Juniper explores IPTV opportunity in India

Priya Padmanabhan

BANGALORE: Spurred by the success of its two largest IPTV installations in Hong Kong and Italy, Juniper Networks is hoping to replicate this success in India as well.

Matt Kolon, CTO, APAC, Juniper Networks, who was in India last week told CyberMedia News that he was in talks with service providers in India. “Worldwide, there is a larger shift to next-generation networks. It is moving beyond the hype cycle and turning into reality in some countries. Indian service providers are now looking at Juniper not to have technology conversations but to look at the business proposition and revenue opportunities,” he said.

Simply put, IPTV refers to television services that are offered over broadband. Last year, in Hong Kong, the country’s largest telecom service provider PCCW deployed Juniper Networks solutions to enable IP-based video on demand (VoD) services’. Around 500,000 subscribers have signed up for the broadband TV service.

Besides Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan also have video services over broadband, with differing levels of penetration and success. Given the huge demand for entertainment in India, service providers are hoping that this could take off here as well.

“There is a good business case for this. But regulatory issues are a challenge and also what kind of local content can be offered to subscribers,” said Kolon.

Apart from TV and video, other value-added services like interactive games, ticketing,

PVCRs and gaming are some of the multiple applications that could be offered to customers.

“IPTV is the beginning of multi-play experience for customers. It can reflect individual nature of user’s desire and context. Service providers today are concerned about retaining a customer. They want to increase revenues from users. The primary way to do this is to offer choice and the most compelling way to do this is IPTV,” thinks Kolon.

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