Telecoms takes on the IPTV challenge

IPTV has been acknowledged as a strategic priority by fixed-line operators across Europe for many years, but to date only a relatively small contingent of European operators have succeeded in offering viable IPTV services.
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There's no doubt that IPTV offers opportunities that operators cannot afford to miss.

For some commentators, however, IPTV represents much more than a way for operators to redress a downturn in revenues by offering a new set of standalone services. According to this worldview, traditional wireline operators have two choices: reinvention as a converged content and service provider; or reduction to a commodity supplier of the infrastructure – the pipes - that other companies will use to make the real money.

IPTV can serve as one of the cornerstones of IP-based entertainment-on-demand offerings that will not only allow operators to deliver high quality television services, but also deliver Video on Demand (VOD), Subscriber Video on Demand (SVOD), messaging, Internet access, music streaming and interactive gaming, all accessible through a single end-user device. These offerings can also be integrated with traditional communications services to deliver a variety of enhanced features, such as displaying phone-caller-ID on the television screen, and automatically pausing the VOD movie when the phone is answered.

Certainly, IPTV is still a market that has yet to achieve anything like its full potential. According to research by Screen Digest, European IPTV subscriptions should have almost doubled in 2007 to reach 5.6 million. Screen Digest also predicted that IPTV revenues would grow to over €1 billion from €470 million, with the U.K. contributing the fastest growth - a 250% increase (to 300,000 subscribers from 80,000).

However, since IPTV made its first appearance on operators' planning agendas, the market itself has undergone substantial change. There are more players from different sectors now competing for their share, increasingly with notable success. There is also a growing recognition that realising IPTV's true potential will require creative packaging and bundling with other communication services. All of which underlines the fact that operators have little time to lose if they want to make an impact on the IPTV market.

Operators already have many of the attributes needed to support an IPTV offering within their existing business and technology frameworks. They have robust and reliable network capabilities backed with experience in network management. They also have many systems and processes that support a customer-focused culture that will be of value in supporting an IPTV infrastructure. Looking longer term, the insight operators have into customer needs and expectations could fuel development of creative converged offerings and personalised content and services that are seen as defining the next evolutionary stage in IP-based services.