In another of our regular interviews with high-profile speakers confirmed to attend the IPTV World Forum in London this March, we speak to Benjamin Schwarz, Principal Consultant at UK-headquartered consultancy firm Farncombe Technology.

Mr. Schwarz, who works out of Farncombe Technology's Paris office, has previously spent eight years at Orange, managing technology development at Orange Labs and later heading up the launch of Orange TV in Spain, Poland, Mauritius and Senegal, as well as subsequently serving at Paris-based QoE specialists Witbe.  

He will be leading a pre-event IPTV Deployment Masterclass on Tuesday 24th March, covering practical lessons from the field and sharing his experiences in the epicentre of international IPTV roll-outs.

As the IPTV World Forum approaches once more, what major developments have you seen in the IPTV industry over the past 12 months?  Where do you see significant progress having been made?

BS: I'd say the top one that comes to mind on the technology side is retail set-top boxes, such as Fetch TV in the UK, which you can buy in the shops or over the Internet and which promises to deliver much the same thing as BT Vision, albeit over an unmanaged network.  Then on the delivery side, some of the Web TV mechanisms such as those offered by [US firm] Move Networks have made it - and will make it - onto the TV screen in 2009.

The Open IPTV forum has also made a lot of progress in the past 12 months, and in the US and France, at least, high-definition is no longer something of the future, but of the present.

What do you think are the major stumbling blocks being encountered worldwide as telcos develop their IPTV services?  Does content acquisition seem to be the defining obstacle?

Well one of the major issues is that high-definition content seems to be a terrible threat to DSL-based IPTV services - the challenge for a DSL operator is "what do I do while waiting for a fibre network?"

There's also a huge challenge this year for Intel with their new CE3100, or 'Canmore', chip - Intel is not currently a key player in the set-top box market, but it now has a very enticing offer, delivering PC processing on a set-top box, and the market could be changed significantly by this new offer.

I'd say the big challenge for the industry - linked to the work of the Open IPTV Forum - is to integrate standards into the set-top box, rather than just on the server side.

In terms of content acquisition being a stumbling block, it depends who for - if you are an incumbent with a large user base, then it is not so much of a challenge as it is for new entrants, as you have more bargaining power with the content providers.

There is also a fight over exclusive content happening in France [the French Competition Council is to investigate exclusive content deals signed by a number of French IPTV operators, including Orange] - this could significantly change the French market, potentially making it easier for new entrants, and I expect that this could have ripple effects happening for the rest of the market.

In the light of the recent economic downturn, do you think that IPTV operators will continue to invest in CAPEX-heavy Next Generation Networks and associated services?

Again, incumbents and existing players will have no choice but to continue, despite the credit crunch - and these companies do still have some money to invest, despite the current environment.

I have seen suppliers offer systems on a completely OPEX-based model, with no CAPEX.  Would-be operators are being offered a 'pay as you go' system, with a number of operators running off a single headend, for example.

I haven't seen any projects cancelled, but rather CAPEX is being transferred to OPEX, or projects are being delayed instead.

Also, it's always been a question of when, and not if, Google will enter the market with its Android for TV platform [an open-source operating system for the set-top box].  As more major Internet players move into video, such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!, this could be bad news for some of the middleware suppliers.

Do you think that consumers will remain likely to spend disposable income on high-bandwidth data and entertainment services in this environment?

I firmly believe that people spend more time at home in times of recession - there is less disposable income available, but consumers are more prepared to spend money on entertainment services, as can be seen in the last recession of 2001-02, when DVD sales and rentals went up

Could you provide some more information on your pre-IPTV World Forum masterclass on IPTV deployment?

The masterclass will be led by me, with industry specialists coming in to assist with sessions covering their area of specialisation - for example, Harmonic will cover headends, Nagravision will cover video on demand and access control, and I'll be covering pretty much everything else, including middleware and project management.

Participants will, I expect, come out not necessarily with all the answers, but with all the right questions for a successful IPTV deployment.  I'm excited and keen to be leading this masterclass, it is the first time I  have done this, and I hope that the participants will benefit from my real-world experience of successful IPTV deployment.