How do you watch television? Nearly 70% of us get our TV via one of the major cable providers. Satellite has carved out a good niche and grabs more than 20% of that market. If it’s strictly over the air, then hold your hand up as one of the 15% who still claim that as their means of reception. (That will change, as analog TV transmission expires on February 17, 2009.)
Now the dawn of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) is changing the landscape even further. AT&T, Verizon, and other telecommunications (phone) companies (telcos) are making a huge effort to bring TV to the Internet and over fiber. There are some tremendous benefits to IPTV. However, some interesting technical and business challenges must be dealt with, not to mention the fact that cable is fighting back.
“What if any new benefits does IPTV bring over cable?” asks Peter Percosan, Texas Instruments’ director of broadband strategy. The IPTV services are essentially at parity with the cable companies even though their content offerings are still a bit below what the premier cable companies offer. The main difference is the pricing advantage that IPTV has over cable. It remains to be seen how long that lasts, though, even as content grows. The telcos need some clear, distinguishing factor to help them gain a stronger foothold in the pay-TV business. According to Mike Coward, CTO of Continuous Computing, two benefits could make the difference.
First, in IPTV, each subscriber gets a different video/audio stream that’s specifically just what that subscriber has selected with the remote control. All of the content is sent via fiber to the neighborhood DSLAMs (digital subscriber line access multiplexers). At this point, the customer’s selected channel is picked out and sent to the set-top box (STB). Cable customers always get all of the content selected by the STB consumer. Thus, telcos have the opportunity to do targeted marketing and advertising, which isn’t possible with cable.
Second, IPTV subscribers can select time-shifted TV watching. This is done now with a TiVo box or digital video recorder (DVR) at the subscriber’s home. Telcos can offer what might be called network personal video recorders (PVRs), where the stored video is on the carrier’s servers (for an extra charge). These options may be the differentiator the telcos need to succeed with TV.
IPTV EXPLAINED
The term IPTV should explain itself, but the definitions are tricky. IP means the Internet Protocol, of course, so it implies the transmission of video and audio using the IP. However, that’s not the same as Internet TV, which is what we call those YouTube videos and clips using Microsoft wave files. And it’s not the video supplied by Google, Yahoo, MySpace, or Microsoft that viewers watch on their PCs.
Figure 1 shows the basic structure of an IPTV network. The telecom network is fiber to the neighborhood and a fast DSL line to the customer’s home for Internet access on the PC or IPTV. This diagram shows that IPTV also could be delivered over a cable network and could very well occur in the future. A hybrid STB that can accommodate IPTV, cable, or even digital broadcast over-the-air TV may be a necessity in some areas.
There are two good examples of IPTV in the U.S. AT&T’s U-verse system, which began in Texas, is now rolling out across the country in selected areas. Fiber is run to the neighborhoods and terminates at a DSLAM that gives access to AT&T’s phone customers via the installed copper unshielded twisted pair (UTP) base. Using fast ADSL2 or VDSL2, the TV then is delivered to the customer’s TV set in compressed format.
Because it’s a fast broadband Internet connection, the customer can also get DSL Internet access service up to 6 Mbits. (Voice over IP, or VoIP, is optional.) These bundled “triple-play” services are a bargain compared to what you pay for the individual services and in most cases less expensive than equivalent deals from the cable companies.
The other example is Verizon’s FiOS. This full-blown fiber-tothe- home (FTTH) service offers TV, high-speed Internet service, and VoIP. Downstream speed is 50 Mbits/s and upstream is 20 Mbits/s, the fastest available to date. FiOS isn’t true IPTV, since it uses a delivery method similar to cable TV’s modulated RF system for TV, data, and other services. But rumors abound that Verizon will change to an all-IPTV system in the future.
While fiber is expensive, it’s the ultimate answer to higherbandwidth broadband services. DSL providers of Internet service have already hit the wall, so to speak, with data rates usually maxing out at 6 Mbits/s (slightly more in a few places). High-end DSL versions like VDSL2 do provide very high rates, but only over short distances.
Some carriers have tried using VSLS2 on two UTPs in the cable reaching 50 Mbits/s over longer distances. Top cable rates for ordinary service are faster, but cable companies have nearly hit the limit at about 20 Mbits/s with current systems and prices are high.
Thanks to the new cable protocol DOCSIS 3.0 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), cable can now offer rates to about 50 Mbits/s with a technique called channel bonding. Fiber is the only way up beyond this point. So while it is expensive, you will begin to see more and more fiber in the future. TV demands it and consumers are pressing for faster downloads, uploads, and gaming capability. IPTV can provide that, but cable is clearly keeping up
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