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The truths they don't want you to read....

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Football and broadband

Football is not a topic that normally excites me very much - the World Cup just about does it - but when football meets technology there can be some unfortunate results.

Some of you out there are undoubtedly England supporters, but if you fancy watching the Ukraine game then you are going to have to sign up to a website, as it is only available on line.

With a fairly decent 8Mb connection actually delivering c.3Mb at home and at work, I could easily watch the game live. I hesitate to think what it is going to look like on the West Side, in Uist or in Barra, but I would guess it will be pretty unwatchable.

I predict that where football leads, then other sports will follow, and other events won't be far behind.

The call to have them broadcast free on terrestrial TV is great, until you realise that someone (i.e. the taxpayer) has to pick up the tab by outbidding the commercial companies for a business filled with overpaid prima donnas.

No Government has the money to deliver that at the present time - regardless of historic promises to do so - and if this deal proves financially successful the ball will start rolling.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's an interesting point.

Before splashing out several hundred pounds on that new flatscreen plasma TV plus a few hundred on the TV licence plus more on the Sky TV package plus more on the 'special event viewing fees' - ask yourself - will the stuff I want to see on TV actually, definitely, be on there in the future?

Or can I use it just to watch a steadily diminishing range of free to view channels?

Anonymous said...

as far as i can tell from the advertising you can change the channels that you get every 6 months or so.... what do you wanna bet that sky will use that period to bid/not bid for what you wanna watch

Anonymous said...

Just so long as they don't plan to remotely operate the missile range on the Uists via ConCom broadband, as a cost-cutting measure. If they do that, then ... well, I'd stay well away from the flight path at all time.

Anonymous said...

"ConCom" and "cost-cutting", now there are words you don't see in the same sentence very often!

Oh by the way, ConCom has been down in Castlebay more or less since last weekend.

Anonymous said...

Yes Castlebay Concom + Orange is down in Castlebay this weekend 8/9/10 October but Hebrides.net proudly boasts "no known problems at this time & asks you to phone Helpdesk which is unmanned at weekends anyway.
Beggars belief !

Anonymous said...

The Council are having to install a BT broadband line as back-up in Castlebay School as ConCom is so unreliable.

Not exactly a glowing endorsement of ConCom is it!

Anonymous said...

Showing the football match on the Internet and not TV turned out to be a success. No net meltdown.

Television - as in the set - is dying.

Anonymous said...

"A lack of atmosphere" - from your article purporting it to be a 'success' - sums it up. Fans don't want to be hunched in front of computers. The viewing figures hailed as a 'success' were because people had no option if they wanted to watch. If you really think people are happy to watch in front of their computer screens, as opposed to having to do it because they were forced to, then you really do put the G into Geek.

Anonymous said...

ConCom is down in Castlebay... again!

Anonymous said...

On for a wee while yesterday but Concom is off again for Castlebay,today 14 october