Executives of top cable operators from the US and Europe seem to have outdated or inaccurate perceptions of IPTV in many of the markets where IPTV represents emerging competition for them. Further, many believe that IPTV and Internet TV are synonymous, if presentations they made at C-COR’s Global IP Summit in Athens was any indication. One operator had heard rumours about a service provider “in Singapore,” referring to the half-million subscriber PCCW deployment in Hong Kong. Another said that HDTV could not be done over DSL, but a senior representative of France Telecom responded with references to Orange IPTV deployments in several European countries. Many others thought the term IPTV referred to the ‘over-the-top’ phenomenon, which is really about Internet TV. This is not to say that concerns don’t exist for IPTV. IPTV operators clearly understand that the latest cable switched digital video deployments deliver two or more high-definition television streams, which is not yet possible if using DSL.

Report: Steve Hawley