IPTVebook.pdf

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IPTV

A SUPPLEMENT TO TELEPHONY October 2006

TM

Telephonys guide to

PLUS

WATCHING THE NEXT GENERATION OF VIDEO

MAPPINGIPTV SPECSATIS aims for multi-vendor playRISKY BUSINESSProviders face tough choices

IPTV

The Web

THREATHow the explosion in Internet video

could impact IPTVs progress.


2/23

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610TELtvIFC.indd 1 10/3/2006 10:56:51 AM


3/23October 2006 TELEPHONY 1

[IPTV]

CONTENTS

COVER STORY

4 TELCOS

EMBRACE WEB TVBy Carol Wilson. AT&T and Verizonsee no threat ahead from the Internetvideo explosion.

12 METRICS

FEATURES

14 IPTV

TECHNOLOGY

OPTIONSBy Ed Gubbins. IPTV providers mustweigh risks and returns to decidewhich technology choices are the rightones for their business.

16 NAVIGATING

IPTV STANDARDSBy Tim McElligott. ATIS is attemptingto take a leadership role in the complexturf of IPTV standards.

COLUMN

20 IPTVREALITY CHECKBy Teresa Mastrangelo. IPTV remainsa niche application in the U.S. andfaces stiff competition.


4/23610TELtv2.indd 1 10/3/2006 10:54:08 AM


5/23

M

y first experience with Internet-based TV shows came fouryears ago, when my sonthen in high schoolincluded

something called Homestar Runner collectibles on hisChristmas list. Practical kid that he is, he included the URL for theHomestar Runner site on his list, and curious mom that I am, I hadto explore the entire site and watch what were, to me, a bizarre set ofcartoons before agreeing to provide a credit-card number to buy therequested items.

What was more bizarre, however, was realizing how many of mysons friends were totally hooked on a set of crudely drawn, rathersilly cartoon characters. To this day, I have no idea how manyEnglish-speaking teenagers got hooked on Homestar Runner, butthe site survives today and continues selling merchandise to kidsand parents like me.

I suspect this is the essence of what author Chris Andersondubbed long-tail content. As Anderson explained in his book,The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More,the Internet has forever changed the business model of sales bycreating a broad distribution model for products that might neverachieve mass-market appeal. Collectively, Anderson argues, thesales of these less-popular items can exceed those of best-sellers, ifthe distribution channel is large enough.

Applying the long-tail model to video is part of the appeal of theInternet video crazeviewing becomes even more personalizedthan todays TiVO-like services, which already allow time-shiftingof personally selected content. The Internet does that one better,making a wider variety of that content available any time at all.

As we explore in this issues cover story on page 4, it wont be longbefore Internet-based video is part of the IPTV package that majortelecom service providers sell. Those service providers still facesignificant challenges, however, to just getting IPTV platforms inplaceincluding technology choices and standards issues, whichwe also explore within this issue.

The IPTV landscape is constantly shifting. This was supposed to bethe year that IPTV went mainstream, but as we go to press, that is notyet a reality. Which means there is plenty of time for new content toget its toe-hold in the Internet world.

[ BY CAROL WILSON ]

[email protected]

October 2006 TELEPHONY 3

LANDSCAPETHE SHIFTING IPTV

[IPTV]


6/234 TELEPHONY October 2006



[IPTV]

Video content on the Internet has beensteadily growing over the last few years,but with major announcements this fall

from companies such as Amazon.com, AOL andApple regarding their commercial plans, Web-based video has gone from a cute hobby to a dis-ruptive force seemingly overnight.

With announced plans by multiple playersin-cluding Intel and major TV equipment manufac-turersto enable PC-based video to be displayedon a TV set, the way seems paved for the Internetvideo industry to go after the audience currentlybuying cable TV and digital satellite servicethesame audience targeted by new IPTV services.

That potential conflict has led to some dire pre-dictions for IPTV and how it might suffer in the

face of new competition from Internet TV. Indus-try analysts and the leading U.S. providers of IPTVbelieve, however, that this newest form of videoentertainment not only wont crush IPTV but maybe a boon to its prospects, or at least its ability tocompete with cable and satellite, if service provid-ers plan for it now.

We see Internet video as an advantage for us inbeing able to bring the best-of-class of that to theTV because of our IP connectivity within thehome, said Joe Ambeault, a director in VerizonsFiOS TV product development marketing team.

AT&T, Verizon see opportunities, not threats,

from Web-based TV content.

