IPTV: More Than an Acronym Du Jour

By David Sonnier, Agere Systems -- Electronic News, 8/31/2005

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) has blasted onto the communications industry’s radar screen during the past year. The technology has emerged as a viable killer application for finally bringing more entertaining, more affordable, and more secure broadband services to homes and businesses over traditional telephone copper wires.

You may be skeptical about yet another technology with a four-letter acronym. Rid yourself of such a mindset. IPTV is not, I emphasize, another one of the communication industry’s cryptic acronyms designed to confuse and amuse and be ultimately forgotten. This acronym really has substantial relevance for you and me.

Here's why:

· At a high level, IPTV is conceptually like overlaying and blending the Internet and all its wireline and wireless capabilities and technologies with those of a TV set -- all on a single, high-speed, copper-based network.
· The IPTV vision centers on offering a more exciting, more secure, and simpler entertainment experience than available and proposed alternatives.
· IPTV differs from said alternatives because it consolidates the information onto one pipe and one network, whereas alternatives typically require separate pipes and networks to cart voice, data, and video signals.

One key technology accelerating momentum of IPTV deployment is traffic management. As functionality embedded within network processor chips, traffic management classifies, organizes, and prioritizes voice, data and video signals traveling on the network. This helps keep the TV signals clear and deliver information rapidly, without noticeable delays, and in an intelligent fashion, while coordinating other demands on the network, such as voice and data.

Another key enabling technology is Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) 2+ technology, which pumps signals up to approximately 24 megabits downstream and three megabits. Both ADSL 2+ and traffic management are viable, commercially available technologies that make IPTV more affordable and beneficial in multiple ways for consumer and business end-users, as well as telecom service providers and equipment manufacturers.

The benefits of IPTV are numerous. Suppose you love to watch March Madness, the annual college basketball tourney held every spring. Using IPTV technology offered by your phone company, you could get multiple benefits you can’t get now. You could receive on your TV any one of the dozens of March Madness basketball games, rather than just the one offered locally by a major broadcast network affiliate.

Simultaneously, you can access not just the game but also information related to it, such as individual player statistics. At the same time, you could watch another game on a smaller screen super imposed on your TV and access data about that game as well.

While all this is going, others in the household could be using the telephone or accessing the Internet via a laptop or PC at the same time – all on a single pipe and network. Previously, the three groups would have had to use three different networks, including three different sets of wires, to use these technologies. Thus there is less clutter, inconvenience, waste of time, and higher expenses.

Other uses enabled by IPTV include:

· Send photos of home movies from your PC directly into the TV and view them on the TV screen
· View photos and listen to music via the TV
· Send an email message to your friends through the TV screen while you watch a TV show together across great distances
· Use a cell phone to change channels on your TV
· Allows service providers to deliver only those channels the consumer wants at a given time, rather than all the channels available as happens with today’s cable TV networks.
· Access specific TV channels you want to watch when you want to watch them; as well as access more different TV channels.
· Receive brief and unobtrusive telephone network caller ID information on your TV screen while still watching TV, to decide whether you want to answer the phone or not; this would enable you to screen telemarketers, among other things.
· Play video games using your TV set rather than your computer
· Reduce the number of remote controls in your house for use with the TV, VCR, and DVD player, thereby reducing home electronics costs and clutter and simplifying the experience using such equipment.

From a telephone company competitive standpoint, IPTV is one of the key strategic weapons to battle cable TV companies in delivering broadband services to peoples’ homes and businesses. Cable TV companies already have TV and Internet services transporting to such customers; and they are starting to offer voice services. Telecom service providers offer voice and Internet but lag behind cable TV companies in video offerings. IPTV helps them fill that missing piece to the puzzle, accelerating them forward with an affordable and competitively attractive set of offerings. There are an estimated 5 million IPTV network set-top boxes in trials or early deployments already.

Essentially the IPTV market is generally in the trial stage throughout the world. Experts predict this technology could be widely deployed around the world within two-to-four years. Worldwide, the IPTV market is expected to quadruple during the next two years alone. It is gaining particularly fast momentum these days in the international arena, particularly in the Asia/Pacific region. The number of IPTV subscribers in Asia alone is expected to double during the next year, according to the Gartner Group’s March 2005 study.

China, meanwhile, a hotbed for all sorts of large-scale broadband telecom business, ranks among the world leaders in IPTV progress. It is estimated that China has already announced plans to have 1 million IPTV subscribers by the end of this year. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong are also out in front using this technology.

Although it lags Asia and Europe and IPTV deployment, the U.S. has serious initiatives underway as well. BellSouth is working with Microsoft to deliver IPTV services this year. The telecom company is also working on technical IPTV trials.

So be assured that IPTV isn't one of those four-letter acronyms this industry chews up and spits out. This technology is real, and is bound to make some important things happen in our lives, and soon.