IPTV is in its initial stage of penetration in the Arab world and is still developing, with eight service providers in seven countries offering commercial services as of January 2010, up from four service providers in three countries in August 2007, according to a new report from Arab Advisors Group.

The eight service providers offering commercial IPTV in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region are based in Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar and the UAE.  There are believed to be ongoing or planned projects by service providers and/or governments in eight other countries: Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Oman,Tunisia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

“Internet Protocol TV delivers scheduled TV programmes and video-on-demand (VoD) via the IP protocol and digital streaming techniques used to watch video on the Internet,” said Majd Al Amarin, research analyst at Arab Advisors.  “The IP-based platform offers significant advantages such as: video-on-demand, the advantage of triple-play, the automatic archiving of the video broadcast in Real Media format, making the TV viewing experience more interactive and personalised.  It also allows the operator to report statistics of viewed programmes, channels and adverts."