[ BY CAROL WILSON ]

IPTV?TV OVER IP

DO TO

WHAT WILL


8/236 TELEPHONY October 2006

www.telephonyonline.com/iptv

>

This is an opportunity for us.It might even give telecom service pro-

viders an advantage over cable and satel-lite companies. AT&Ts HomeZoneproduct, which combines DISH Net-works digital satellite service in a homemedia network with AT&T DSL andvoice services, allows customers to down-load movies onto a PC and watch themon a TV set, where the viewing is better.

In order to have a comprehensive of-fering, a service provider is going to haveto be able to put [video content] on anydevice that the user wants to consume it

on, said Maribel Lopez, broadband an-alyst with Forrester Research. That willinclude the TV, the cell phone, personal

video playerswhatever. They have tofind a way to get it there.

That is, according to AT&T, exactlythe goal of its three-screen strategy, laidout this summerto deliver availablecontent onto whatever device the cus-tomer is watching at the time and to dothat ahead of the competition.

Theres a tendency to associateWeb-based video with sitessuch as YouTube or MySpace.

com, which specialize in user-createdcontent, but as AOL made clear this

summer in launching its video portal,there is much more to Internet videothan funny clips of guys putting Men-tos in bottles of Diet Coke. The AOLvideo portal, www.video.aol.com, looksvery much like an electronic program-ming guide, with dozens of channels offree and paid content.

Already, the ad market for this newmedium is taking off as well, said AOLVice Chairman Ted Leonsis, speakingat Fall VON 06. AOL is getting 113 mil-

lion customers a month on its videoportal and has sold out its ad inventory,he said.

Video is creating a new mega-industry, Leonsis said. Video makeseverything better. You can time shift,content is at your disposal, on demandthe way you wanted it. If you like TV,now you can watch shows when andhow you want, all online and storedbecause storage costs have gone downdramatically.

In many cases, he added, video onthe Internet can do a better job of pre-senting content, the best example being

one of the early mass-market Internetvideo events, the Live 8 benefit concerts

from July 2005. While the 10 simulta-neous concerts were on broadcast TV,the Web video presentation allowedviewers to pick and choose which per-formers they wanted to see from whichvenue and watch on-demand when theychose. AOL Music still has the videosavailable from viewing.

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) pioneerJeff Pulver of pulver.com hasnow shifted his focus to in-

clude video and sees what is happeningtoday on the Internet as analogous tothe arrival of competition in the tele-phony realm.

This is much like next-gen telcoswere 10 years ago, he said. Its thesame DNAthey just happen to beworking in the world of video. Tenyears ago, we discovered that you canoperate a telephone company withoutowning many assets. Well, to be amajor player in video now, you dontneed broadcast spectrum, you dontneed content, what you need to be ableto do is bring it all together and presentit and figure out who is going to buythe digital popcorn.

After a broadband trial that involvedstreaming video episodes of DesperateHousewives and Lost, ABC an-nounced it will be offering free next-daystreaming videos of many of its networkseries. When AMC launches its annualMonsterfest for Halloween this year, itwill include 16 different horror films for

its cable affiliates to distribute on theirbroadband platforms to PCs, as well astheir video-on-demand (VoD) services.

Much of what Web TV is focusing onis what has become known as long tailvideo content, meaning it is contentthat has a long shelf life for a relativelysmall population of viewers and cangenerate page views or sales that collec-tively outperform best-seller productswith shorter shelf lives. The Internet isthe perfect home to long-tail content as

VIDEO ON THE NET

TV ON THE NET: TV shows created for broadcast or cable,

now viewable on the Internet.

INTERNET-ONLY TV: New programming created only

for the Internet.

USER-CREATED CONTENT: Sites such as YouTube and

others with clips uploaded by viewers.

SITES TO VIEW TV: Commercial TV is viewable over sites

such as ChannelKing and ChannelChooser.

Source: Pulver.com



[IPTV]

DeliverVoice, data and now video can be delivered through one

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convergence, how are you going to deliver the video services

that consumers want?

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IPTV Services

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Amazon.com and Netflix have proven,with their massive catalogs of search-

able books and movies, respectively.Pulver has assembled lists of Web

video sites, including more than 110sites with Web-only TV that cover ev-erything from cooking, travel and car-toon shows to personal daily commen-tary. He also lists 88 sites where existingTV or cable shows are now available onthe Web, including AOLs In2TV, whichshows older programming.

