[becauseiam]

Maybe I am biased, but live TV is not going to die completely. News, sport, concerts, lotto results, and other timely things will continue to have demand. IP is a terribly broken and inefficient medium to deliver this to the audience, and the internet as it stands today with what we deliver simply does not have the capacity to survive a "traditional TV switch off". Some broadcasters are testing with deploying onto 5G with various trials, but most appear to be doing an all IP operation, and handing over the controls of deployment from the incumbent transmission networks who charge on site/power and other performance metrics, to telcos who will probably charge both the broadcaster and the end user per packet, as well as introducing more middlemen (CDNs) to further create inefficiencies.

There's a lot to work out before Cringely's "utopian" 5G network to rule them all can actually exist.

[bdhess]

TV delivered over IP is not the same as TV delivered over the internet. When your ISP is the same entity as your TV carrier, the traffic doesn't have to travel over the internet. Comcast is already doing this with X1 and Verizon is already doing this with Fios.

[topranks]

Yeah exactly. Lots of cable TV networks are all-IP, using multicast to distribute the signal.

But the previous post is 100% correct in saying that “video over unicast on the internet” is massively inefficient compared to current broadcast techniques.

People want Netflix-style video on demand though. Outside live news & sports that will kill broadcast TV.

[londons_explore]

What seems 'horribly inefficient' today is usually the future.

Sending cartoons as raster rather than vector data is also horribly inefficient, yet every TV network does it.

Sending music as MP3 is horribly inefficient compared to the original notes in midi form, yet everyone does it.

Taking a photograph of your electric meter rather than writing down the number is millions of times more wasteful of space, yet people do it.

[muraiki]

> Sending music as MP3 is horribly inefficient compared to the original notes in midi form, yet everyone does it.

If you've ever played an instrument that isn't a bad synthesizer, you'll know why everyone does this.

[nomayo]

5G standard includes FeMBMS specification, which provides broadcast delivery. TV and Radio can be delivered with in efficient way without eating the normal IP delivery bandwidth.