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By Branko Collin

According to Emerce, a Dutch magazine for new media trends, consumers are very much interested in the concept of multi-play (Dutch), but barely purchase multi-play services (Dutch). Multi-play is the offering of multiple telecommunications services, such as tv, fast internet, telephone, and security, from a single vendor and as one package.

Although the magazine does not know why consumers won’t go for one-size-fits-all, it offers several possibilities for slow adoptation: consumers are weary of bad service based on past expectations (UPC has a horrible reputation as a cable provider), they enjoy choice, and although the concept promises a reduction of hassle, there is an initial threshold to be gotten over in the shape of moving all your services at once to one single provider and setting your devices up again.

Another reason may be that consumers are typically looking for companies that do one thing very well, rather than a lot of things so-so.

Nevertheless, the reason that multi-play is even possible is that more and more services are being put in a digital layer that is transported over a physical, analog layer. Stakeholders are represented both in the top and bottom layers, and are moving towards each other. Those in the top layer own IP and expertise, those in the bottom layer own the means to get actual bits from one place to another.

Three weeks ago, Doc Searls warned that the carriers want more power over the internet, and that this is spelling doom for the internet as we know it. Since citizens and consumers are barely involved in the decision making processes, there is a tendency for the amalgamate of business and law to move towards less choice, less freedom, and stricter copyrights.

Current multi-play providers are KPN and UPC in the Netherlands, Telecom Italia in Italy, and Freebox TV in France. SBC in the US and Swisscom in Switzerland have postponed their introduction of multi-play, according to the Emerce article, whereas Telstra in Australia has withdrawn its multi-play offering altogether.

 
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