Jimmy Schaeffler

IPTV: Ready, Set NAB
April 4, 2007

Video carried over the Internet, a.k.a. IPTV. Just what is it? Is it a Holy Grail, a logical transition, or a lot of hype for nothing?

As the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters confab wends its way toward Las Vegas, one of the sessions likely to attract a goodly sum of curiosity seekers, and perhaps some answers to these questions, will be held early Tuesday morning, April 17. Entitled “IPTV: Market Outlook 2010,” this 90-minute roundtable will grapple with the subscribers, sages and insanity facing content and bandwidth being delivered to millions -- indeed scores of millions -- of potential future users. Adds the event description, “But is it right for everyone or everywhere?”

Four of six panelists from the “IPTV Super Session” were approached recently to offer these early answers and insights into their businesses. Specifically, they were asked how their businesses will change because of TV delivered via this new infrastructure known as Internet protocol. A fifth rep, Verizon’s Joe Ambeault, added visions to those provided by OpenTV CEO Alan Guggenheim; Qualcomm’s head of MediaFLO, Omar Javaid; AT&T IPTV VP Dan York; and SES Americom’s CEO, Ed Horowitz.

Consensus appears to suggest that IPTV isn’t necessarily a killer app in the sense most in the telecom biz describe. Rather, IPTV may indeed be a revolutionary new form of content delivery, taking the world closer to a long-held dream of the television industry: merging the Internet, computer and TV on to one single monitor.

In short, IPTV may well rival the future of traditional TV.

Ed Horowitz, head of Princeton, N.J.-headquartered satellite-services company SES Americom, notes, “IP video is synonymous with ‘transfer of control’ and ‘individual empowerment.’” In this vision, the technology of the Internet is shared with all forms of intellectual-property delivery: regardless of whether it is video, voice and or data. “Every distribution vehicle, from terrestrial broadcast, to telephone (wired and wireless), to satellite, and cable, is attempting to figure out how best to harness the power of IPTV. One thing is clear. The ability to fine-tune the delivered content to the pipe, to the screen, and to the navigation capability of the end IP consumer, is causing a reordering of the traditional business landscape. The winners will be those who recognize that shift in power and adjust their ‘go to market’ strategy accordingly. Those who wait face an uncertain future.”

Bringing an interactive element, OpenTV’s Alan Guggenheim opines, “Interactivity in a IP-connected world delivers the opportunity for traditional broadcasters, as well as one-way satellite and cable operators, to address and leverage the new world of community interconnected video and audio content.” In this world, users are no longer mere passive viewers, but people who become active participants, as well as active and loyal viewers. The NBC hit series, Heroes, is an excellent example of a broadcaster leveraging the connectivity of their target audience: Viewers are simultaneously connected to the both live TV and to the PC, and are engaged in interactive votes, polls, and fun facts that are synchronized between the show and the online presence. This concept can be taken further to include interactive elements via SMS and directly from a TV remote control. “The key element, however, becomes the ability of a single solution on the back end to collect the data from all elements of interactivity and turn that into useful information about the process and the audience,” he concludes.  

Critical IPTV players also include the old-time Bells, Verizon and AT&T, now morphed into new the “telco” providers of TV, Internet and voice via one big pipe and “the bundle” those services represent. Offers Verizon’s Joe Ambeault, “IPTV means something different for each of the content producers, engineers, advertisers, and most consumers don’t know what it means. It’s an outrageously overloaded term.” Verizon does not yet have a true IPTV deployment because it delivers broadcast over a radio-frequency overlay, via fiber. “The industry should call it RFTV instead of IPTV.” Verizon delivers its FiOS TV in parts of 10 states: California, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Virginia. Verizon states it will add Indiana and Rhode Island by mid year 2007. “IPTV allows us lower cost distribution. it lowers the barrier for new competition to enter, and means a quicker time to market.”

AT&T’s Dan York, from the other telco in the space, adds, “Our U-verse service will soon offer several hundred channels (more than two-dozen HDTV), and our VOD is going very well. Using IPTV to deliver is the platform for the future: dynamic, flexible, scaleable and it serves as the best tech for cross platform apps, content user control IPTV challenges.”

Nonetheless, York noted those concerns he and his telco brethren face in growing their IPTV service:

1. Getting staff and installers to understand video;
2. Getting consumers familiar with IPTV and the industry;
3. Offering quality vertical distribution all the way down to consumer;
4. Understanding and embracing IPTV’s benefits;
5. Securing content and getting cost structures to look more like a cable MSO’s;
6. Gaining scale quickly, especially in terms of more markets and more subscribers.

Posted by Jimmy Schaeffler on April 4, 2007 | Comments (0)