All this personalization of contentnot only puts the user in charge, but

also can enable advertisers to specifi-cally target their ads based on viewinghabits and other demographics, Pulversaid. And Web-based TV has some ofthe same advantages that IPTV canoffer, such as different means of doinge-commerce. Instead of inserting ads,

for example, advertisers can placeproducts and enable viewers to buy

them or get more information with theclick of a mouse.

Not surprisingly, the popularityof Internet video has promptedmultiple efforts to put this con-

tent onto a TV set, where it can beviewed with greater comfort, at greaterdistance and by more people. Accordingto a recent poll by Accenture, consumertaste is already being influenced by In-ternet video services, as they expressed a

strong desire to download what they areseeing on the Internet to their TV sets.Intels Viiv technology initiative is

built around bringing Internet func-tionality to the TV set so consumerscan download movies with a remotecontrol, and AOL is working with Intel

to enable this, AOLs Leonsis said.Apple is promising to connect its

iTunes music and video-downloadingservice to the TV via the iTV, a box thatwill be available for $299 in the firstquarter of 2007. The five major TVmanufacturersHitachi, Matsushita/Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Toshibahave formed a joint venture to developcommon standards for enabling TVs toaccess Web video.

The fact that Web TV is coming to afamily room near youand verysoonseems certain.

So with a flexible, user friendly,on-demand and often very cheapsource of video available to its

customers, why isnt Verizon shaking inits boots, especially given the multi-billion dollar investment the company is


10/23

making to build fiber-to-the-premises,

specifically to offer FiOS TV?The Home Media DVR that we

launched two months ago provides anIP connection between the PCs and thehome network to the set-top box, Veri-zons Ambeault said. Today, we usethat to allow music and photos that arestored on a PC to be displayed on theTV. We arent supporting video yet, butwe are already well down the path ofgetting the prototype up and workingto support video from the PC.

Verizon uses Multimedia over Coax(MOCA) technology to link PCs withset-tops within the home over existingcoaxial cable where possible, although

it can also support Cat-5 Ethernet wir-ing. The company could be supportedvideo over those connections as earlyas next year.

With its IPTV service, U-verse, andwith its HomeZone product, AT&Talso is creating in-home networks thatlink PCs and set-top boxes usingHomePNA 3 technology.

AT&T is doing some interestingthings with HomeZone, where theyare hooked up to MovieLink andAkimbo and Yahoo for content, saidVince Vittore, broadband analyst withYankee Group.

The essence of the AT&Ts three-

screen strategy means customers can

control where they view content, saidStephen Bye, executive director forwireless and converged services. Theinitial two applications are more fo-cused on fixed/mobile convergencethan PC-to-TV, but

AT&T believes it is in a unique posi-tion to take advantage of new forms ofdistribution to deliver video services inboth new and familiar ways, a spokes-man said. Our all-IP platform meanswe can provide integration across ser-

vices and across platforms. The advancedfeatures and functionality and the robustand niche content selection enabled byour IP platform also provides users withan enhanced personalized experience,bringing the user control and choice as-

sociated with onlinevideo to a television-based, managed service.

However, that doesnt

mean that there arent challenges, bothtechnical and regulatory, to bringingWeb-TV content into the average liv-ing room.

There are two issuescan you doit, and if so, how do you control thequality of that video experience, andsecondly, is there any money in it for thetelco, Vittore said.

Already, the two companies allowconsumers of U-verse and FiOS TV touse their TV sets to display digital pho-tos and music that have been stored ona PC that is networked. The most desir-able approach to handling Web TVwould be for it to be downloaded and

stored locally on a PC as well, Ambeault

said. But it is also possible to source itdirectly from the Internet similar to aVoD experience.

Technically, once the telcos have IPnetwork established in the home, thereis the capability of letting users controlhow and where they view content.

On the backside of an [optical net-work terminal used to connect the FiOSnetwork at the home], there is coaxialcable, twisted pairs and Ethernet, saidanalyst John Celantano of Skyline Mar-

keting. The content is hitting that box,and whether Verizon chooses to makethat only available to the TV set, thatstheir choice. There is no reason why itshould be limited to that. If a customerwants to watch a program on the PCpicture-in-picture, they should be ableto do that. If they want to browse theWeb from the TV set, they should beable to do that.

Just because something is doable,however, doesnt make it easy or with-out challenges.

