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Interactive personalized tele viewing

IPTV can combine the Internet with television, resulting in a box capable of doing everything that can be done using the Internet, but with greater ease, writes Varun Aggarwal

Have you ever wondered how your age-old idiot box could turn into a smart box? Did you ever imagine using your television remote to call up your family and friends through video calling? All this and a lot more become possible with IPTV that is set to transform the ubiquitous television box into a platform that can be used for education, business, entertainment and as an information storehouse. Using IPTV, you can order your favorite pizzas after going through the menu on TV, or book your movie tickets for the upcoming movie, without making any calls or logging on to the Internet.

The perception of IPTV is still of TV through the Internet, but that does not mean that IPTV uses the same broadband speed as we use in home broadband. With a traditional broadband Internet, we get an average 256-512 Kbps speed. This speed is too low for streaming quality video. Does that mean that we cannot get high quality video using IPTV bundled with a 512 Kbps connection? Of course not—IPTV offers high definition video using the same pipe. Himanshu Sahu, Asst. Director- Sales Engineering IPTV & VAS, UTStarcom, explained, “This is all possible with triple play services. While you get only 256-512 Kbps speed on an average Internet connection, the same pipe delivers 8-24 Mbps speed for IPTV. So, if you buy any IPTV service today, it would typically come bundled with a landline telephone, broadband Internet and IPTV, through a single pipe. The operator will give you 256 Kbps (or higher depending on what plan you take), and will use 8 Mbps or higher to offer IPTV. Since the IPTV content lies at the operator’s servers, he needs to provide high-speed connectivity only from the server to the end user premise, which makes more economic sense for the operator to deliver high quality content at a low cost.”

IPTV is becoming increasingly popular worldwide with the level of interactivity that is possible with it. As of end 2008, UTStarcom’s RollingStream end-to-end IPTV system supported more than 1.27 million live IPTV subscribers globally and had a total live system capacity of more than 2.5 million subscribers. UTStarcom has announced IPTV deployments in India with Bharti Airtel, BSNL/Aksh, MTNL/Aksh and United Telecoms Limited, in Sri Lanka with SLT, in Japan with Softbank, in Latin America with Brasil Telecom and in Taiwan with Markwell.

IPTV for home

IPTV frees viewers from time-based schedules defined by the channels, by introducing the concept of time-shifted TV, where viewers can rewind and forward live broadcast TV. So you do not need to worry missing your favorite program at a particular time because you were in the office or stuck in a traffic jam.

“Interactive content on a two-way link is another USP offered by IPTV that enables services such as video-on-demand, group gaming, interactive advertising, and so on. For example, UTStarcom-powered Aksh-BSNL IPTV features innovative video yellow pages, which provide a variety of information ranging from lifestyle, travel, home entrainment, video matrimonial, video resumes and more. It also features India’s first virtual market place on television where buying and selling of various products takes place through the television remote, home delivery through online payment by the click of a remote without having to give credit card details. Video calling can be facilitated on the same IPTV connection,” Sahu explained.

Contrary to the current platforms that only allow watching TV programs or accessing entertainment services over broadband, IPTV will be a delivery platform for value added services and applications.

Aksh iControl, India’s first Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) service, built on the end-to-end RollingStream IPTV solution framework provided by UTStarcom, and being offered through BSNL and MTNL, allows end-users to pause, rewind and fast-forward, as well as record, live TV. However, in order to differentiate itself from other video services available in India –or even in other global markets—this interactive IPTV offering will enable subscribers to message and talk with one another live through video communications tools on their television, as well as interact live with their favorite shows through polling and karaoke. iControl also offers a time shift feature that allows viewers the ability to view missed programming that aired in the past seven days. The Video-on-Demand feature brings a library of more than 200 Hollywood, Bollywood and regional content by pressing only few buttons on the TV remote.

Another feature, I2 CAS allows users to subscribe and de-subscribe to a certain TV Channel or Channel group using just your TV remote and TV without any need of calling a call center or suffering a long IVR delay or filling a form for the selection of channels.

A-Tube is India’s first innovative video yellow pages, which provides a variety of information ranging from lifestyle to video résumés. A-Shop is the viewers’ outlet to buy and sell various products in a virtual marketplace. Similarly, Bharti is also providing a lot of value-added and innovative services on its IPTV platform.

Residential user applications include Broadcast TV, Triple Play (Voice, Data and Video), High Definition TV, Time-Shift TV, Video on Demand, Internet Gaming, Video Calling and a host of other personalized and interactive services.

IPTV vs. cable TV and DTH
Feature	Cable	DTH	IPTV
Live channel
Time shift TV
Video on Demand		Limited	Instant
Interactive Movies
Rewind/FF/ Pause movies
Replay Live channels
Interactive CAS
Interactive Gaming
Messaging
Video Classifieds
Reception Quality	Average	Good	Best
Triple Play
Works in Heavy Rain

IPTV for business

IPTV goes beyond entertainment. Business, enterprise and vertical market focused applications include, but are not limited to, IP Surveillance, Video Conferencing and Digital Signage.

Video conferencing is often an expensive affair, especially for the SMB and the SOHO organizations. The biggest cost in video conferencing is the high capacity bandwidth. With IPTV, you get access to 8-24 Mbps bandwidth using ADSL2 technology. To connect on a video conference, all you need to do is to buy IPTV set top boxes at all your offices and simply connect them to your existing television sets, with any webcam. Just dial in to any of the offices using your IPTV remote and that’s it-you’re live on video conferencing.

Another useful application of IPTV is video surveillance. UTStarcom’s RollingStream solution enables IP surveillance using the same common access, transport and core network elements as the IPTV network. Examples of some applications benefiting from IP surveillance include:

• Large scale IP based digital surveillance solutions for municipalities managed by either the entity itself or provided as a managed service by the service provider
• Enterprise IP video surveillance solutions
• Child E line solution for childcare providers with the ability to connect multiple daycare centers with a common provisioning system
• Courthouse video surveillance solutions

Targeted adverting

With IPTV, the operator knows exactly who you are, what are you watching and what are your preferences. Using all this information, personalized ads can be placed in various functions of IPTV like time shifted TV, video on demand, games etc.

RollingStream IPTV enables a centralized content storage mechanism and optimal distribution utilizing a tiered architecture. The operator is also in a position to provide a managed or hosted service for the various businesses using digital signage to advertise their products and services.

With other services like the Youtube TV, user generated content can also be accessed with ease using IPTV. With new remote controls being developed, one can use it as a gaming joystick, a wireless phone and a lot more. Everyone knows how to use a remote and therefore, Internet-like services can gain more traction with the advent of IPTV in India.

varun.aggarwal@expressindia.com