IPTV Info - Information nuggets from the IPTV realm

Mass customization is the key to IPTV

2008-05-30T17:29:00Z

IPTV Spread Could Be Slowed by Class Issues

Two of the nation's biggest phone companies, AT&T and Qwest, have recently suffered setbacks in obtaining the franchise agreements they need to roll out IPTV service in new markets. In both cases, lawmakers cited concerns that the companies intend to "cherry-pick," or offer IPTV to only the most affluent neighborhoods in town.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004476.html

Greater Choice and Value Drive the Demand for IPTV

Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the following markets: broadband, consumer services, IPTV, and residential CPE.

Current Information Age Combined with Mass Customization Drive Demand for IPTV. Mass customization enables IPTV subscribers to set preferences and choose from a menu of content to create a personal experience out of broadcast television. IPTV customization includes the ability to time-shift programs, have VCR functionality, watch multiple programs, and choose from on-demand content. This desire for customization, along with value pricing and competition among providers, is expected to spur the market for IPTV-based services. There is a significant demand for niche, older programming and educational programming.

http://www.tvover.net/2007/05/29/Greater+Choice+And+Value+Drive+The+Demand+For+IPTV.aspx

Sony Launching 80GB PS3 (in Korea) and IPTV Service

Whether it's in an attempt to counter the Xbox 360 Elite, or perhaps to make up for the shortcomings of their own 20GB PS3, Sony will indeed introduce an 80GB PS3 to the market...at least in Korea.

Unfortunately for Korea, the 80GB SKU is the only version being released; however, it will also serve as a launch platform for Sony’s new IPTV service on the system.

http://ps3.vggen.com/news/news.php?id=5101

BSNL to introduce IPTV in major cities

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will soon launch Internet Protocol Television services in cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata

BSNL is readying itself to expand the customer base for broadband activity and by June 2007, it expects to release 3.3 million connections of broadband in urban areas and two million-plus connections in the rural areas.

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=285525&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

IPTV Being described...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YifEg02gGIo

IPTV as the next big service opportunity

2008-03-23T13:21:00Z

The IPTV scene seems to be heating up with so many solution providers. Another wave of service offering that is gaining popularity is providing 'IPTV deployment and management' as a service. Just like the Infosyses and Wipros of today offering a platter of solutions (often from competing providers) a client could choose from, companies like Tech Mahindra are consolidating services from many IPTV solution providers and showcasing them for telecom companies to choose from. Take a look at this news piece:

Sun Micro, Tech Mahindra join hands for IPTV services

Sun and Tech Mahindra along with AMD will jointly set up a next generation IPTV lab at the Tech Mahindra facility in Pune.

Sun recently introduced the Sun Streaming System - the industry's first massively scalable and cost-effective video delivery platform for cable and telecom operators, which helps the latter increase subscriber revenues by offering new video-based services and personalised, unique video streams to each consumer, said a press release issued here.

Tech Mahindra's IPTV lab would feature solutions from an exclusive consortium of solution partners including Digisoft, Envivio, Harmonic, I-Make, Verimatrix and Mototech, and Sun's own Streaming System.

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/35891

IPTV Growth

2008-01-21T15:35:00Z

Euro consumers don't trust IP for TV

Public scepticism over the reliability of broadband and the internet could sink IPTV - unless European service providers can develop hybrid or blended services that deliver more than "just TV", and unless they wean themselves off competing solely on price and speed.

Juniper's latest survey covered Italy, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia - it had already studied France, Germany, and the UK.

http://www.theregister.com/2007/05/18/iptv_juniper_survey

Frost & Sullivan Commends Espial's Product Innovations and Market Growth in the IPTV Market

Frost & Sullivan selected Espial(R) IPTV as the recipient of the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for IPTV Entrepreneurial Company for its outstanding efforts and innovation to become a dominant participant in the IPTV market.

Espial experienced strong growth in 2006 and has now shipped over one million Evo(R) IPTV middleware subscriber licenses to service providers and partners. The Evo IPTV Service Platform includes Evo Client middleware and applications including Evo EPG, Evo VoD, Evo DVR, Evo Browser and Evo BML Browser, and the carrier-grade Evo Server. The company believes that IPTV is not just about emulating broadcast technology, but applying Internet rules to the TV viewing experience to provide a superior experience for subscribers and a service creation platform for operators.