The thing that makes the Internet

great also creates some challenges, likespyware, viruses and parental con-trolsthose are all things we have tothink about when we start linking In-ternet content to the TV, VerizonsAmbeault said. Also there are rulesabout what kind of content you canshow at what time of the day. And someprogrammers also have rulesits veryimportant to ESPN to never associatewith alcohol and tobacco.

There are also fundamental issues

8 TELEPHONY October 2006


>

We see Internet video

as an advantage for usin being able to bringthe best-of-class of thatto the TV because ofour IP connectivitywithin the home.Joe Ambeault, Verizon



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llRightsReserved.

such as customer expectations of what

TV service is and looks like and con-cerns about federal decency laws.

By the nature of [Web-TV content]being displayed on the TV, you are auto-matically under the umbrella of regula-tion and the FCC rules on decency andthose kinds of things, Ambeault said.FiOS TV is a mass-market productalarge portion of our customer base isfamilies, not single 18-year-olds.

Service providers want to be the con-tent distributors, not the gatekeepers

that set ratings and determine whatcontent can or cant be shared betweena PC and TV, he said.

Pulver said he fully expects the FCCto try to regulate video on the Net, eventhough he is troubled by that prospect.

Another challenge is trying to avoid

converting the TV into another large

PC, making a consumers 42-inchplasma screen into a display for errormessages.

Its a really bad day for our custom-ers when the TV asks them computerquestions, said Ambeault, who todayhas a Linux media server connected tohis TV and sometimes faces just thatchallenge. While a select group ofearly-adopter customers may put upwith having to understand how every-thing is connected, the vast majority of

customers just want it all to work sim-ply, he added.Digital rights management (DRM)

also looms as an issue because videodownloads come equipped with DRM,and some formats will prevent the videostream from being shared across a net-

work with a set-top box, Ambeault said.

The DRM issue works in the otherdirection as well, Forresters Lopez pointsout. Even with MOCA and a multi-room DVR, if I want to watch a movieon my iMAC, I cant, she said. Thereason it is locked in the DVR is becauseof copyright lawsif it can be ported tothe PC, it can be sent anywhere.

As technology increasingly knits to-gether IP content, the industry is goingto have to come to terms with somebusiness case realities, she added.

The consumer pays somewhereits where they pay and how many timesthey pay, Lopez said. Any businessmodel that assumes the consumer isgoing to pay for the same content eighttimeswell, thats not going to happen.The quicker we get over that and figure


12/23

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[IPTV]

out how to monetize the new modelbecause the old model is broken, thebetter off well be.

Ambeault sees all blue skies for dis-tributors, even as he admits contentcreators, owners and aggregators maybe facing turmoil.

Verizon would offer broadcast pro-gramming, VoD and way down thatlong tail, the Internet-sourced video,he said. There is little upfront expensefor that kind of content, as opposed toVoD, which requires distributed stor-age for caching content near the cus-tomer and network operational capa-

bility, Ambeault said.We could have a limitless numberof [Web TV] providers, he said. Thisreduces the barrier of entry. More thanlikely, we would want to have commer-cial agreements with the most popularsites, but that would be limited only byhow quickly we could do those deals,and I think weve shown how quicklywe can move on content deals over thelast year.

The no-limit aspect of the telecomservice providers IP networks wouldgive them an advantage over their cablerivals in packaging Web-based TV overan IPTV network, Vittore said.

That is one of the biggest differen-tiators between IPTV and cableyoucan integrate all the media stored inthe home, the stuff stored on Yahoophotos and network-based servers, hesaid. Its a fairly important and a realdifferentiator. Cable operators justcant do it.

ONLINE


Dont forget to check outTELEPHONYs IPTV One-Stop,where you can read dailynews about IPTV and theInFocus feature EnsuringIPTV quality.


13/23

METRICS

GET A PEEK AT THE FUTURE OF IPTV!

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BOOTH 1201 AT TELCOTV 2007

25

20

15

10

5

0$10 $15 $20 $25

Power ranking

Total Interest

22.6

14.0

12.09.9

10.1

6.15.2 4.9

Percentage

ofcategory

Price point

>Pricing movie downloads

Percentage

ofcategory

30

20

10

0

29.8

13.0

23.6

11.22.6 .7 6.1

19.1

>Who will buy Apple Movie Playersat $200 to $300? The Diffusion Group conducted consumer

research in June that showed that just lessthan 15% of broadband households would be

likely to buy an Apple Movie Player to showmovies downloaded from iTunes if the playercost between $300 and $400. Based on aproprietary algorithm, TDG projected an actualpenetration rate, or power rating, of 6.1%

Consumer interest in downloading movies peakedat 22.6% of broadband heads of households, whenmovies are priced at $10, according to consumerresearch by The Diffusion Group. Less than 10% wereinterested when the movie price hit $25. Based onthat research, TDG projected a power rating, orpenetration rate, of 10.1% at $10 a movie and justunder 5% at $25 per movie.

