When sitting in a great presentation by Matt Stagg of EE, regarding mobile video delivery as organised by the local SMPTE UK chapter, I was prompted by his descriptions of mobile video bandwidth usage (currently over 50%, moving towards 80%) to quickly think through the implications on the fixed line last 100 metres for IP delivery of a family moving to a fully IP delivered video world. The calculation in reality is quite a complicated one but I have put my thoughts to the classic ‘back of a napkin’ calculation on what the typical 2 adult, 2 children household could consume in the future (making some fantastic stretches of reality and inaccurate logic – as the best estimates are)…

Now the assumptions are that this 2+2 household barely watches any TV together (an quite likely but top end possibility), have only one set of eyeballs each (they only watch one thing at a time), watches HD content at pretty good hybrid ‘online/broadcast’ HD bit rates (5Mbps) regardless of device and does so according to the average Thinkbox figure of video consumption from March 2016 – that is 3 hours and 51 minutes per day, or approximately 4 hours. Quite a simplistic view but good enough to see what the impact could be for those ISPs out there who are looking at the full IP world. Obviously I could, and would for the right client ;-), undertake a much more detailed analysis but here I am looking for the quick win, ball park figure.

So the calculation is people x time x bit rate… which gives 4 x 14,400 x 5,000,000 = 288 Gbits or 36GBytes per day or approximately 1.0 TB per month, with peak rates of 20Mbps just for video.

Let that sink in. This is just HD… this is just average video consumption… some homes could be six times this, taken on the view that some people can have a TV on all day. An interesting finger in the air for a family living three years from now in an all IP world.

Now take the content bit rates up to what is needed for 4K which would be twice to fours times this at rates of 20Mbps then you are seeing figures on the bad side of 144GB per day and 4TB per month for the last 100 metres of delivery, and peak rates of 80Mbps. A nice capacity issue for the near future…

IP delivery is effective delivery of video, suiting the needs of in-home and out of home distribution, not efficient but then customers don’t buy efficient.

Are ISPs ready for this? I hope so, certainly those that we work with are certainly working towards this but if you are not ready then give us call and see where could help.

Fairmile West is a Consulting company focused on working in the Consumer Device and Video arena. We work with clients on technology strategy and product delivery through key practices in Consumer Devices and Video Services. If you are interested in learning more about what we do, please do get in touch via our website – Contact us. You can also keep track with what interests us in the industry by following our Link blog at TV Tech News, and you can specifically follow news on Ultra HD via the following link – Ultra HD News.