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The new TV experience
Telecom companies are looking at IPTV solutions to further grow their customer base and deliver a truly innovative and personalized cross platform experience, while offering consumers an answer to their wishes for content-on-demand and mobility.
July 30, 2008
IPTV may still be in its infancy with only a modest number of subscribers, but it is expected to turn into a mass-market service over the next few years. Multimedia Research Group (MRG) predicts there will be 72.6 million IPTV subscribers globally by 2011.
Alan Delaney, IPTV business development director at Ericsson says: “IPTV is about much more than traditional TV broadcasts over an IP network. It is about integrating media with communications services to deliver personalized, interactive television no matter where the viewer is.”
Ericsson's vision of personalized IPTV services is based on open standards and scalable technologies capable of delivering IPTV to many different devices over multiple networks.
IPTV offers consumers increased control and convenience over an increasingly personalized experience. Consumers not only decide what to watch, but can control when, where, by whom programs can be consumed. Content can also be tailored to the individual consumers’ preferences, ensuring they only receive information or advertisements relevant to their personal profile.
Nowadays, consumers are taking more of their entertainment and communications services through a single company with IPTV solutions increasingly being at the center of the home. This includes communications (wireless telephony, electronic messaging, instant messaging, intercom, and voice/video conferencing) and security (in-home monitoring, intrusion detection, and remote video surveillance). The network operators are looking to provide and manage increased value added offerings such as home-service applications, as Delaney explains.
In this convergent environment, subscribers will be able to log into their IPTV service to enjoy their personal experience. They will be able to see their IPTV buddies online and direct their friends to the channel they are watching, and then start to discuss the program via instant messaging, texts or voice calls. They will also be able to take their content with them, both in and around the home as well as on the move and at their friends’ house.
“When all content delivery involves IPTV, and all pay-TV providers are bundled-service providers, and when everyone is two-way enabled and interactive, new applications, the speed with which they can be deployed, and the cost of delivering them will set operators apart from their rivals,” Delaney says.
Nevertheless, for IPTV to become a mass-market service, operators must first consider the many applications and services that have yet to be invented and build platforms that are adaptable, because there is no template for IPTV.
“Beyond the current video-on-demand and television services, we are entering uncharted waters,” Delaney says.