ONLINE


There are always newstories to read onTELEPHONYs IPTV One-Stoppage, so check in daily.

Likelihood of purchasing

2 3 Neutral(4)

5 6 Definitelywould

purchase(7)

Powerranking

Definitelywould notpurchase

(1)


14/23

610TELtv13.indd 1 10/3/2006 10:54:37 AM


15/23

Which letter comes after T: N,C or P? For would-be IPTVproviders, deciding which

acronyms on which to base their net-worksfiber-to-the-node, fiber to thecurb or fiber to the premisesis onlyone of the tough questions they face.MOCA or PNA? MPEG-2 or -4? IPTVdeployment entails a battery of technol-ogy choices that forces each carrier toweigh its short-term and long-termstrategies as well as those of competitorsand strike the right balance betweenrisk and return on investment.

As this year began, Lehman Broth-ers analyst Blake Bath bemoaned thehigh cost of Verizons FTTP rollout,

suggesting that the carrier might con-sider following AT&T in deployingmore FTTN. At the time, Verizon de-fended its strategy as both a short-termand long-term solution: Short term inthat it allowed Verizon to start rollingout video services quicklyusing stan-dard cable radio frequency technologyrather than the less-tested IPTVwhile building in enough bandwidth tokeep subscribers happy long afterFTTN networks run out of space.

As the year wore on, however, AT&Tstirred its own doubt among investorsas problems with its Microsoft middle-ware slowed its IPTV rollout. Verizonhas become so frustrated with glitchesand delays in Microsofts middleware,The Wall Street Journal reported thismonth, that the carrier has been takingon more of the work itself, replacingsome Microsoft people and softwarewith its own. Microsoft has argued thatthe problems to date are par for thecourse for a major new technology.

Microsoft isnt the only middlewarevendor in town, of course. But AT&Treportedly chose that company in largepart because it bet that the features

Microsofts middleware enabled wouldentice cable customers to convert. Thetrouble with middleware has become acautionary tale for would-be IPTVproviders about the trade-offs betweenattractive features and reliability. Whenentering a new industry, some say com-petitive differentiation should take aback seat for a while.

On one hand, you want new fea-tures; on the other hand, you want reli-ability, David Tilley, broadband engi-

neering supervisor for Nevada telco CCCommunications, told Telephonyearli-er this year. I have never had to resetmy middleware server ever. It neverlocked up because we never asked it todo too much.

The decision about how far toroll out fiber also involves acomplex equation of installa-

tion economics and market timing.FTTN may be cheaper to deploy thanFTTP (roughly $800 per home servedversus $1500 for FTTP, according toFrost & Sullivan), but the longer carri-ers have to wait for robust, bug-freeIPTV service, the more telephony cus-

tomers they lose to cable guys in themeantime. To date, the major cable op-erators have about 7 million telephonysubscribers, while the Bells have fewerthan 200,000 TV subscribers. So calcu-lating return on investment becomeseven more complex.

Its kind of a religious argument,said Bob Larribeau, director of Multi-media Research Groups IPTV pro-gram. My belief is that deployingfiber is like putting gold in the ground.


IPTV providers weigh each technologys risk and reward

IPTV TECHNOLOGYS

[ BY ED GUBBINS ]

TOUGH CALL


>


16/23

Its an investment thats going to pay back overyears, whereas DSL is an end-of-l ife strategy for

extending copper.Verizons FTTP strategy also may apply significant

pressure to its cable competitors in the long run. Thissummer, a CableLabs report warned that, if Internettraffic continues to accelerate, it may end up beingcheaper for cable operators to deploy FTTP than toupgrade their networks sufficiently to match thequality of Verizons FTTP offering. Cable companieshave disputed the reports assertion, however.