The company allows service providers to build a strong subscriber "quality of experience" (QoE) through the use of interactive applications such as chat, games, personalized content and targeted advertising. Experiential features include fast scrolling and an intuitive program guide. Evo SkinTones(TM) UI technology enables service providers and customers to personalize the look and feel of the EPG.

About Espial IPTV (http://www.espial.com)

For more information, visit http://www.awards.frost.com or http://www.ict.frost.com.

http://www.tickertech.com/cgi/?a=news&ticker=a&w=&story=200705200705180745PR_NEWS_USPR_____AQF005

Motorola to acquire Modulus Video

Mobile motto marauder Motorola and the privately-held Modulus Video Inc. have just signed a definitive merger agreement through which Motorola will acquire Modulus. After buying companies like Broadbus, Kreatel, Tut Systems and Netopia, Motorola has turned its head towards Modulus because of their two year collaboration and more significantly because of Modulus' MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) compression systems that have been designed for delivery of high value video content in the IPTV, cable, broadcast and satellite marketplace.

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=14967&catid=6

IPTV Service Assurance Testing; IPTV Perfect Storm

2007-05-22T15:11:00Z

Alcatel-Lucent IPTV Ecosystem Findings Reinforce Spirent(R) Communications' Approach to IPTV Service Assurance

Spirent Communications plc SPM (LSE:SPT), a global provider of performance analysis and service assurance solutions, announced today that results from a white paper published by the Alcatel-Lucent on the IPTV Ecosystem for MSTV, support the company's unique testing and diagnostic solutions and the critical role they play in ensuring IPTV services and subscribers' quality of experience (QoE).

The white paper, titled "IPTV Test and Measurement Best Practices White Paper," identified the need to generate measurements that go beyond traditional network performance monitoring, such as jitter and loss, and to include video content analysis in order to ensure a superior IPTV subscriber QoE. According to the results, "due to added quality, optimizations in MSTV, generic standard measurements do not always produce an accurate reflection of video quality," Spirent's SmartSight solution is highlighted in the paper as the only ecosystem partner to demonstrate a comprehensive end-to-end remote testing and diagnostic capabilities. In addition, the white paper outlines the requirement for strategically placed probes within the network and states, "due to accuracy concerns or scalability concerns an operator should put equipment in the network specific to service assurance." Spirent's SmartSight is the only IPTV service assurance test system on the market today that enables remote diagnostics from the DSLAM to capture accurate subscriber experience data based on content analysis rather than just network performance indicators.

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=BW&Date=20070521&ID=6933168

Cable operators facing IPTV 'perfect storm'

"The integration of IP video services into cable TV infrastructure is the result of a convergence of market forces," said ABI Research vice president Stan Schatt.

"The main driver is the threat from the telecoms operators, whose IP network configurations are allowing them to offer more dynamic services.

"As well as moving to IP to counter this threat, the cable operators aim to up the ante by incorporating mobile voice into their bundled offerings as quickly as possible."

"The consequences for equipment vendors will be enormous. North American cable operators collectively spent more than $80bn on network upgrades in recent years, and they will now have to spend freely once more," said Schatt.

"The change to IP video affects not only core head-end equipment, but the set-top boxes found in every household served by cable. This is going to create a huge equipment turnover."

http://www.activehome.co.uk/vnunet/news/2190332/cable-operators-heading-iptv

AT&T Does IPTV

A 3 minute tutorial on how AT&T plans to deploy competitive cable television service using IPTV with VDSL over 40 year old copper wire. Then again, there may be a better route.

http://media.revver.com/qt/275324.mov

IPTV Catering to changing consumer demands.

2007-05-13T01:02:00Z

Product developments are increasingly being fueled by changes in consumer tastes. People are looking for more targeted and smart entertainment. TV consumers want more options to view whatever they want and at convenient times. Collaboration over TV seems to be the next big thing. These demands are propelling the industry to provide newer services, develop more advanced hardware and create innovative applications to serve the diverse needs of the consumers.

Given the Right IPTV Features, Consumers Will Make the Switch

According to a global research study conducted by Microsoft and research firm Screen Digest, more than 60 percent of consumers in seven benchmark developed countries would consider switching TV service providers to obtain the features and content they want, at current market prices or higher.

The study found that the consumer segments most likely to switch TV providers are those that are time-constrained, with 43 percent actually watching less TV than the average household. Although these TV watchers are satisfied with their TV experience, they are looking for ways to maximize the enjoyment of their TV time, prioritizing convenience and ease of use over price. This finding debunks two other generally accepted assumptions -- that consumers who view a great deal of television are more likely to demand new services and that the more dissatisfied consumers are with their TV experience, the more likely they are to switch services.

