Could YouTube crash the Net?
New Internet TV services such as YouTube and Joost may bring the global network to its knees, Internet companies said today, adding that they are already investing heavily just to keep data flowing.
Google Inc., which acquired online video-sharing site YouTube last year, said the Internet was not designed for TV. It even issued a warning to companies that think they can start distributing mainstream TV shows and movies on a global scale at broadcast quality over the public Internet.
“The Web infrastructure, and even Google’s [infrastructure], doesn’t scale. It’s not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect,” Vincent Dureau, Google’s head of TV technology, said at the Cable Europe Congress. The company instead offered to work with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks’ high-quality delivery of shows.
One cable chief executive, Duco Sickinghe from Belgian operator Telenet Group Holding NV, said it was “the best news of the day” to hear that Google could not scale for video.
Google was welcomed with a mix of fear and awe by the cable TV companies, which are concerned that Web companies will try to steal their lucrative TV business. The Internet on the whole is a mixed blessing, cable carriers said.