One short-term way to deal with time-to-market pressure is to partner with a satel-

lite provider for video, as AT&T has donewith EchoStar Communications for its HomeZoneservicean in-home multimedia networking ser-vice that AT&T is deploying where its own U-versevideo service cant reachand both BellSouth andVerizon have done with DirecTV. The satellite ser-vices are used to serve multi-dwelling units, whereVerizon often uses an architecture similar to FTTC,and as part of a service bundle where fiber-based

Source:Infone

tics

Research

WORLDWIDE

BROADBAND

AGGREGATION

HARDWAREMANUFACTURE

REVENUE

12

9

6

3

02005 2006 2007 2008 2009

6.3

10.4

[IPTV]

Continued on page 19

video isnt available. But as a competitive offering, many regard sat-ellite partnerships as Band-Aids, and some even question how effec-tive they are as in that role.

I dont think its an answer, Larribeau said. Citing the wide gap

between the rate of cable telephony subscriber additions and telcosatellite video penetration, he said, The satellite strategy [Bell com-panies are] using today just isnt winning.

Copper-based broadband choices also tend to lead carriers to an-other dilemma in which they must weigh both their long-term andimmediate needs: choosing compression encoding technology. Be-cause FTTN and FTTC deliver less bandwidth to the home thanFTTP, carriers that rely on copper to the home are motivated to also

Continued on page 18

IP-based DSLAMs

Multiservice access platform

Next-generation DLCs

ATM-based DSLAMs

Broadband loop carriers

(IN BILLIONSOF U.S. DOLLARS)


17/23

With an eye on convergenceand an ear to the entirecommunity, the ATIS

IPTV Interoperability Forum recentlyreleased its road map for an end-to-endarchitecture specification.

The eyes tell the working group thatIPTV does not exist in a vacuum andthat the specifications it develops forIPTV must support other technologies.

The important thing is that IPTV isworking in a converged network. It isnot a network whose sole purpose is to

do IPTV, like the original concept ofcable to do only video. It will need to doVoIP, data and who knows what else,said Dan OCallaghan, chair of the IIF.

The ears tell the IIF that work is underway on aspects of IPTV service delivery,and its best not to duplicate efforts.

The IIF is not a group intent on re-writing the world, OCallaghan said.Part of our charter is to identify existingstandards and try to pull them in. Wearent trying to compete with other stan-

dards bodies; were only trying to bringharmonization and coalesce their workinto one end-to-end specification.

And therein lies the rub. OCallaghansaid there are several groups workingon different aspects of IPTV specifica-tions, but not one is working on IPTVas an end-to-end service. To that end,the IIF published the IPTV Architec-ture Roadmap on Sept. 18. This roadmap prioritizes specification develop-ment efforts based on the groups IPTVArchitecture Requirements document,

released in June.After its initial meeting in Septem-

ber 2005, the IIF launched four taskforces, the last of which starts work laterthis month. The first three got startedshortly after the meeting. They werethe architecture task force, the digitalrights management task force and theQOS/QOE task force, which addressedservice quality and quality of the userexperience. The fourth task force willdeal with interoperability testing.

[ BY TIM MCELLIGOTT ]



>

FOR IPTV SPECS

ATIS UNFOLDS MAP

Phase I to launch by years end

The groups also reached out to formliaisons with other groups such as the

Consumer Electronics Association, theDigital Living Network Alliance, theDigital Video Broadcasting Project andthe DSL Forum.

The DLNA is the predominant or-ganization for defining guidelines forinteroperability of home entertain-ment devices on a home network, saidBob Taylor, board member of DLNAand senior architect for HP. Given themomentum DLNA has had and itsbroad membership, if ATIS wants to

be competitive and interoperable withall these devices on the home network,working with DLNA is probably theright way to go, he said.

However, the relationship goes twoways. Although DLNA has been in-volved in how content gets movedaround inside the home, it hasnt beenconcerned with delivery. But whenyou start talking IPTV, that boundarygets blurry, Taylor said. How the con-tent moves from the set-top box to theTV will have a lot of IPTV characteris-tics, and DLNA is very interested inwhat we can be doing to make sure fu-ture electronic devices play well withIPTV traffic as it continues to grow.

The result of the IIFs initial workwas a three-phased approach todeveloping architecture specs.

Phase I addresses physical layer issuessuch as packet loss, network attachmentand service discovery as well as regula-tory compliance and emergency service

notification. This phase also has seenprogress on technical issues in develop-ment, including remote device manage-ment, multicast network service andservice provider/network interfaces.

While it sounds lackluster, this ad-dresses many of the more weighty is-sues, OCallaghan said.

