One of the inhibitors we see to home entertainment networking is the relatively low bandwidth available from current WiFi protocols. 802.11g, the current top-of-the-line standard, can give you 10 mbps on a good day, if you're the only one using the network. Start sharing the network or running the signal through walls, and that bandwidth number starts heading south. Streaming audio with a few mbps is easy; but streaming video at just a few mbps isn't quite so easy. (For what it's worth, the 802.11n standard that's in development is targeting an actual throughput of 100 mbps, on which WiFi video will work fine. But it'll be at least a year, probably more, until they even agree on the standard -- nevermind mass-producing products.)</p>
Which brings me to the point: Singapore Airlines ran a flight last weekend <u>
that offered WiFi IPTV</u>. That is amazingly cool. But while it's fun to do this over WiFi to laptops, that's not the long-term solution -- picture quality won't be great, especially as more people use the network. Long-term, they're going to wire up planes so the IPTV runs to a seatback screen. That way the picture quality stays high, and every passenger gets a piece of that live TV love.</p>
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IPTV Over WiFi... On a Plane
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