Driven by economic growth and broadband adoption, China and India have the highest percentage of high-potential IPTV households.

"Old assumptions about this new TV market will need to be turned upside down to effectively build the customer base," said Christine Heckart, general manager, marketing, Microsoft TV Division.

http://www.tvover.net/2007/05/10/Given+The+Right+IPTV+Features+Consumers+Will+Make+The+Switch.aspx

Research conducted by Screen Digest for Microsoft suggests that there is a target audience of around 230 million people that might consider buying into IPTV or another pay TV service in seven top TV countries, and the software giant reckons that 75 million of them say they would switch TV suppliers if they have the right features and channels, especially those features, such as the DVR, which help people get back control of viewing times in their busy lives.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/10/iptv-survey/

Babelgum: A Joost Competitor From Italy

Joost is not the only peer-to-peer, full-screen, Internet TV platform that is about to launch. Another European startup called Babelgum is working on the same concept, and is getting ready to open up its beta on May 31. Today, there are 4,000 active users in a closed beta, and 15,000 more on a waiting list.

Babelgum is founded and backed by Italian billionaire Silvio Scaglia, recently sold his his Italian ISP Fastweb for $5 billion to Swisscom

Using a hybrid of P2P and Internet server technologies, Babelgum says it can deliver long-form video over the Web at TV-quality. "The browser was never designed to do this," says CEO Erik Lumer

http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/2007/05/babelgum_a_joos.html

Bharti to launch set-top boxes for WiMAX, IPTV

Bharti TeleTech, part of Bharti Enterprises, is in the process of soon rolling out customer premise equipment (CPEs) and set-top boxes for Bharti’s WiMAX and IPTV services in near future.

Presently, the manufacturer of Beetel telephones is investing over Rs 10 crore in R&D of rolling out specific CPEs and set-top boxes for their services.

Talking of R&D, Pawan Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer said, “We are into R&D of developing CPEs for WiMAX and set-top boxes for IPTV. Although introduction of IPTV services in the country is still sometime away, we want to be ready as far as equipment are concerned. We have therefore already invested more than Rs 10 crore and will be doing so as and when it is required.”

http://www.business-standard.com/general/storypage_test.php?&autono=284119

Bill Gates and His Cloudy Crystal Ball

On television: "This is a subject I think about a lot, because it was actually about a little over 10 years ago that Microsoft first got involved in this idea of changing TV from being a simply broadcast medium to being a targeted medium (through its IPTV initiative). ... In order to have this be targeted, you cannot send it over the airwaves.

http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2007/05/09/bill_gates_and_his_cloudy_crystal_ball.php

The flexible IPTV

2007-05-09T23:06:00Z

IPTV is designed ground-up to scale and fit into a myriad of customer base requirements. Here we see an instance where IPTV service is designed to cater to a niche market audience group. Also, there are many biggies (IBM & Cisco) getting together to offer IPTV services in a massive scale. IBM even has a new division to cater to this business. And, we have a service that tests scalability of an IPTV setup...nice.

IPTV for deaf people takes off

A new web-based television service, or IPTV, for British Sign Language (BSL) users has recently launched in the UK.

VeeSee TV airs news and other programmes in BSL and is available 24 hours a day. VeeSee is the first dedicated channel for BSL users which also includes an interactive forum and user-generated content.

The service is part of ViewTV - a portal of 900 streaming channels.

"VeeSee is another example of how IPTV can cater for a market that traditional cable and satellite broadcasters have been unable to accommodate effectively," said ViewTV director Jamie Branson.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6613097.stm

MTNL fixed line connections rising on broadband, IPTV push

"The trend of surrendering the phones, which started in 2004, has been reversed. Two main initiatives -- broadband and IPTV have helped us retaining customers," Kuldip Singh, MTNL Director (Technical), told PTI.

http://www.thehindu.com/holnus/001200705080313.htm

AT&T Increases U-Verse Spending

AT&T tells the Wall Street Journal they may spend $1.4 billion more on U-Verse VDSL IPTV deployment than previously reported, while decreasing their overall deployment target by one million customers. AT&T says they hope to pass (not serve) 18 million subscribers by 2008 at a cost of $6.5 billion. The service currently passes 2.8 million homes but only has slightly more than 20,000 subscribers.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/83626

IBM to offer complete infrastructure solution for IPTV in EMEA

The solution will utilise Cisco’s IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture to deliver advanced video services. IBM will provide business consulting, technical consulting, implementation services and flexible financing services from IBM Global Financing while Cisco, together with Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, will deliver the next-generation IP and video infrastructure for the IPTV portion of the triple-play solution.

