The jewel in the crown

Interview with Stéfane France, Director of International Television for Orange
To launch and maintain a successful IPTV service in today's cutthroat pay-TV markets is no mean feat. To become the world's most successful IPTV operator, with operations across a swathe of Europe and beyond now totalling 1.535mn subs (including becoming a part of the family for 1.389mn French households) since the launch of Orange TV in 2003, is nothing short of brilliance. France is recognised globally as the engine-room of IPTV in Europe, and it is the country's former incumbent which plays a star role. ...read more

ISPs - up to the IPTV challenge?

By Paul Hague, Managing Director, BiBC
IP and Internet TV is increasing in penetration at a truly rapid pace. Ever since YouTube began to reveal just some of the potential of the Internet medium, a race has ensued to create what will inevitably become the future of visual content provision. In all certainty all of us working in the exciting online and IPTV (next-gen TV) space are working toward what is the death knell of traditional ‘broadcast’ television. Whether complete convergence finally happens, as has been long predicted, or we end up using a hybrid computer/TV device to sort through the databases of shows as we desire, things are changing and they’re changing fast. ...read more

Building a new business model for television – how telcos can succeed with IPTV

By John Reister, Chief Architect, BigBand Networks
These are exciting times for IPTV. Research firm Infonetics projects that IPTV subscribers will grow to 53.7mn worldwide by 2009 and generate US$38bn in revenues for service providers. Investments by telcos in the necessary equipment are also expected to grow significantly. Infonetics, a market research firm, predicts that IPTV equipment sales will increase from $371mn to $6.8bn between 2005 and 2009. ...read more

The need for live monitoring for IPTV deployments

By Kaynam Hedayat, Senior Director of Product Development, EXFO Service Assurance
Rolling out IPTV is an expensive and extremely complex proposition. Broadcast and on-demand video services are new territory for telecommunications service providers, and there are a number of technical challenges involved, including building a new service delivery network that can handle the increased bandwidth needs of IPTV, re-engineering the core network to support video services, and adding new technologies for video content management, distribution, and billing. ...read more

How user-focused innovation can accelerate mass adoption of IPTV

When it comes to mass market consumerism there are four products that chart modern life; the car, the mobile phone, the PC and the television. Each, to varying extents, is experiencing levels of convergence, especially from the pull generated by the broadening distribution of digital content. So why, despite analyst predictions, have we yet to see the mass adoption of IPTV services? Gus Desbarats, Chairman of design consultancy TheAlloy, argues that the challenge originates from deep rooted misunderstanding of the user experience, an area better tackled by the design industry. ...read more