November 16, 2006

Who Controls the Content?

By Jim Barthold, CT Reports

Web-developed content is reminiscent of the early days of cable when 38 networks were pushing for space within a 36-channel universe. In those days, of course, cable operators had ready answers for subs screaming "I want my MTV" … a headshake and a belly laugh 'cause there wasn't any other way MTV was going to show up on a home screen.

Satellite changed some of that. The Internet changes it even more for every player from the MSO to the telco to the mobile carrier. Content's out there, and thanks to broadband it can find its way in front of determined viewers.

Eric Hernaez, CEO of Solegy, a company that offers a managed platform for network operators, service providers and content developers, is somewhat conflicted on how content should reach the end user. While he admits it's "definitely not in the network operator's best interests" to lose control of its transport pipe – and he's primarily involved with mobile carriers – he also concedes "they won't be able to force that kind of rigid structure forever."

Hernaez suggests that carriers and content providers should play nice using someone like Solegy, of course, as a matchmaker.

"For a network operator, we can be used as a tool to manage multiple types of applications out there in the ether. If it's a content provider, we can be used to manage multiple carrier relationships," he said.

The dark side

In a utopian world, the Solegy system could bring together disparate pieces into an open platform. In the real world, Solegy can be, and probably will be, used by network operators to build walls around content they've either developed or acquired.

"There are some things that the network operator is in the best position to provide to the content provider," he said, citing opportunities that could result from the nirvana that is the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standards. IMS, of course, is bogged down.

"Everybody is working on it, but people aren't into the testing phases yet. The carriers that are involved in the IMS standards bodies are all pushing to slant IMS in a way that is carrier-centric, meaning walled gardens … whereas the SIP (session initiation protocol) purists, the people who started IMS in the first place, think that's against the whole idea of dis-aggregating the application layer from the network layer."

There is, he said, a battering ram that could tear huge holes into the walled gardens. Fixed wireless and dual-mode phones will let users step into Wi-Fi hotspots and download Web-based applications via their normal portals, effectively circumventing the walled mobile portals.

"That's what will really force the carriers to re-evaluate their strategy," he said. "The second you have people hopping onto Wi-Fi hotspots and accessing content … now the carriers will have no choice but to start working with those same content developers."

- Jim Barthold