As a part of this solution, IBM is also announcing a new service product, IBM Converged Communications Services for IPTV infrastructure which delivers technical consulting, integration and implementation services. More specifically, IBM will perform the following:

* Solution definition workshop.
* Network consulting.
* Readiness assessment.
* Network design assessment.
* Network diagnostic assessment.
* Network integration and deployment.
* Digital video integration and deployment.
* Middleware and video-on-demand integration and deployment.

The IPTV infrastructure solution incorporates best-of-breed IBM hardware, software and services along with Cisco products to provide a complete solution, standard components include: IBM BladeCenter and xSeries Servers; software products from IBM WebSphere, Tivoli and Lotus brands; and Cisco end-to-end IP next-generation network (IP NGN) solutions. The new solution also leverages Linux technology.

The IBM IPTV infrastructure solution will be sold through IBM Global Technology Services and Cisco with general availability in most countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during 2Q 2007.

http://www.networktimes.co.za/news.aspx?pklNewsId=24642&pklIssueId=629&pklCategoryID=198

Sibir Telecom selects Orca for IPTV service in Russia

Orca Interactive’s IPTV middleware, RiGHTv, has been deployed by Open Technologies, a Russian system integrator of information services for Sibir Telecom, one of the largest telecommunication operators in Russia.

Utilizing Orca’s RiGHTv middleware as part of the end-to-end solution provided by system integrator Open Technologies, Sibir Telecom’s IPTV service includes broadcast television, electronic programming guide (EPG), radio channels, video on demand, network PVR

and time shifted TV. In the future, the services will be expanded to include interactive games and information services that will be integrated into the service using Orca’s Service Delivery Platform (SDP) architecture.

http://www.iptv-news.com/content/view/1081/64/

Kasenna, HP and Intel to complete 'one million subscriber' IPTV and Video-on-Demand service benchmark test

The test was conducted in a simulated access network environment at the HP Communications, Media and Entertainment (CME) Solution Center in Grenoble, France.

"Although scalability of VOD is crucial to the IPTV industry, objective benchmark testing has been missing. MRG congratulates Kasenna, HP and Intel for removing the veil of mystery about what it takes to scale IPTV to subscriber levels of one million while achieving fast channel change."

"For service providers struggling with IPTV roll-outs due to the poor scalability of their first-generation, pre-compiled application-based middleware and second-generation proprietary client/server middleware, this historic HP-Kasenna-Intel one-million-subscriber test using Kasenna's third-generation platform based on open, web-services-based Service Oriented Architecture is a harbinger of an IPTV infrastructure that scales gracefully from hundreds to over one million subscribers,"said Kumar Shah, CEO of Kasenna. "Together with HP and Intel, I want to invite carriers and service providers to witness this test and leverage the results of our rigorous and comprehensive testing efforts to deploy a proven, scalable and resilient IPTV infrastructure."

http://www.iptv-news.com/content/view/1061/64/

IPTV News

2007-05-07T18:28:00Z

Motorola study shows 45% of Europeans watch IPTV

According to a recent research study, nearly half of Europe is watching TV via the Internet in one fashion or another.

Some of what they state is quite interesting, such as their claim that nearly half of Europeans will be making video calls within the next 5 years.

http://www.techspot.com/news/25162-Motorola-study-shows-45-of-Europeans-watch-IPTV.html

More info on the research is here: http://www.techspot.com/news/25162-motorola-study-shows-45-of-europeans-watch-iptv.html

AT&T Expands U-verse IPTV in California

AT&T is offering its compelling IPTV package in Calif. Check out the link for offer details for TV as well as data.

http://www.tvover.net/2007/05/02/ATT+Expands+Uverse+IPTV+In+California.aspx

Airtel partners with UTStarcom for IPTV launch

The Company plans to offer 150 channels for its IPTV services in Delhi and NCR by the year-end

They are already conducting trials in around 100 households in Gurgaon and the technology support is being offered by UTStarcom

http://www.dqchannels.com/content/reselleralert/107050304.asp