The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has introduced a new standard for IPTV services, Recommendation ITU-T Y.1901, which specifies high-level requirements for the support of IPTV services, including requirements concerning service offering, QoS/QoE, service and content protection, middleware, content, network and end system aspects.

The new standard, along with the previously approved Recommendation ITU-T Y.1910, "IPTV functional architecture", plus various other IPTV-related ITU-T recommendations, is intended to constitute an initial set of IPTV standards, enabling equipment vendors, including CE suppliers, to introduce standardised IPTV products.  The deployment of ITU-T compliant products is expected to enable service providers to offer value added services like traditional (linear) TV, video on demand (VOD) and interactive TV over IP-based managed networks such as next-generation networks (NGNs).

The ITU defines IPTV as “multimedia services such as television/video/ audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP-based networks managed to support the required level of quality of service (QoS)/quality of experience (QoE), security, interactivity and reliability”.

The new Y.1901 standard was reportedly developed through international collaboration at the ITU's IPTV Global Standards Initiative events, with the active participation of administrations, service providers and equipment vendors from a number of countries, including the US, Canada, China, Korea, Japan, the UK and France.