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A world of immense possibilities opens with Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). Possibilities for the service provider who's ARPUs from traditional voice services are dwindling. Here, IPTV provides a consumer offering with great margins and innovative and revenue generating services. There are possibilities for consumers who want better content and services, and more control on what to see. It is a win-win situation for both of them. "IPTV is fast catching up around the world.

IPTV is seen as the next step in the entertainment industry since it technically offers a superior platform for introducing services like Triple Play viz Data, Voice and Video" says Rajeev Mehtani, vice president and managing director, NXP Semiconductors India.

Thus, the hype around IPTV is not without a reason. Its popularity has grown significantly worldwide. AT&T and Verizon have launched it in the US, and a number of service providers including BT and Swisscom have launched IPTV services across Europe. In the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong is already a mature market with PCCW as the world's largest IPTV provider. It is also deployed in China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

Demand for IPTV is expected to grow significantly in the Asia Pacific region. According to Frost and Sullivan, IPTV subscribers in this region are expected to reach 27.4 mn by 2013 with China and India being the high growth markets. On one hand, the Indian services providers have done pilot projects and launched IPTV services in a limited manner and on the other hand, under the aegis of the telecom policy, the government has recently announced that IPTV services would be rolled out in 20 cities during 2007. All in all, there is an immense push for IPTV services in India.

Slow and Steady
IPTV services have been launched in India but in a very limited manner. Most of the roll outs have been happening on DSL network and some on metro Ethernet which is now being rolled out, as people are moving towards Ethernet based access infrastructure to the customers place. According to Prasad Babu, director, Systems Engineering and Operations, India Juniper Networks, "The general trend is to just go by the IPTV roll out with respect to being able to offer the channels that are being provided by cable and other operators. There is nothing very specific related to content that has differentiated it. It is more of testing the waters with standard vanilla offering"

Whereas globally, most of the SPs have a strategy behind IPTV services and have tasted success like PCCW-the world's largest IPTV service provider that operates in Hong Kong. PCCW offers flexible channel bundles where, primarily, a customer can choose even one channel and can add to it later. They are very flexible with respect to offering services and have also tied up for exclusive popular content, which is available only through IPTV, there by channeling the viewers' interest towards IPTV.

Technologically, service providers are moving towards MPEG4 kind of technologies where the bandwidth requirements for each channel are very limited. Multicast optimized architectures are being rolled out where replication of channels is done closest to the subscriber and subscribers are given only the channels they want. So the bandwidth requirement for multicast delivery is decreasing and the service provider doesn't have to worry about making a large access infrastructure, and reduce capex and opex as the replication happens in the last mile.

In India, MTNL was the first to launch its IPTV services under the name of Triband in November 2006 in Delhi and Mumbai. AK Arora, executive director, MTNL says, "We have four services IPTV, VOD, time shift and video calling. Presently, we have 22 channels but by March end, we will have 70 channels. We have good broadband network and will have our own CDN network.Next year, to start with, we plan to get 50,000 connections." The launch was followed by a fierce regulatory war as TRAI declared it illegal, finally clearing it as a value added service in MTNL's broadband network. Despite the great anticipation in the air for IPTV, the uptake has been low. KS Choudhari, MD, Aksh Group says, " We started with less number of channels, as we wanted to check out MTNL networks and as of now, there are no problems. By March, we will increase the number of channels, then the uptake is bound to be more."

After its trials in August 2006, another public player, BSNL, launched its multi play services offering IPTV and video-on-demand to its broadband customers. It also plans to launch it in Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta and Hyderabad in the next 3-6 months. Private operators such as Bharti Airtel and RCoVL are also ironing out their IPTV plans and are expected to launch these services soon. The question still remains, what will make it tick?

As an old saying goes "Consumers do not watch TV, but they watch content". Having very good content is the first step to attracting the consumers to one service. Apart from the content, the choices of services or "Killer applications" determine the "Next Experience" for the consumer. TV channels, VoD, music on demand, karaoke, Internet on TV, voice/video conferencing, program guides, greetings, and home to home chat are a few applications that can be made available as part of IPTV services, in addition to the existing data and voice based applications. Choudhari says,

"Broadcasting will be the key driver and once it reaches home, time shift is compelling. VoD, video conferencing and interactive TV will be the applications that will popularize IPTV". T-commerce (television commerce) is something the end users are not comfortable with, but soon there will be a great surge in this area due to direct advertising in IPTV. User generated content is something that will be crucial in increasing uptake of IPTV. Once we bring fibre to home, the whole story will change as we will be able to give the user a good return path, and there will be a boom in user generated content.

Chandan Mendiratta, principal consultant, Cisco Systems says, "Services on top of plain vanilla services will drive IPTV adoption in the country along with bundled services, such as a full suit of services from the service provider." Quality, VoD, interactive TV and other fancy features will be instrumental in popularizing it among the consumers. Interactive TV is also going to be introduced with IPTV and this becomes more feasible than cable and DTH. "IPTV will not be driven alone but with the services on top of it. Otherwise, it will not add to the ARPUs but just increase competition," says Prasad Babu, director, Systems Engineering and Operations, India, Juniper Networks.

With respect to enterprises, all these services can be used in campuses for employee recreation and communication. IPTV services/applications can also be used as a productivity tool viz desk-to-desk video/voice/text chatting, multi-site video conferencing and reviews. Choudhari says, "20% of our customers will be enterprise and they will watch the channels, and will be able to do video conferencing which will be the major driver."