SKT Sky Network Television Limited.

[minimoke]

Don't tell gummint that UFB is obsolete, they'll be looking to waste more of our money on the next tech. 42inch, you need to upgrade, more like 50 or 60 inch. Friend just upgraded to 55inch 4k, so I'll pass on your msg. We were 4m away. To be fair I might have said something similar to him. :-)
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The trouble with 4k (or a TV with resolution of approx 3840 x 2160 or 2160p (as opposed to 1920 x 1080 or 1080p) is an inconvenient problem commonly called the human eye. There is a physical limit to what it can see at 20/20 vision. Luckily for marketers there are two parts of the brain (lust and stupidity) which trump this inconvenience.

Lets take the "common" 55 inch (disclaimer: size of my 1080p TV) as a bench mark. To benefit from the 1080o definition the ideal sitting distance is 2.1m or less. For your friend with their new 2160p they need to be 0.9m or less away. If you are sitting 4m away then to see the benefits of a 2160p you would need a 210 inch. telly. If you sit further away than these distance the eye simply cant pick up the extra definition.

Now we have the issue of TV size dealt with the next is content. Go to your local shop and look at how much UHD content is available, None. There is some HD BluRay but not a heck of a lot.

But plastic discs are obsolete to so we need to look at streaming services. At the moment on good old fashioned broadcast TV there is sweet bugger all 1080p content. If you have a Tivo just do a search for HD programmes and you'll see there aint much there.

Ah - but there is Netflix I hear you say. Well it streams 4k at around 14mps (which is a whole lot less than Bluray1080 at 48mps) which means you are getting content with substantially sacrificed audio and colour quality

But luckily for me the two other parts of the brain trump the eye. So people are on the 4000k bandwagon which means SKY can trumpet these advances and dimwits think its is a great thing and the share price goes up.

[minimoke]

Im interested to know what yout think has made fibre obsolete? And I would rather watch sport on a decent sized TV than a laptop or tablet any day of the week. Content will be delivered over the internet thats for sure, the cable supplying the connection is irrelevant other than the speed constraints.

Vodafone touts it ultra fast Fibre cable at speeds of up to 100mps. Erriccson now has 5G(cable free) ticking over at 5gbs while the Japanese have got 100gps. The future is transmitters on your roof.

Oh - and I didnt mean watching content on your tablet. I meant using it as a streaming device rather than a set top box. For example I now have all video content sitting on my laptop (other than Lightbox which is an app on my phone) and simply cast it to my telly via Chromecast. I let the TV handle the upscaling but I admit to suffering the poor audio quality. If I want 5.1 audio I'll move content via my bluray player through my audio system. Not ideal but close enough after a few beers.

[Bobdn]

Nothing is better than fibre. Vodaphone cable is what you put up with if you cant get fibre and 5g wont be here for 5 years. And when it does it will be more expensive and still wont be better than fibre. Fibre's capacity is almost limitless.

[thedrunkfish]

Modern tvs are just big tablets anyway set top boxes are definitely obsolete everything will just be apps on tvs. But my argument was on fibre being obsolete. It's not. Fibre is here to stay as the rollout continues. The problem with your comparison to Japan is the population densities are so vastly different it just can't be compared.

[minimoke]

Modern tvs are just big tablets anyway set top boxes are definitely obsolete everything will just be apps on tvs. But my argument was on fibre being obsolete. It's not. Fibre is here to stay as the rollout continues. The problem with your comparison to Japan is the population densities are so vastly different it just can't be compared.

Shall we just come back in 5 years and see how fixed wireless broad band evolves. Spark has it. Vodafone is looking at it.

[Bobdn]

Definitely. Lets meet back here in five years

[Cricketfan]

Shall we just come back in 5 years and see how fixed wireless broad band evolves. Spark has it. Vodafone is looking at it.

I just switched to wireless broadband yesterday. It's fantastic, although I'll have to see what it's like when more people on my street sign up for it. At the moment though it's so much better than ADSL without the hassle of switching to VDSL or fibre, and it's the same price too. I'm getting 60mbps down and 30mbps up which is more than enough for me.

[Bobdn]

Yes its good, just depends on what you use it for. If you stream in HD through Netflix or Lightbox, you'll probably hit the data cap pretty quickly. Also, its not great for gaming online due to latency.

[Zaphod]

Nothing is better than fibre. Vodaphone cable is what you put up with if you cant get fibre and 5g wont be here for 5 years. And when it does it will be more expensive and still wont be better than fibre. Fibre's capacity is almost limitless.

I agree. Wireless technologies (and I'll include both cellular [4G LTE, 5G] and Wi-Fi 802.11 standards) certainly have their place, however there is a much more finite amount of overall bandwidth available than compared to fibre. For data intensive applications, fibre is still the clear winner and is highly unlikely to be unseated from it's throne, despite the disadvantages of being tethered to a cable.

[Zaphod]

The trouble with 4k (or a TV with resolution of approx 3840 x 2160 or 2160p (as opposed to 1920 x 1080 or 1080p) is an inconvenient problem commonly called the human eye. There is a physical limit to what it can see at 20/20 vision. Luckily for marketers there are two parts of the brain (lust and stupidity) which trump this inconvenience.

Don't let facts get in the way of a good marketing story! It's the same reason why we need to purchase the latest smartphone with higher resolution, bevelled metal edges, faster processor and the ability to multitask 20 app's at once and pay $1200 for a device that costs $200 to make – marketing spin.