Originally Posted by JScott

Again, Fanocks, you have some great ACADEMIC ideas, but until you get out there and actually try some of these things you are suggesting, you won't realize that it's not as easy as saying, "First do this, then do that, and then wait for the huge multi-national firms to start handing you cash."

It's generally unclear from your posts whether you actually plan to do any of these things you suggest, so if you're really considering this idea, let me give some advice based on my knowledge of the industry and the players. First, I suggest you do some research into the technology (your statements above indicate that you don't really understand the technology), as building a half-decent product in this space will likely cost you millions in hardware, software and UI design. Second, do some research into the history of this market; it's been around for about 40 years, with most technology companies failing miserably because they too thought the service providers were weak.

A few examples:

Tivo -- backed by some of the biggest VCs in silicon valley -- has spent billions of dollars trying to capitalize on this business model, but has been near bankruptcy several times because they are at the mercy of the service providers (DirecTV, who dropped them, and Comcast, who is ripping them apart).

Bill Gates has spent 10 years and billions of dollars trying to own this space (with help from companies such as Alcatel, Cisco, IBM, Motorola, etc), but has failed at almost every turn because the service providers worldwide have chosen not to allow Microsoft to cater to their customers. Pretty much every telecom company in the world has had their broadcast television business threatened by MS, and most of them have just laughed and said, "I'm more powerful than you when it comes to my customers." (and they're right)

Larry Ellison tried to enter this marketplace back in the late 90's (by buying a company called Liberate Technologies), which quickly got squashed by Comcast when they tried to do exactly what you suggested (and like you suggested, Liberate had much better marketing and technology than Comcast at the time).

Every example I could come up with (and there are dozens) all lead to the same conclusion: the major service providers control the market, and if you try to gain access to their customers without their cooperation, you will lose. That's why none of the big companies I've mentioned above are even trying to take a competitive approach anymore.

Btw, most of these examples are in the US, where the telecoms are heavily regulated. In other parts of the world, large national/private owners control much of the broadcast infrastructure, making it even tougher to enter the marketplace without their cooperation.

I guess my point here is that if you can successful penetrate this market in any major country and with any major service provider, you don't really have to rely on the service provider your taking over to pay you off -- there will be multi-billion dollar companies from around the world lined up at your door to take your company off your hands for a very large sum of money.

Let us know how it goes!