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IPTV-a leap forward into future telecom endeavours
SHR Jahfery
Islamabad—The Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) delivers
television programming to households via a broadband connection
using Internet protocols. It requires a subscription and IPTV
set-top box, and offers advantages over existing TV cable and
satellite technologies. IPTV is typically bundled with other
services like Video on Demand (VOD), voice over IP (VOIP) or digital
phone, and Web access, collectively referred to as Triple Play. The
power of producing and distributing content no longer belongs solely
to studios and technology vendors it has shifted to the consumer and
consumer communities that produce, utilize and interact with the
large volumes of content available today.
“IPTV is such a significant invention that the analysts predict
around 50 million IPTV subscribers worldwide by 2010. As viewing
habits evolve from a passive consumption of TV to an interactive
user experience, IPTV service providers need to quickly recognize
and exploit the market opportunities that lie ahead,” said Nasir
Ahmad Bhutta, a leading IT expert while talking to the APP.
“BitBand’s IPTV technology serves more than 40 commercial IPTV
deployments worldwide, including such pioneering IPTV deployments as
Tele2 in Holland, ON Telecoms in Greece, FASTWEB in Italy and
Connexion in the US, among others. BitBand partners with system
integrators and suppliers of other components in the IPTV value
chain to provide operators with a complete end-to-end solution,” he
said.
Bhutta added that more and more alternative service providers are
offering IPTV services, opening up the market and driving growth and
competition. Traditional communications players will be forced to
present a differentiated offer, either through the introduction of
new value-added services or competitively priced entertainment
packages,” he added. Salman Abduhu, anopther IT wizard, said the
IPTV is the TV “of the people, for the people” will continue to grow
in popularity.
“The users are driving content and will want to incorporate that
content as part of their traditional TV experience. Targeted
advertising is another phenomenon making its way from the Internet
to the IPTV experience, providing another tool for revenue
generation and subscriber retention. The trend of increased
migration of TV consumption from linear to non-linear TV (TV On-
Demand) will pick up pace, driven by innovative new ways of serving
TV in a time-shifted manner and excess bandwidth available in the
Next Generation networks,” he added. Farooq Azam, a leading business
icon said, “We expect significant increase in concurrent viewers of
such services. Beijing 2008 Olympic Games emerged as the prime focus
of dominant driver for IPTV expansion and adoption across China and
worldwide. Beijing’s efforts to leverage this event for the world
stage, coupled with the desire of service providers across the globe
to deliver Olympic events to subscribers in all forms and on all
devices prompted service innovation, technology development and
regulation flexibility, speeding up the pace of change and
stimulating even more progress in the IPTV space,” he added.
“In this regard, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL)
made history by launching PTCL Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
on August 14, this year, under the brand name ‘PTCL Smart’. The
‘PTCL Smart’ has been introduced for PTCL’s products that are more
intelligent than their normal versions. PTCL ‘Smart Line’ service
includes Interactive Television, Broadband and voice Telephony all
at the same time on PTCL’s telephone line. This initiative has taken
the country amongst the proud nations providing their people with a
luxury like IPTV,” he said. Dr Sadik Al-Jadir, SEVP Commercial, PTCL,
said the most revolutionary section of this offering is the
interactive Television, branded under ‘Smart TV’, which for the
first time in Pakistan offered TV viewers the power to control the
TV channels interactively.
“This includes the ability to rewind and pause the live TV channels,
the ability to block/unblock any TV channel for parental lock and
the ability to search through video on demand content. This service
is currently available in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, but will be
soon available in other broadband cities during the course of the
year,” he said. “Smart TV service is absolutely free until the
beginning of October 2008. Since the launch, in less than a month’s
time, PTCL received more than 5,000 customers’ applications for PTCL
‘Smart line’,” he added.
Salient features of this service include Easy Registration Process,
Multiple Tariff Packages, Video on Demand (VoD), Time Shifted
Television, Parental Control, Electronic Program Guides (EPG),
Global Television Channels, Near Video on Demand (NVoD) and many
more.
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