Taylor said network attachment inparticular is something that will con-tinue to evolve. There are a lot of initialassumptions about things like network


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attachment in IPTV, he said. People think it issomething the set-top box does, but in the longer

run, there is interest in how you attach and connectto services with something other than a set-top box.The timing for that and the standards necessary tomake it work well are still to be determined.

The group expects Phase I work to be complete, orclose, by the end of the year. Phase II, which is sched-uled to start early 2007 and finish by the end of 2007,will address transactional services such as video-on-demand (VoD) and pay-per-view. It also will addressthe interaction with hybrid networks comprised ofsatellite and other multicast and unicast networks.

The third phase gets into real-time gaming, tar-

geted advertising, video blogging, in-home peer-to-peer activity and uploading data from the end user tothe network. There is not start date for this phase.

The long-term goal of the IIF is to establish an end-to-end architecture and interface specification for TVservices delivered over IP. Were talking about thewhole service. That includes all aspects and contentthat a current, modern-day video-delivery service

[IPTV]

SPEC BY SPEC: A SNAPSHOT OF THE IIFSSHORT HISTORY AND MISSION

Beginning IPTV Exploratory Group created by the ATIS CIO Council

on March 31, 2005 Kevin Schneider, chief technology

officer of ADTRAN, and Bill DeMuth, chief technology

officer of SureWest Communications, named co-chairs.

Group recommended a body of experts be formed to focus

on issues that may impede the adoption of IPTV. The ATIS

Board voted to create the IPTV Interoperability Forum on

June 23, 2005.

Scope

Emphasis North American and ATIS member company

needs in coordination with other regional and international

standards development organizations (SDOs) by:

coordinating standards activities that relate to IPTV

technologies. providing a liaison function between the

various SDOs. developing interoperability agreements,

technical reports, or other standards. providing a venue

for interoperability activities. assessing IPTV issues in the

context of NGN directions.

Initial Task Forces

Architecture Digital rights management

Interoperability and testing QOS metricsContinued on page 19


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deploy the newest generation of video

encoding and compression technology,MPEG-4, to squeeze their content intoas small a stream as possible.Whereasthe currently deployed MPEG-2 encod-ers might require up to 6 Mb/s for stan-dard video and 12 Mb/s to 30 Mb/s forhigh-definition TV, MPEG-4 cansqueeze standard-definition video toabout 2.5 Mb/s and high-definitionvideo to perhaps 8 Mb/s. However,MPEG-4 is young and only now mak-ing the leap to becoming a mass-mar-

ket technology. As such, there havebeen concerns about its readiness andfor good reason: Unexpected delays inthe availability of MPEG-4 set-tops andtheir middleware led equipment ven-dor Tut Systems to miss revenue expec-tations for the second quarter. Inde-pendent telcos also have delayed serviceupgrades waiting for MPEG-4 set-tops.

W

hile theyre in the home,carriers also must decide

which technologies to usefor in-home wiring. Again, timingplays a key role. Verizon, which had anearlier start in rolling out triple-playservices widely, declared its preferencefor MOCA, the technology promotedby the Multimedia over Coax Alliance,which uses each homes existing co-axial cable for in-home networking. AtVerizons request, vendors have builtsupport for MOCA into fiber accessgear. This summer, however, after a

years worth of technological evolution,AT&T chose HomePNA technology,which was originally designed to usehomes existing phone lines but whichAT&T now says also can be used overcoax, making it more versatile.

A significant factor in each carrierstechnology decisions is the level of com-petition in its own footprint. For ex-

ample, independent rural telcos maynot be losing as much business to cable

providers as their cousins in urbanareas, giving the rural telcos a littlemore leeway in their decisions. TheBells, however, are facing fierce compe-tition that is expected to grow evenmore intense. Cablevision, for example,is deploying DOCSIS 3.0, the latest cablebroadband technology, and has beguntrials of 100 Mb/s broadband with15 Mb/s committed rates.

I called that [AT&T CEO] Ed Whit-acres worst nightmare, said Multime-

dia Research Groups Larribeau of theCablevision trial. How is VDSLs20 Mb/s going to compete with a100 Mb/s pipe from cable? Some peoplesay no one needs 100 Mb/s. In my mind,thats irrelevant because [consumers]understand that 100 is more than 20much more than they understand howtheyre going to use that bandwidth.

Continued from page 15


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[IPTV]

would encompass, IIFs OCallaghan

said. Those aspects include regulatoryissues, parental control and emergencyalert notification.

