HDTV with slow connections could spell doom for Virgin Media

Virgin Media’s big media blitz for 50Mb service and its USP of delivering high quality HDTV to its subscribers has been dealt a fresh blow today, with the launch of new software called HDi.

According to a report from the Telegraph, the technology is poised to allow consumers who “either cannot afford the highest speed broadband services, or those unable to subscribe to super-fast internet access because of the location of their home and their distance from a telephone exchange” to stream and download high-definition videos over the web.

Alki David, founder of video-streaming website FilmOn.com, who developed HDi, told the newspaper that it works by employing a compression technology that “squeezes the signal so it can be transmitted more quickly." The tech is currently in use by Mr David’s FilmOn service.

It strikes me that the big loser could be none other than Virgin Media. It’s hard to see how HDi will not hit demand for 50Mb service, one of the chief selling points of which was its capacity for delivering HDTV. Worryingly for the ISP, HDi is apparently being demonstrated to BT, the UK’s largest provider. Should therefore an exclusivity deal of some sort be signed between the two parties, Virgin Media's hopes that its faster service could prompt mass migration could be stymied in a stroke.

Doubling the agony for Virgin is that HDi’s launch follows sniping today that as more subscribers use its fibre optic network, the connection speeds it delivers will inevitably decline. This, in turn, followed a report from top internet iconoclasts the Reg that quoted CEO Neil Berkett as seeming to imply that the company was planning to target BitTorrent users. Given that gamers who legitimately use peer to peer sites and who might have expected to sign up for ping-free fast connections in spades will now be baulking at paying for as service that discriminates against them, this is an own goal of Lee Dixon proportions.

Virgin Media should be applauded for its willingness to invest in fibre optic technology capable of bringing of faster broadband to the UK. But it deserves little congratulations over how it has managed the launch of the 50Mb service. Where is now- departed media manipulator par excellance Richard Branson when they need him?