Video quality is main reason for IPTV churn, MRG study discovers

February 26, 2008 - A survey conducted by Multimedia Research Group, Inc. (MRG) - and commissioned by IP video quality assurance vendor Symmetricom, Inc - suggests video quality is critical to the growth and success of IPTV, significantly affecting customer support calls and customer churn. The survey was limited in scope (IPTV executives from 12 North American Tier One and Tier Two telcos) but, if representative of the IPTV sector as a whole, it suggests a lack of proactive quality control, since most (90%) of the respondents were notified about service quality problems from subscriber calls.

The sample North American IPTV representatives suggested that an end-to-end solution is required to monitor and understand quality issues occurring at the headend, access networks and the home - where the majority of video quality problems can occur.

The Symmetricom commissioned study was carried out in December via written questionnaires and follow-up calls. The findings include:

* 84% of those sampled reported video quality monitoring as critical or a very important part of their video initiative
* Over 90% of respondents were notified about service quality problems from subscriber calls
* 77% say video quality is a main reason for customer churn
* The top three video quality issues are video freeze, macroblocking and video blackout
* Over 72% of all problems come from access and home networks
* 77% of existing video quality monitoring solutions are not an accurate measure of end-user quality, and 78% are not end-to-end

Symmetricom describes itself as a worldwide leader in precise time and frequency products and services and its QoE (Quality of Experience) Assurance Division provides perceptual video quality monitoring and diagnostic solutions for cable operators, telcos and other content service providers dealing in IP-based video.

President and Principal Analyst of MRG, Gary Schultz, comments: "Service providers understand the importance of video quality to their bottom line, yet feel they do not currently have the right solution for monitoring and managing video quality from the content ingest point at the headend to the customer premises equipment (CPE) in the home. This Symmetricom study strongly suggests that video quality is top-of-mind with IPTV service providers and a main driver for telco customer churn."

David Cox, Symmetricom's EVP GM of the Quality of Experience (QoE) Assurance Division adds: “Service providers need a true end-to-end solution for monitoring IPTV services to deliver a high quality video experience to their customers. The demand for high-definition TV programming is exploding, raising the video quality bar by consumers as they become dissatisfied with anything less than an HD experience. 
“Service providers need to implement a comprehensive perceptual video quality monitoring solution that can ensure they meet their customers' expectations, or risk losing some customers."