Sezmi wants to take advantage of the national hatred of cable monopolies by offering a seemingly all-inclusive cut-the-cable TV solution. An interesting idea – geez, I’d love to tell Time-Warner where to put their ancient STB – but Sezmi has a black hole in the middle of its idea.
Basically, Sezmi gives you a TiVo-like set-top box with a 1 TB DVR and a bookshelf-speaker-sized antenna that receives both local and cable channels, including premium fare such as HBO and video-on-demand, via a combination of over-the-air and broadband, for a Wal-Mart-like price of $20 a month.
Sezmi sez it’s got around 10,000 customers in 10 cities and is building its portfolio of channels from 23 to nearly 50 by years’ end.
But to paraphrase Max Bialystock, in order for this scheme to work, you need a broadband internet connection. You could get DSL (barely faster than wireless 3G), but the only real high-speed option, unless you have AT&T U-verse or FiOS, is from – your local cable monopoly.
Which sort of puts us right back where we started.
