Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Forbes: "The deal implies that fixed broadband connections are a better way to deliver high quality music downloads than mobile networks,' said Ian Fogg, broadband and personal technology analyst at Jupiter Research Europe. 'It suggests that operators hoping to profit from music downloads will be bypassed by PC transfer services like this." [MacNN] How technologically clueless can you get? Even over my DSL link, downloading a song from iTMS takes too long. 3G outdoor bit rate is 384kb/s. Meaning that a song at an OK bit rate (128kb AAC, say) would take 1-2 min to download in ideal circumstances. The current widely available GSM method, GPRS, is much slower. Making wireless delivery effectively impractical except at disgustingly low bit rates. Who would want to listen to that dreck? Network operators, this is good for you. It entices people to use their phones for music, so that they'll want to buy more over the wireless network once bit rates are good enough. Of course, it could be that the analysts are clued into what the operators feel. Operators have a long history of self-defeating policies and wasteful investment, especially in the US. 10:24:24 PM