Technical challenges make IPTV progress difficult

The lack of standardization plus the existence of complex network structures which includes backbone, access and last mile network increases the points of failure for IPTV services says Srinivas Rao, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Broadband & Telephone Services.

In an interaction with Idhries Ahmad of CIOL, Srinivas Rao sheds light on Airtel IPTV plans and the challenges in deploying IPTV.

CIOL: How is Bharti Airtel moving in the IPTV space and how do you see other major telco moving in the space ?

See, today India has 110 million plus TV households with 60 million plus Cable TV homes. India is the world’s third largest TV market with a projected 18% YoY growth for the next 5 Years.

Most Telcos are busy building up the network to deliver IPTV services, already convinced of the value that IPTV brings alongwith it. MTNL and BSNL have launched the service in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune with a low take up rate on account of limited content availability with them. There is interest being shown by Reliance and Tata-VSNL however, most of the operators are in trial mode.

We are currently conducting a trial with IPTV in Gurgaon to check the technology and customer experience and will be ready to launch soon.

CIOL: India if compared to other countries seems to be slow in waking to IPTV. What challenges do you see for Indian telcos in India when it comes to the final rol out of the IPTV services?



If we talk from the global perspective, several issues are proving to be a challenge in the growth of IPTV deployments:

The lack of standardization plus the existence of existence of complex network structures where you have Backbone Networks, Access Networks, Last Mile Network and Internal House Wiring. This increases the points of failure.

Also the existence of too many network elements to offer the service such as backbone Access Routers, IPTV Headend, Middleware, DSLAMs, DSL Routers, STB which makes the service delivery very complex in nature.

The lack of media knowledge amongst the Telcos coupled with  the challenge to make available right content and its management especially from the perspective of piracy is acting as a impediment in the roll out of IPTV services also an issue.

In India, though the Indian telecom industry has leapfrogged from analogue wire-line to GSM-CDMA wireless duo and witnessed a huge wireless growth, wire line growth has seen a slowing down leading to a situation where the number of cable homes are more than homes with Fixed Phones.

Currently, the majority of the 48 million plus copper-wired homes in the country are owned by the incumbent operators BSNL/MTNL. The BSNL/MTNL deployed network asks for huge refurbishing of its copper lines, in a way asking for large investment and deployment.

Other than that regulatory challenges from the DoT/TRAI and Ministry of I&B and the limited copper roll-out by the service providers, where most of the copper roll out is by MTNL/BSNL and there is no Local Loop Unbundling (LLU)

Content procurement challenges and lack of a professional content aggregator is and will be a big issue for the roll out

CIOL: How do you see IPTV enhance consumers TV viewing experience

The suite of services and applications within the concept of IPTV is widening in accordance with the network capacity of operators and the solutions offered by vendors.

Typical service enhancements enabled are on-screen programming information, channel selection and navigation.

The two-way communication capability given by a Broadband connection allows for true interactivity between the subscriber and the network, while the point-to-point connectivity makes it possible for each viewer to watch individual broadcasting, such as video on demand.

Interactive services may include gaming, on-screen prompts related to other programs matching the viewer's behavior, accessing on-line content complementary to the program watched, and so forth.

TV-centric telephony and communications related services are being proposed which include:

•        Instant messaging within a group of users, enabled by the use of present information

•        Voice over IP channel to communicate with other viewers within a defined group of people

•        E-mail capabilities over television

•        Caller ID on the TV screen which allows the viewer to decide whether to take a call without needing to reach for the phone

•        Video telephony enabling video telecommunication among the subscribers. This application can also be viewed as a video conferencing

How do you see the deployments with respect to IPTV globally

Though most Telcos are attempting to manage their business by themselves without any content partner, it makes perfect sense to have a content partner to garner an edge. Once the content partner is in place, it is only the delivery of content using any of the various mediums on wire-line and wireless.

In fact, the content acquisition model should move around the availability of entertainment delivery platforms, the real estate on which can vary from Mobile handsets to owning multiplex chains. Most of the successful IPTV operators across the globe be it PCCW, France Telecom, Belgacom, Fastweb and others have thrived on the exclusive premier content strategy to reap benefits.

It also makes sense to have  integrated content strategy to target distribution rights which can cater to multiple platforms like Broadband ,3G, Internet portals and of course, IPTV.

CIOL PCCW Hongkong, France Telecom, FastWeb Italy, Belgacom Belgium, BT UK, Deutsche Telecom Germany, China Netcom are some of the operators who have launched the service internationally. PCCW is the leading IPTV operator with more than 800,000 subscribers followed by France Telecom.

There are some operators who are undertaking trials of this service such as Singtel in Singapore, Telekom Malaysia, Airtel in India and Korea Telecom (KT) in Korea.

Which areas do you see IPTV getting traction in the market

CIOL: The future of IPTV is very promising as this is the only service which provides interactivity to the customers. Also it provides an opportunity to offer value added services such as Ticketing, Internet on TV, Video Conferencing etc which is not feasible on the competing technology DTH and Cable.

The cable operators are strongly positioned with the last mile access (though overhead at most places). In-fact a significant percentage of Local Cable Operators (LCOs) have invested in building a Fiber-Ethernet network for internet access. On the flip side, cable operators face a serious image issue, they are fragmented and lack technical expertise to pull up its product.