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Limelight’s Still Shining
Limelight may soon be out of the frying pan and into the fire. Katherine Egbert, an analyst with the investment bank Jefferies, issued a report today saying she thought a federal judge would decide quickly and in favor of Limelight with regards to a patent infringement suit filed against the content delivery network by rival Akamai.
But Egbert thinks that even if Limelight wins, a buyer will swoop in to snap it up. Unfortunately she thinks many on her list of buyers, which includes AT&T, Level 3 and Akamai, are likely to move Limelight’s customers over to their networks and shut Limelight’s down.
Four months ago a jury in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts awarded Akamai $45.5 million after it found Limelight guilty of infringement. Yesterday evening a federal court judge gave Limelight Networks a little breathing room in the patent fight by holding off on a permanent injunction that could shut down half of Limelight’s business. The judge is waiting to decide on the rest of several motions before her in the case, and said a favorable decision for Akamai in the other motions might lead to a permanent injunction.
Typically the process of hearing and deciding motions can take a few days to a couple of months, so shareholders are probably hoping Egbert’s conclusions are correct, especially the ones that see Limelight selling for $6 to $7 per share. That’s a far cry from the stock’s $23.82 high last summer, but it’s about where it was trading right before it was socked with the $45.5 million judgment.
Latest iPhone Wins One and Sucks Some on Video
So NewTeeVee readers might be forlorn over the lack of a video camera in the latest iPhone, especially since you guys asked for it, but as a consolation prize you can watch other people’s content over the AT&T 3G network.
The first iPhone allowed for slow downloading of YouTube content and other video. But 3G networks are, on average, twice as fast as the EDGE networks. So a 3G iPhone means people might actually use the video function, rather than starting a video download and quickly wondering if it’s really worth the wait just to watch a few cats on a treadmill. And if people start using the video function, that could lead to network problems.
A recent research report from In-Stat points out that today 3G mobile TV (TV such as Mobi.tv that is delivered via a cellular network) penetration from 3G subscribers is below 10 percent for many mobile operators. Worldwide 3G mobile TV subscribers are forecast to reach 42 million in 2012, up sevenfold from last year’s count of 6 million 3G mobile TV subscribers. However, iPhone users are more apt to use their phone and all of its features, which means that 3G video services could see more rapid growth on networks supporting the iPhone.
Apple changed the bandwidth requirements of broadband networks with its introduction of iTunes. Every ISP will tell you how consumers suddenly started using their broadband to download music and then movies, resulting in a new baseline for bandwidth traffic on their networks. The 3G iPhone, with its video capabilities, could be positioned to do the same thing to mobile broadband. Let’s hope network operators are ready.
BitTorrent Teams Up With Orb
Popular peer-to-peer network BitTorrent is continuing efforts to grow its reach by signing a partnership agreement with Orb Networks. The agreement bundles BitTorrent’s P2P software with that of Orb’s, which allows users to stream their music, movies or other media to their PCs, phones and other devices.
Users will have the option of downloading the bundled version or not. In practice, an Orb user would get access to BitTorrent content on his PC and then be able to use Orb to stream that content to any of his devices — from a PS3 to an iPhone. Typically BitTorrent is used to download content — video or music — to a personal computer, which is difficult to share within the home.
From that perspective, this alliance with Orb makes a lot of sense, though we’re not sure how big an impact it’s likely to have: As of February 2008, Orb had about 5 million users, big — but not big enough.
Moblyng Brings Flash to Phones
If you’re sick of staring at error messages when checking out a MySpace video slide show via a mobile, then Moblyng may be for you. The company translates Flash content into stills and video that can be viewed on a mobile phone. Right now it’s focused only on scraping Flash content from social networks, but may broaden its reach if users demand it. The company was formerly known as Fliptrack, and just raised $5.7 million. For more, check out the details over at GigaOM.
Netflix Set-Top Boxes, Brought to You by Roku
Well, for those of you wondering which small provider would provide the hardware for Netflix’s digital download service, the suspense is finally over. It’s Roku, a startup better-known for making streaming music hardware. Founder Anthony Wood went over to Netflix last year to help build the digital download service, and then worked with team members brought from Roku to help create a device that consumers can hook up to their televisions (using composite or component video cables, HDMI or S-Video). Earlier this year, however, Netflix decided it didn’t want to be a proprietary hardware vendor after all, and so Wood and the team building the set-top box went back to being part of Roku again.
