David McManus says it’s only a matter of time until everything is online

There was a time not so long ago when it was being predicted that all television would eventually be broadcast not over the traditional airwaves, but rather over the Internet. These glimpses of the future were made in an era that pre-dated digital television and home broadband speeds of sufficient velocity to stream decent quality video.

Since then we have had the famed ‘digital revolution’ and the switching off of the old analogue television signal.

We have also seen broadband connections reach dizzying heights that could only have been dreamed of at the time and, yes, we have seen a sizeable chunk of television delivered over the Internet, the prime example being the BBC iPlayer.

How many of us barely even bother with home recording hardware any more? It may be easier than ever to set the digibox to record an entire series of Downton Abbey with barely three clicks of the remote control, but when you can rely on catch-up services, why bother? The likes of Netflix, AppleTV and Amazon Instant Video give us even more choices, however poor many of those choices may be (who would want to pay £5 to watch a movie that is shown on ITV4 every other week?). Still, those options are there if we want to take them and all are delivered over the Internet, even if that fact is easily forgotten when they appear to be little more than an extra channel on your Smart TV.

Last year the BBC brought in measures seeking to slash its budget and announced a number of cancellations and changes designed to save big bucks.

Some cost-cutting ideas like the proposed scrapping of Radio 6 Music were quickly reversed after howls of protest from a loyal audience, but others were pushed through.

One such budget-slashing exercise was the plan to move popular TV channel BBC3 off the standard digital television airwaves and on to the Internet. Coupled with some changes in the channel’s programming (Auntie Beeb would no longer shell out to show Family Guy, for example) This proposal made it clear that streaming content over the unlimited online space was considerably cheaper for a television network than paying the licence to broadcast via the limited spectrum of the tradition airwaves.

Surely, this would act as a signal for others to follow suit. BBC3’s online-only switch to iPlayer was due to take place this year The channel would dematerialise from a standard channel hop and emerge relatively unscathed in a unique corner of the iPlayer.

but last week the BBC postponed declared the move would not be happening this year, postponing it until 2016.

Could this be an indication that the corporation’s feet got cold and some top brass in the nation’s broadcaster decided the money could be found to keep the channel on ‘normal’ television after all?

It seems unlikely given the aforementioned huge cost savings of moving to an online only model. Those who enjoy BBC3’s output had still better ready themselves for the switch even if it will now be slightly delayed.

We cannot be that many years away from a world where all digital content is sent exclusively over the Internet; landlines and smartphones, radio and television, every bit of data that needs to go from one place to another can all share a common medium and be interconnected to each other with no need for alternative delivery methods.

Once we have a super fast, reliable mobile network that matches our home broadband, this will be feasible and ultimately desirable for its simplicity.

Then the Internet really will be everywhere for everything.