TAG | IPTV a 'defensive necessity' for carriers? |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Monday, 02 June 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 The most successful rollout has taken place in Asia, where China's PCCW has actually managed to increase ARPU (average revenue per user - the telco industry's holy grail) through the introduction of IPTV. But that was achieved through the acquisition of exclusive rights to popular content such as soccer. The result has been that PCCW has almost equalled the market share of its cable TV rival i-cable. Walker also points out that where non-live content is concerned 'over the top' services (OTT; video services provided over the public Internet, as opposed to IPTV which is closely coupled to the provider's network) can also provide good video and audio quality. The thing is that people are only prepared to pay if they get high quality. They will forgive pixellation and dropouts from free services, but if they're paying for IPTV they expect it to be technically as good as broadcast or cable - and this can put greater demands on the network. But Victor Zhang, Asia Pacific marketing co-chair of the Metro Ethernet Forum says IPTV has the potential to deliver a superior experience to regular cable TV, for example in the form of HD content. So what's the catch? CONTINUED |
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