The test and interoperability taskforce starts this month, despite havingnothing to test. The group will createthe compliance and interoperabilitytesting criteria for the new standard.

This would allow plugfests to beconducted to ensure the standard is infact implementable and interoperable,OCallaghan said.

ATIS has 50 member companies in-volved in IPTV standardization, in-cluding vendors and service providers.

The architecture specification is in-tended to allow these companies to bemore innovative. A lot of these compa-nies have architectural expertise theycan bring to bare on this framework,OCallaghan said.

A

TIS also formed a liaison inJuly with the Digital Video

Broadcasting Project. TheDVB will assist in the joint collabora-tion on standards activity in support ofIPTV architecture, digital rights man-agement, content protection and copymanagement, and QOS metrics.

The groups will share documents forcomment and evaluation and provideaccess to each others meetings. TheDVB is a consortium of more than 270broadcasters, manufacturers, networkoperators, software developers and reg-

ulatory bodies from 35 countries andfocuses on designing global standardsfor the global delivery of digital televi-sion and data services.

There will be a lot of devices comingin the next few years, DLNAs Taylorsaid. If we can define how ATIS-com-pliant IPTV traffic can interact withthose devices, it will be a win for custom-

ers telcos and device manufacturers.Simultaneously, ATIS is also working

the operations support system (OSS)side of the house. Its CIO Council an-nounced in July that it has developedrequirements that address the specificimpacts to operations and business sup-port systems (BSS) for IPTV services.These requirements focus on the needfor an OSS/BSS high-level architecturestandard, a standard for the orderingframework and application programinterfaces necessary to support IPTVand a directive to study Content Part-

ner Management transactional activi-ties and their back-office interactions.Through its outreach and internal

efforts with other groups like the CIOCouncil, the IIF just may come up withthat elusive end-to-end architecture.Deployment wont wait until then, butit would be wise for vendors and carri-ers to follow its lead.

Continued from page 17

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T

here is no doubt that interest in offering video services continues togrow, particularly as telcos search for new revenue opportunities. Andalthough the excitement level remains high, the realities of offering

video are beginning to set in for many operators. This includes delaysin product availability, bandwidth concerns and increasing competition from bothcable and satellite operators, To further complicate matters, the proliferation andavailability of content through other means (such as YouTube, Google, Apple, etc.)has the potential to impact the direction of telco-based video services.

Outside North America, where cable competition is low, IPTV is experiencingstrong growth. Over the last 12 months, global IPTV subscribers have more thandoubled. By contrast, IPTV subscribers in North America have only grown 24%and now represent only 10% of global IPTV subscribers.

A big reason for that is strong competition, Not only have both cable and satelliteoperators drastically increased the availability of high-definition programming,they have also increased their video-on-demand (VoD), digital video recording andinteractive capabilities, and raised broadband speeds.

This puts more pressure on telcos to implement the right network architectureto deliver enough bandwidth to compete. Assuming increasing demand forHDTV, multi-stream personal video recorder and VoD, it is not difficult toimagine bandwidth requirements in excess of 50 Mb/s in the near future. FTTHis definitely the right architecture to future-proof the network. However, formost operators, VDSL2 will be more than capable of supporting that type ofbandwidth, assuming loop lengths are short enough.

Among the alternative video providers, it is Apple and its iTunes application thathave the most potential to be disruptive, particularly in the VoD market. Building onits iPod success with music and TV, Apple is now offering movie downloads. Thefact that more than 125,000 movies were sold within one week, generating morethan $1 million, is likely to grab the attention of other studios. In addition, Apples

will be wireless media router, due in early 2007, will give its service access to the TV.These events magnify the fact that IPTV is not even close to living up to its

hype. Without a large-scale deployment, IPTV remains a niche application.Although IPTV still has the potential to provide consumers with anunparalleled video experience by offering a level of interactivity, portabilityand personalization currently unavailable with any other video service,implementation has been more difficult than anticipated.

But all hope is not lost. Telcos still have one big advantage over traditionalvideo operators: Without a legacy video service, telcos have the opportunityto change the game by innovating not only in pricing, but packaging of videoservices. By leveraging and embracing emerging trends, telcos will be able to offerconsumers video services that live up to the hype and hope of IPTV.

REALITY CHECKTIME FOR A


[BY TERESA MASTRANGELO]

PRINCIPAL ANALYST

BROADBANDTRENDS.COM

[email protected]

[IPTV]


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