Is paying for cable or satellite television service bleeding you dry? Hate having that unsightly cable box sitting on top of the TV or feel frustrated by how to setup and position the satellite dish? Fortunately for you, there’s a cheaper, easier alternative.
As access to high speed and broadband Internet connections and computer processing speeds continue to increase, it is changing how we watch TV. Many TV networks are turning to the World Wide Web as a new medium to reach a broader audience, including people without cable. They offer their most popular TV shows online for free on Web sites such as Hulu.com and their own websites.
You may wonder how networks can afford to provide these shows for free, when millions of subscribers are forced to pay an average $60 a month for cable or satellite service. The answer is actually quite simple. They sustain the service by inserting commercials into their shows, just like on normal television. Advertisements alone generate up to $20 billion. Due to the low setup costs, providers are hoping that Internet TV will supplement their cable and satellite earnings.
That’s good news for us.
Why pay for something when you can get it for free? Nobody watches every show on TV- most are filler, yet we are forced to pay for them to get the channels we actually want. With the Internet TV revolution we have more control over the content we watch. Watching shows on the Web allows a more personalized service, instead of waiting for our favorite shows to come on, you can watch what you want, when you want it. Its on-demand nature has attracted over 51 million daily viewers and is projected to hit one billion by 2012. As a result, content providers are offering more professional programming to lure in even more people.
Anticipating the increase in demand for faster Internet speeds, Internet service providers are researching new technologies to improve their services. Comcast will begin installing fiber-optic cable networks in 2008, CEO Brian Roberts revealed in January. The service will compete with Verison’s current FiOS fiber-optic service, which tops out at 50Mbps.
Comcast’s fiber-optic connection will reach top speeds up to 160 Mbps, a big upgrade from its current 16 Mbps maximum, though full roll out will happen slowly. “We’re going to download a two hour-plus movie in high-definition in three minutes and 56 seconds,” Roberts says.
With a speedy Internet connection there are several ways to watch television on your computer. Some are Web-based, others require an installation of a program. If you are a die-hard football (Soccer????) fan who won’t miss a match, most can be found streaming live on one of the foreign channels.