Amit Khanna and Reliance Infocoms' IPTV Plans

Reliance Infocomm Chairman Amit Khanna has predicted that there would be fifty-five million broadband homes in India by 2008. In an interview for iptv-news Mr. Khanna expanded further on his view of the developing IPTV market.

Q. What is the current position of the IPTV market in India?

A. Reliance Infocomm is currently at the stage of rolling out the fibre for the broadband service that will be IPTV driven, and there will be a commercial launch later in 2005. Going forward, I personally believe that in the next ten years or so IP networks are going to be the de facto standard as legacy networks die out. And as the technology evolves, IPTV is definitely here to stay, and set to expand quite rapidly. Obviously there are challenges, both in terms of deployment, and more significantly of consumer comprehension, leading on to consumer acquisition and then retention.

Q. What timescales are involved in the development of IPTV technology?

A. We’ve seen that in a global environment several technologies co-exist for several decades. I think for the next ten years you will have all kinds of access technology that will co-exist but slowly I think that more and more networks and broadcasters and big content providers will start moving towards what they believe is the future, and currently that seems to be IPTV.

Q. Do you think that the nature of content provision will change as the IPTV market grows?

A. What will be the key differentiator for IPTV is still not clear. Whether it’s merely on demand content that will drive it, or if as time goes by people will start looking at the technology and evolving new content for IPTV.

These are early days but I believe that IPTV content is going to be more participatory and more immersive, more segmented and customised. The way that content is actually produced will certainly change.

Q. How important is local content to the Indian market?

A. India itself is a very diverse market, so you will have all the international content that will ride alongside a lot of local content. Obviously the local content that we have always pre-dominates.

We have a rich tradition of production of both film and television, and the Reliance Media channel has a loyal following. We will also continue to look at alliances with major distributors and providers for content provision.

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