signals, many thousands of years ago to
radio and television in the previous century and to the Internet in
the last decade. The ways in which we communicate have definitely
changed, but the function remains unchanged, A (the Provider) informs
B (the Recipient(s)).
Throughout the ages “those who were in power” provided information to
their respective followings as one-way-traffic. Lack of access to
further information and a high illiteracy rate made it impossible to
contest the quality of the content delivered. This ensured the
providers to remain in control of the flow of communication, resulting
in a selected group of individuals fully controlling the daily lives
of their people. Relatively low economic activity was the result, for
centuries.
Over the years the one-way communication system slowly eroded. The
introduction of the first telegraph and later radio and television
dramatically increased the flow and quality of information to the
general public, resulting in an increase in overall economic activity.
But television still is to be considered a one-way-communicator,
whereby information streams are still controlled by selected groups.
In the mid-nineties, with the Internet coming into play, the general
public, for the first time in history, gained access to information
which previously was difficult or even impossible to obtain. Contrary
to the passive television experience, the active internet user has the
option to actively control communication streams himself.
“Self control” over information flows will completely change societies
all across the world and impact global economic activity tremendously.
By March 2005, 888 million internet connections were established and
Internet has become a part of daily life almost anywhere in the world.
With the arrival of Broadband, a dramatic increase in the quality of
the information flow is enabled. It took only 4 years to grow from 10
million to 150 million broadband connections worldwide. The market has
matured and Broadband is no longer an oddity in a few unusual
countries. All the world’s major economies are now in the top ten as
far as the total number of broadband lines is concerned.
Broadband prices have been reduced sharply, which is one of the most
important factors driving the up-take of broadband. The fact that
broadband enables providers to offer video services to their users has
also been a major factor in the exponential global growth in the
number of broadband users.
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