Open IPTV standards needed to integrate NBN services

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 09:48

IT Industry - Strategy

According to Ericsson "IMS is the preferred way for telecom operators to realise the multimedia experience. The majority of telecom operators have chosen IMS as the way forward in realising multimedia. About 100 operators have already deployed IMS in the core, and about 30 have commercially launched."

According to Liens IMS is the only industry standard for managed TV offerings and multimedia interconnect, and will be the cornerstone in the next generation communication ecosystem.

Ericsson Australia has been promoting the potential for IPTV and related services over the NBN for some time. In September 2008 it produced, with IDC a white paper. A key finding was that "IPTV will be the killer application for broadband service providers in the new competitive environment of the proposed National Broadband Network [at that time the FTTC NBN mark 1]." Prior to that, in June 2008 it staged its Televisionary Roadshow to "showcase new technologies and services designed for the emerging television and video market..[and] share [our] vision for a future of personalised, interactive communication services available across all three screens: TV, PC and mobile."

Also in September 2008, Ericsson - which had acquired Tandberg Television in 2007 - at that time also released what it claimed was "the world's first IMS integrated IPTV middleware" saying that it "gives operators the flexibility and scalability they need to create, trial and deploy a personalised and interactive TV experience to their subscribers, as well as provide a complete TV package that includes interactive, mobile and on-demand functionality."

Shortly afterwards it announced "the world's first trial" of this technology with Portuguese triple play operator Sonaecom, cited this week by Leins along with Greek telco OTE as one Ericsson "reference sites" for the implementation of its integrated IPTV vision.

He told iTWire: "There are a number of vendors, Ericsson included that supply solution based on the Open IPTV Forum standard, and IMS is part of that. It enables independent access to content services, transaction delivery entertainment and importantly it allows you to combine other video content services with a high quality IPTV service." He added that the NBN would play a major role by providing the fat pipes "but it is IMS that bring it all together."

However Leins said it was still early days as the Open TV Forum's standards are in their infancy. "We have not seen a lot of deployments to date because the open IPTV standard that supports all this was only finalised last year, but there is certainly a lot of interest."

It was only in January this year that the Open IPTV Forum published the detailed system and protocol specifications – Release 1 IPTV Solution Specifications, proclaiming that "[The] Way [is] now open for widespread Use of IPTV." The Forum said it would begin work immediately on Release 2, which is scheduled for completion by the end of 2009, and will address the issues of interoperability testing and profiling.