(23 April 2007 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The steady growth of IPTV subscribers and service revenue continues on an upward trend in Europe and Asia and, to some extent, in North America, according to the new MRG report IPTV Global Forecast Report—April 2007.

Driving the market’s successful growth in the past six months is fast growth in Europe, especially France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe; in Asia, especially China, Japan, and Hong Kong; and in North America, especially Verizon, the IOCs (Independent Operating Companies) and Canada.

MRG director of IPTV analysis Len Feldman says, “Our forecast shows service provider revenue growing from $3.6 billion in 2007 to $20.3 billion in 2011. Europe continues to be the biggest market for IPTV, with France easily leading the growth spurt through IPTV operators Free, Orange France Telecom and Neuf Cegetel.”

MRG president Gary Schultz says, “Success is also driven by seasoned operators who have mastered critical competitive operations like continuous quality improvement and content negotiations. By mastering these challenges, the experienced operators are successfully differentiating themselves and moving into sustained growth periods.”

The underachieving operators continue to be those, like AT&T and Deutsche Telecom, who rely on Microsoft’s beleaguered middleware that has been “architecturally challenged” with its inability to scale. The report conjectures that further delays at AT&T will result in replacement of the MS middleware by mid-to-late 2007. However, the lack of MPEG-4/AVC set-top box chips, which was causing a drag on the market in late 2006, has been resolved, and should result in a continued uptake through 2007.