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Earlier this week, I sat down with UTOPIA to discuss the Macquarie deal and their general operations. One great part of these sit-downs is that I can get candid answers to some of your common questions. Some of you have asked more than a few times about TV service. Right now, only Beehive Broadband and Brigham.net sell video service to new customers using UTOPIA’s headend and Veracity is using their own. Most providers sell satellite packages to plug the gap. Why? Because video doesn’t make money.
Yes, it’s true. Video is a break-even product at best. Look at the numbers from any cable provider and you’ll see the same story: video and voice make data customers more “sticky”, but it’s the broadband that pays the bills. They’ve quickly become commodity products that help the revenue side but don’t do much on the profit side. The consensus at FTTH conferences is that video isn’t something that most of them want to do.
So what does this mean for you? Right now, you’ll have to fall back on satellite TV or pick one of the providers that does video service. Since Brigham.net is sticking to Brigham City, that means Beehive or Veracity. This doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, though. UTOPIA has been talking to its video partners about an over-the-top live TV service to plug the gap. It would be sold Netflix-style, but it would have all of your favorite TV channels and possibly some good on-demand stuff too. It’s a ways out (I’d guess years), but it’s where we’re all headed anyway.
Xmission used to offer video in Brigham City using the UTOPIA headend, but stopped because they felt the quality of the product was too poor. At least that is how their sales and support staff explained it to me.
That’s entirely possible. The set-top boxes have always been a sore spot. I’m kind of hoping that the over-the-top live TV thing happens because that would be much more awesome.
My experience with UTOPIA’s TV feed was quite good with both ConnectedLyfe and Veracity, both of which aftermarketed UTOPIA’s service. I never had the kind of complaints that I’ve heard from others about the TV service, but then we’ve never been TV “power users.” It was at least as good as the Comcast service I had before, probably better, for less money, and with a DVR which we never had before. I had choppy service with Comcast, and never had that with the UTOPIA TV service. All of the channels we wanted were there as well. We have since changed to Beehive, and I must say that I’ve had constant problems with their TV service. Internet, as always, is stellar. We’ve found ourselves swearing at the TV service – constant freezing up, channels that don’t work, choppy service when it does work. The Olympics were painful to watch because it kept seizing up at key moments. We now have a Roku and are weaning ourselves from TV service. Until the ruling on Aereo last week, we were going to switch to that. Now we’re taking a wait and see approach, but I suspect we will eventually be pure cord-cutters with a 1 Gig connect to our home (sorry, Jesse, I know that is painful for you, but there are homes in my neighborhood for sale where you could get the same service.) đŸ™‚
I had video through Brigham net (Mstar was providing the feed).
There were some problems to be sure but I guess that I was lucky that I didn’t have as many problems as other people. When Brigham net terminated their Mstar contract because of problems and poor customer service from the company that bought Mstar (I don’t remember their name) I decided the additional $30 a month for the new video feed was not in the budget. We’ve been without TV ever since as I’ll be damned if I give comcast anymore of my money and was never happy with the satellite offerings.
Beehive’s TV service is also their own. They don’t use UTOPIA’s head end.
Video only makes money in huge quantities. Content providers (NBC Universal, Viacom, Discovery, Disney, etc.) all want their piece of the pie and have very strict rules regarding lineups, pricing, and even features people want like streaming to computers, phones, and tablets.
If it was easy and made money, everybody would be doing it.