Hitting the target – how IPTV will transform the advertising experience

By John Reister, Chief IPTV Architect, BigBand Networks

The prospects look good for IPTV. Analyst firm Multimedia Research Group (MRG) projects that the number of subscribers worldwide will increase from 13.5 million in 2007 to 72.6 million in 2011, equivalent to a 40% compounded annual growth rate. Research company Infonetics estimates that IPTV will generate $38 billion in revenues for service providers by 2009.

“The true beauty of IPTV lies in its interactivity and easy expansion”  

Interview with Weijun Lee, VP of Network Architecture for ZTE USA

Mr. Weijun Lee is responsible for global technical marketing of ZTE's Core Network solutions including IPTV, Value-Added Services (VAS), and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Weijun has more than 15 years of extensive industry experience in Canada and USA in multiple areas of telecommunications including switching, wireless, optical, IP, VoIP, and network management in the functions of system design, software development, network planning, and business case analysis.  We spoke to him at the recent IPTV World Forum, held in London last March.

Slideshow from this year's IPTV World Forum

As part of our coverage of this year's IPTV World Forum, held in London's Olympia last month, we bring you some great pictures from the show conference, exhibition floor and the ceremony for the IPTV World Series Awards (with their proud winners).

Video roundtable - Television without borders

ipTV News Studio (part of ipTV News) and IPTV World Forum hosted a video debate discussion entitled "Television without borders" during the IPTV World Forum 2008, held in London last March.  The discussion centred upon the very real convergence-focused opportunities for television companies, including the services that can be launched, the business models that could support them and the technologies that will make them possible.

Operator close-up – Brasil Telecom

Brasil Telecom launched its Videon service in the capital Brasilia last October, following much speculation on the nature and scope of their project.  At present Videon is a video on demand service, due to regulatory barriers that prevent Brazil’s telcos from providing broadcast TV services, although the company has itself said that it is ready from a technical standpoint to launch broadcast services and roll out across a larger part of the country: the UTStarcom RollingStream solution selected reportedly has additional capacity available so that the telco can expand the service as and when required.  By Jamie Beach, Online Editor

Ireland’s first IPTV hotel sees benefit of VDA’s PowerTV

Case study

Sheraton Fota Island Hotel and Spa on the Fota Island resort in Cork Harbour is one of Ireland’s ultimate luxury destinations.  The landscape around the hotel is nothing short of stunning:  playing host to Ireland’s only wildlife resort means the tiny island looks like a National Geographic photo-feature.  Opened in 2006, the challenge for the resort owners, Fleming Construction, was to make sure everything in the hotel, run by Sheraton, was up to the five-star standards set by the landscape – including the hotel’s in-room technology.

“It’s not all about building bigger, better, faster network pumps”

Interview with Jim Wilkinson, SVP Sales for Edgeware

Jim has operated in the TV on-demand business for the past 12 years and has been involved with many significant projects throughout the industry. Prior to joining Edgeware, he occupied positions at nCUBE as VP Sales EMEA and as UK Managing Director for AT&T EasyLink, and has also held board positions in two other high profile companies in the computing sector.

Asian market “set to increase phenomenally over the coming years”

Interview with Michael Lantz, CEO, Accedo Broadband

Accedo Broadband is an aggregator and distributor of interactive applications and content, and offers a content portfolio compatible with most IP set-top boxes and broadband enabled consumer electronics devices on the market. Accedo supplies services via leading operators and service providers globally, either via the operator’s brand or via an Accedo-owned brand.  The company was founded in 2004 by entrepreneurs Michael Lantz and Fredrik Andersson, and has offices in Stockholm, London and San Francisco.

Harnessing the Internet to improve broadcast TV services

Amidst the headline themes for last week's IPTV World Forum 2008 there was an interesting undercurrent surrounding the convergence of Internet sourced video and applications and classic Pay TV walled garden environments (reports John Moulding).

IPTV World Forum 2008: technologies to help consumers find content

We already have hundreds of channels of digital TV and the private network long-tail is growing (reports John Moulding). The integration of online video services into the Pay TV walled garden environment could increase content choice further but there is a danger that consumers will be overwhelmed by the volumes of content and avoid on-demand libraries altogether, or at least keep using their current favourites - in which case a great opportunity to enhance their experience has been lost.