We speak with Franklin Selgert, Senior Innovation Manager at KPN and Chairman of multimedia content delivery at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

Mr. Selgert obtained a Masters degree in architecture at the Technical University of Delft, followed by a short career as an architect. After this he fulfilled several senior management functions in Internet and media-related companies. Over the past nine years he has worked on innovation in telecoms in an international setting. Areas of work included: mobile Internet, location-based services, standards and alliances, integrated messaging, DRM, mobile TV, media distribution, advertisement, telepresence and IPTV.


What progress has KPN been making recently with its IPTV service 'Interactieve TV'?

FS: TV is one of KPN's main priorities in the consumer market.  Up to now, our focus has been on swiftly gaining critical mass as an established and trusted player in this market (we only entered the TV market in 2004). Our commercial focus has consequently been on 'Digitenne', our DTV proposition.  We have not actively pushed our IPTV service 'Interactive TV' from KPN thus far, besides introductory PR activities in 2006.  Last year however saw interest in the service develop organically, with the number of subscribers more than doubling to over 90,000 by the end of 2009.

How do you hope to further the service's technological innovation this year?

Spring 2010 will see KPN implement a significant network upgrade, allowing us not only to increase the reach of Interactieve TV in terms of number of households, but also to offer high-definition and open the door for multiroom services.

The Netherlands has now taken digital TV to heart, with a household penetration rate of over 50%, and in 2010 we will encourage them to go one step further and sign up for digital TV and interactive digital TV.  The main service innovations beyond capabilities mentioned above revolve around content: new channels and further expansion of the VOD service, as well as an improved user interface and a routed mode operation for our set-top box.

To get a better picture of the mid- and long-term possibilities, we experiment with partners in the bmcoforum on converge fixed mobile TV scenarios in a collaborative project called mobifix, and we explore scenarios of Internet TV using CDN technology and off the shelf consumer equipment such as media players and Web-connected TVs. This is in line with a premier league football service called 'eredivisie live', which KPN is offering white labeled wholesale.

Regarding your appointment to Chairman of multimedia content delivery for the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI), what progress have you witnessed in the past 12 months in this area?

My first meeting as Chair was in December 2009 - during the past 12 months (under the Chairmanship of Telenor's Truls Langeggen), MCD needed to set its path as a new workgroup amongst the many within and without ETSI. The whole idea behind MCD was a kind of one-stop shop. The developments around mobile TV and specific DVB-H in Europe showed that traditional separate industries, telecoms and broadcasting were entering one arena.

Looking upon this process, it was more than logical to try to bring both industries to one table. This continues to be the main task of MCD the coming year, a year where we hope to increase cooperation with other standards initiatives with media distribution as main topic. Some of the topics MCD is picking up now are: CDN development, audience measurement, delivering gaming direct to TV, and study of the regulatory landscape. In the frame of the new cluster approach in ETSI, MCD  is part of the Content Delivery cluster with other ETSI Technical Committees such as JTC Broadcast and TISPAN.

What major technical challenges do you think remain for multimedia content delivery over IP networks?

Delivering media has different economics than offering a service like voice, media delivery traditionally has a lower cost structure, and broadcast technologies fit well in this economic environment.

Making an interesting business in these environments means running an efficient low-cost operation. Two aspects of this observation make up the challenge: firstly, telecoms operators needs to run their IPTV or media distribution service in a cost-efficient manner across their networks to a variety of end-user equipment; and secondly, broadcasters that run an efficient organisation are faced with fundamental changes in consumer needs.

Consumers experience broadband-delivered interactive TV and other typical IP-related new functionalities, and are developing new habits. Different services across the globe have proven this, from acTVilla in Japan to the BBC iPlayer in the UK.

One should think that having one standard approach would benefit everybody, unfortunately the forces are unpredictable and for many sometimes legitimate reasons, multiple paths to standardise media delivery exist. The challenge is to converge the standard approaches to a limited set to allow a global ecosystem of media services to emerge. Using IP for delivery is in this struggle not the main challenge - DRM, rights clearance, codecs, regulation, network capacity and end user equipment are the real challenges.

Users are getting accustomed to consume content anyplace, anytime and anywhere. This high-demanding user group will grow fast in the coming years, and will sometimes be blocked in getting their triple A media services. Blocking customers means that they will find ways around the system in order to get what they want.  If the network cannot cope with demand then they will try other means or other service providers, and if a media service is not complete because the rights of a certain piece of previously broadcasted content are not cleared for the Internet, then they will go to P2P or newsgroups to get the content.  A lot has already changed, but on a larger scale we are just at the beginning.

In your opinion, will 3D be a "must-have" technology for pay-TV providers in five years' time?

Predicting this is difficult, because it will vary from country to country. To begin with, the technology used has complex additional requirements for the distribution, given that 3D is consumed predominantly through special glasses. The mass substitution of TV sets for 3D displays will certainly take longer than five years. People are just settled behind their HD TV servicing, and connected HDTV is the priority for the coming years.

3D has indeed been a huge success in movie theatre, where the additional few pennies are no problem - in this context of “spending an extra 10-15% to have an even better time”, 3D works. This does not translate automatically to a pay-TV service. My advice would be, watch the sports and erotic industry to get a better insight into how this will fly.