The Digital Environment

The Digital Environment

If The Choices are HD, Multicasting or Something Else….

• NPT chooses“something else”

• Serving users directly, rather than have to rely on the kindness of cable/satellite

• Finding opportunities that are both mission-consistent and revenue-generating (the “sweet spot”)

• The strategy is: datacasting

Digital Bandwidth Budget(Total of 19.39 megabits per second)• High definition television (14+ mbs required)• Multicast television channel (4 mbs each)• Datacast service (100 kbs or more each)• Should we focus on high bandwidth, open circuit

synchronous services, or many, thinner bandwidth addressable services?

• The choice is yours. But the choice may be irrevocable.

Slicing Bandwidth to Order

Bandwidth goes in

Services come out

Datacasting Requires a Different Way of Thinking

• Does content go to digital televisions or computers?

• Which users are authorized to receive it?

• Is it a stream or a download, and when does it need to be there?

• How much speed or quality (bandwidth) is required?

Datacasting is Marginal Cost Service

$1.5 million (96%)

$60,000 (4%)

What’s the Market?

• Government: training, emergency management, homeland security

• Education: K-12, higher ed

• Healthcare

• Three levels: local, state, national

Things to Consider

• Be careful with bandwidth decisions. They could be irrevocable.

• Question assumptions underlying all proposed digital service models.

• Decide whether or when to invest in datacasting equipment