We speak to Dieter Engel, Senior Vice President of Product Development (Media Services) at Deutsche Telekom.

In his current position at Deutsche Telekom, Mr. Engel is in charge of IPTV applications (headend, IPTV middleware, set-top box and home network service integration) and PC-based video-on-demand applications.  Mr. Engel has worked within the online business of Deutsche Telekom for the last 17 years.


IPTV appears to have found some real traction in Germany over the past year.  What will Deutsche Telekom focus on achieving with 'T-Home Entertain' over the next 12 months?

DE: 2009 has been a very successful year for 'T-Home Entertain'.  We have achieved the object of one million IPTV packages sold.  This proves that Deutsche Telekom stands for an innovative and popular TV experience.

A major topic for 2010 is the HD offensive to provide more high-definition content for both live TV and for video-on-demand.  However, the three-screen integration is another important issue.  It provides overall usability of features on TV, PC and mobile phone.  Deutsche Telekom will hereby further enhance the connection of life and work.  Furthermore, to keep up with current hardware evolution, new set-top box models will be available for customers.

Are there any major additions planned for the service's content and features that you can discuss?

As already mentioned it is planned to make more HD content both for live TV and video-on-demand available.  Furthermore the amount of VOD content will be significantly increased.

What do you think are the major obstacles to reaching the subscriber levels that cable and satellite TV platforms have reached?

Looking to the future, Deutsche Telekom is challenged by market and government regulation constraints and of course broadband availability, the extension of which is still ongoing.  We are pushing the expansion of our infrastructure, which is the key to reaching additional customers.

Where do you see IPTV in Europe going over the next few years? Will there come a tipping point soon where consumers demand personalised interactivity from their pay-TV platform?

Relevance of interactivity becomes more and more important for customer experience and can be covered by IPTV.  In a first phase of market revolution, IPTV can be seen as a substitution or fully-fledged alternative for existing TV infrastructure (cable, satellite, etc.).  A second phase moves from conventional TV to the integration of Web content which can be accessed from the TV screen.  Moving forward to the third phase, the TV experience becomes a combination of mass media and personal-interests applications.

A growth in the IPTV market based on this non-linear TV consumption and SD to HD switch is expected.  A tipping point will depend on the offered content.  The Deutsche Telekom offer concerning the national soccer league (Bundesliga Interactive) fulfils the need for interaction by selecting the best scenes and goals during the live matches.

Do you think 3DTV will become as commonplace in a few years' time as HDTV is now?  Is it a likely addition to T-Home Entertain?

3DTV technologies are the big hits wherever it is shown and demonstrated.  Yet, despite that growing interest, there are still a lot of questions to be answered about 3DTV in the home area.  Are 3D glasses necessary?  How much will consumers have to pay for 3DTV-capable equipment like Blu-ray players and TVs?  Will there be much 3D content available?  How will service providers promote and price available 3D content?

Based on evaluation of these questions, Deutsche Telekom will decide on the potential of integrating 3DTV into T-Home Entertain.  Nevertheless high-definition TV is still an ongoing topic due to content availability and the fact that not all homes are already HD equipped.