January 24, 2013

What You Need To Know Now...

The Netflix Juggernaut Marches On
Dream the stream. Netflix now serves more than 33 million streaming customers, with nearly a third of them added last year alone, and it’s beating the profits odds. Much of this growth can be attributed to myriad devices that now can access video, but some of it also stems from the rise of cord shavers and cord “nevers” who want different or cheaper video alternatives. And with the OTT provider exploring original programming like its MSO and IPTV brethren, it’s starting to compete directly with the big boys. As long as Netflix can keep its monthly sub prices down, it may be able to keep capitalizing on consumer trends, but custom movies and sitcoms cost money…
 
Which Community Is The Most Intelligent?
Following on the heels of the FCC’s “Gigabit City Challenge,” (CTDaily, 1/22/13), seven global finalists are in the running for the annual “Intelligent Community of the Year” award, handed out by the Intelligent Community Forum, and only one of them is U.S.-based – Columbus, Ohio – in part because its broadband operators serve America’s highest concentration of Fortune 1000 companies per capita. Others vying for the June award include Oulu, Finland (18,000 new high-tech jobs since 2007); Stratford, Ontario, Canada (leveraging ICT to transform its economy); Taichung City, Taiwan (thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots, fiber-based broadband and WiMAX now reaching more than 90 percent of the population); Tallinn, Estonia (multiple incubators targeting creative services, medical and biotech, mechatronics, and ICT); Taoyuan County, Taiwan (the county built an open-access broadband conduit network for private carriers as well as a chain of Wi-Fi hot spots); and Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a new center for knowledge industries will be served by a 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-premise network, and will integrate green technologies and practices into every aspect of its design and operations).