Australia takes major leap towards a Televisionary future

By Kursten Leins, Ericsson Strategic Marketing Manager

With the launch of the ABC’s internet TV service iView this week, Australians across the country are now able to experience a truly anytime, anywhere, on-demand television service.  The ABC should be applauded for bringing the benefits of these new telecom technologies to the wider market.

Changing user behaviour, combined with digital content and the availability of broadband everywhere – both wireless and wireline - is re-shaping the way we consume video and television services.  This will have a major impact on our industry.

But internet TV is only the beginning.  The challenge remains today for viewers to connect their PCs to their television, whilst at the same time ensuring a broadband connection is maintained.  Today, most people don’t have a broadband connection and a PC sitting next to their television. 

Internet TV is also known as “best effort” TV, because there is no guarantee from the internet service provider that the maximum line speed (eg 2Mbps) will always be available, resulting in image freezing & degradation for video services. 

IPTV, on the other hand, is a premium TV service over managed IP network, meaning that the underlying network infrastructure has been designed to cope with the demands of sustained high-throughput services such as video.

A key factor in the success of new TV services will be the availability of strong and compelling content. With iView, the ABC is clearly leveraging its great resources of home-grown content, but future providers will be mindful of the need to deliver attractive content for consumers. 

The imminent promise of a National Broadband Network delivering 12Mbps to every home will enable the delivery of high-quality, interactive and on-demand video services to all Australians via IPTV. 

Television providers are already positioning themselves for content delivery and interactivity via IP networks, as can be seen with the existing MyStar service from Austar, Foxtel’s recent launch of the IQ2 box, and Seven’s upcoming launch of TiVo, all equipped with an Ethernet port for future connection to IP-based networks.

With iView, Australians are getting a taste of what this amazing new world of TV will look like.
 

Ericsson is a founding member of the Open IPTV Forum, which will assist IPTV and internet TV services to become mass-market through standardisation.