Some of the industry leaders that 2006 will be the IPTV (Internet protocol television, Internet Protocol television) years. For example, in January at CES, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has said he expects this year's IPTV application will grow rapidly and reach a considerable quantity. He also predicted: "IPTV will replace the previous video platform. ”
Currently, Asia and Europe have deployed several medium-sized IPTV network, so far, the largest IPTV project in Hong Kong. According to ABI Research's principal analyst briefing, the project is built, the telecom operator PCCW covers 50 000 customers in Hong Kong.
And Europe's leading IPTV project including: France--covering 20 000 users, Spain--covering 20 users, as well as Italy--covering 25 million users.
Asian countries wired infrastructure is usually very weak, but a large number of DSL users are highly concentrated in a small area. Therefore the Asian operators seek to increase as new services such as video to enhance the turnover for a single user. And this approximation, the European cable facilities are weak but satellite communications market and DSL business are very strong, so the operators in Europe will increase its IPTV extension as satellite communications market competition ability of powerful weapon as IPTV to provide satellite television force can and interactive services. So at this stage of development and domestic IPTV?
Why Europe IPTV development teeter?
First, consumers do not know what IPTV.
A recent survey shows that nearly half of the United States and European consumers do not know what IPTV. According to the world's leading management consulting firms of the United States and Europe, Accenture (including Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany) 6000-user survey, 46% of users are not aware of IPTV this few letters mean. In Italy, and even some 4% of respondents believe that IPTV is a new TV game show.
Telecom industry people keen on its marketing use of technical terms, but the above findings show that this approach is not suitable for IPTV. Carriers should do is to focus on the concept of a sold IPTV so that it can enhance the general audience watching television experience, it is expected in the future to provide more advanced services based on interactive, which requires a market cultivation process.
Secondly, there is no proven charging mode.
The price is a major obstacle to IPTV. In Accenture's survey, 54% of respondents indicated that they do not want to a permitted them at any time to search for television, radio and music entertainment services to pay additional fees.
IPTV revenue model based on many assumptions, but on the basis of these assumptions the assumed is a fairly well known to the people and the stability of the market, while at the same time, the core definition but IPTV is changing.
User behavior and traffic patterns will guide the development of the industry. One of the most important part is to distinguish in network traffic and network traffic. Network owner's biggest worry is that they only provide a free use of the network, but don't get any traffic generating income. Therefore, they must be distinguished from network services and network services. And tiered services while protecting the network owners and the interests of users.
Once again, the telephone company in television services also face legal obstacles.
In the United States, cable services in the County and municipal government policies provide under supervision. For the telephone companies, at local level and government negotiations very time consuming. Even if one day get a local licence, it will still take several years to its service to all users with video.
Texas and Indiana's new law allows the phone company received from the State Government, without the need for local authorization, so this is a lengthy process is greatly simplified. Virginia passed a similar law, but it also has no effect. Currently, IPTV is actually some smaller companies at boot, many of them to rural areas. In addition to achieve some license, their systems even smaller, making them easier to adopt new technology. The big phone companies, Chartered battle is harsh, they have to and interact with thousands of local government.
Finally, the greatest challenge lies in the fact that the whole IPTV industry may underestimate it what to do to transfer service, user experience and non-technology is the most crucial factors for IPTV.
Although IPTV has some technical strengths, but these strengths can win and retain customers, has yet to be proven. At the same time, some analysts believe that IPTV doesn't really need a way to compete with the cable company's technical superiority. For consumers, convenience is a temptation to be from a company fixed line telephone services, wireless phone services, broadband Internet and TV services, nor is the so-called "quadruple play" for the consumer is
Very attractive. Surveys show that users are able to provide to the IPTV service types are obvious interest. For example, in the United States, how to watch TV, 37% of respondents selected is ready to watch the show. Moreover, Europe 30% of respondents said they needed more movie channels, these are precisely the IPTV technology can provide.However, this content can also be seen that many IPTV implementation involved in the old paradigm, such as telephone service, television, video-on-demand, etc. for example, IPTV, after all, just a kind of improvement, rather than genuine innovation. When the market changes, if you are still stuck in the old paradigm, maybe one day, the carrier will retain user had to significantly lower the price. Therefore, you want to win in the long term competitiveness, the telephone company should do certain direction changes, develop more content, and other services, it should be a revolutionary change of business, has a truly innovative, order of magnitude improvement. And this is IPTV operators not really solved.