Wireless HD Now on TV (in Japan)
Transferring wireless, high-definition content is a puzzle that hardware vendors have long been trying to solve. It’s hard to cram that much data into a fast wireless stream using unlicensed spectrum such as Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband, but plenty of companies are trying. However, for any technology to win out, getting consumer equipment manufacturers to put the proper chips in their products will be key.
Today Amimon, a silicon startup pushing a whole-house wireless HD technology called WHDI has managed to hit that customer milestone by getting its chips inside the latest Sharp X-series of televisions to be released in Japan. Customers have the choice of spending from $3,000 to $4,600 on a plain X-Series TV or adding about $875 and making it wireless using Amimon’s WHDI technology.
That’s quite a premium to get rid of wires, but people will likely pay it. As well as the price premium, the wireless receiver box that attached to the TV adds about 50 percent more fat to the TV’s 1.5-inch depth. The wireless version of the TV also comes with a transmitter box that a consumer plugs their DVD player, camcorder, camera or whatever else into so they can stream the wireless content to the television.
More Ways To Get Mobile TV
By the look of things, you’d think U.S. consumers were demanding ways to watch TV on their mobile phones. But studies show, again and again, they’re not. But a few equipment vendors in the WiMax space are throwing the facts under a truck and rolling out end-to-end WiMax television networks for mobile handsets. These are for over-the-air broadcasts similar to the DVB-H networks of Europe and the MediaFLO networks in the United States as compared to services such as MobiTV.
Yesterday, UDCast said it was teaming up with LG Electronics and Harris Corp to deliver a WiMax-based mobile TV network. It has experience building and deploying DVB-H networks, which failed to catch on here in the United States. It joins NextWave Wireless, which has also announced its product, built into combined equipment from Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and other partners, to deliver WiMax TV to mobiles.
Such networks would allow carriers to deliver several broadcast television channels to mobile handsets, so users can watch the latest baseball game or episode of The Office as it airs. It would compete with Verizon’s V-Cast Service, which is based on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network, and similar offerings coming from AT&T. For WiMax-based services, potential service providers in the U.S. include Sprint for its yet-to-be-launched Xohm service, Clearwire and some rural WiMax players such as Xanadoo.
Now that WiMax has its own mobile television offering, we’ll see if anyone wants it.
Wireless HD on the Horizon?
Wires aren’t evil, but home networking technology is seeking to eradicate them anyway. For those of you who are eager to disconnect your TV, but unwilling to compromise with compressed video, companies Amimon and Belkin may have a solution for you by September.
What’s on offer is a wireless network based on the WHDI standard pushed by Amimon, a semiconductor startup. According to Noam Geri, the company’s co-founder and VP of marketing, the wireless hub from Belkin should be out later this year with Amimon’s chip inside. The plan is to get TV manufacturers to eventually integrate Amimon’s chip directly into their products. Read more of this story
MySpace Adds HD Video
Following last week’s move by Dailymotion to bring high-definition video to the Web, MySpaceTV is launching an HD video player for the social network with a trailer for Iron Man. The trailer for the Marvel movie starring Robert Downey Jr. as the comic book hero, can be found in all it’s HD glory at MySpace’s Trailer Park. About two minutes, the trailer is small enough to load quickly and play without halting or pixelating on my cable connection. All in all, it looked pretty sweet.
MWC: Mobile Video Isn’t All That
This week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona hasn’t just been about battling mobile operating systems and the latest chips for cell phones, it’s also about content. For the first time ever, the GSM Association threw a party at the event focused solely on mobile entertainment, “Mobile Backstage.”
While there have been big announcements such as Nielsen talking about tracking online video, and the launch of mobile ad networks such as MMcast, the content news at Mobile World Congress is still a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing (what? too literary?). Mobile video has taken off in a few places such as South Korea and Japan, but for the most part, press releases outnumber the viewers.
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