what next

Seen a TV you can get that connects to the internet via your own wi-fi network.
I wonder how many have brought one who have no wi-fi network.
For some unknown reason, I feel the urge to buy one, but I don't know why. Has anyone here got one, if so, any good?

 

Not got a tv that can do it, but I can connect my computer to my PS3 which is on my tv..

 

Over the next 10 years this might become the norm with fibre optic broadband more tv could be delivered this way.
Storm clouds gather on Sky's horizon - Business Analysis & Features - Business - The Independent

 

You can connect most Games consoles on your T.V onto the internet too

 

Satellite and terrestrial (on an ariel) telly will be with us for a while yet. Ultimately, I have no doubt that everything will migrate to the internet, what with ever increasing network speed and server power and all.

But good old satellite and terrestrial telly has its advantages, and will hold onto those advantages for a few more years yet.

Cost to the end user:
To watch TV on demand via the internet, you need a good broadband connection with unlimited download allowance. About £20 per month on top of your phone line rental. With freesat and freeview there are no ongoing costs.

Availability:
Superfast broadband is ok, if you can get it. As far as I know, not that many providers are offering the really fast speeds yet. Loads and loads are offering 16 or 20Mb over the phone line, but in reality it is more likely to be around 4Mb (they always say 'upto ? Mb'). Once you start migrating out from the local telephone exchanges (eg out into the countryside), a good broadband speed becomes increasingly elusive.

Demand:
Simple really. I have no statistics, but based on my own circle of friends and family, I reckon easily less than 50% of households go for the latest kit.

Infrastructure limitations:
When you connect a website, ultimately what you are doing is asking another computer to send some data back to your computer. Of course I've left out all the technicalities because it is quite involved behind the scenes but in essence, that's what you're doing. When just one person requests data from the server (the computer that is going to give you the data), no problem. The server can devote almost all of its resources to serving you. That's not going to happen in reality though is it. Much more likely is that you and hundreds of others will all be asking for all sorts of data from the server more or less concurrently. With modern kit, and today's demand, that's usually fine. However if there was a sudden increase in demand, very quickly the servers would hit the limits of their physical capability. It is typical for a web server to have a 1Gb network card connecting it to the rest of the world. (1 gigabit = about 1000 megabits - 4 megabits is a typical home broadband connection). Lets say 100 end users all with about 4Mb broadband hit the server at once (and we'll assume for a moment that the server has infinite resources apart from its network card). That means that the server will be serving about 400Mb per second, less than half its capability. Now lets say that our 100 concurrent users becomes 200. Now the server is approaching its physical limit. Still theoretically fine, except for one point. The network protocols the internet runs on are designed to ensure that your data gets through, even if it has to be retransmitted because an error was detected. Now lets say we start getting a few transmission errors simply due to the high load on the server. Then we have 800Mb (80% of the server's max speed) plus our retransmissions. Then we start to get a problem. Running at close to 100%, a brief unexpected delay on the wire (happens all the time on the internet), and suddenly the server has a backlog of data waiting to be transmitted. Pumping out the data as fast as it can, more transmission errors occur, and so more retransmissions are scheduled onto the ever growing queue. Meanwhile the server is logging all these glitches, and tying up memory holding onto data that can't be released yet because its still on the queue. Next thing you know, server is down.

We've all heard of servers crashing due to unexpected high demand. That's what happens. Its only occasional at the moment because the technology can more than cope with typical demand, but double or triple that demand and internet outages will become routine. Of course that will change as older servers are gradually replaced with newer higher spec ones, but nobody is going to throw away thousands of pounds worth of perfectly good kit until it becomes economically essential to do so.