(26 September 2007 7:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: The most important single message that emerged today from the India IPTV Summit 2007 held here is that the threat perception of MSOs and LCOs vis-à-vis the latest platform is not just baseless, but as one presentation from Logic Eastern showed, it was a major opportunity for the former.

Vineet Wadhwa, chief technology officer and founder of Logic Eastern said that as of today, there are two models of IPTV delivery: the BSNL-driven model and the MSO-driven model, of which the latter has some distinct advantages.

In fact, Wadhwa said that if the MSO-driven model is pursued in the logical manner, the long-standing demand of MSOs of getting a greater share of the advertisement pie - as against the broadcasters taking the lion's share, would be possible, for it would bring revenue spread more evenly down to the supply chain.

There are 17.4 million children and youth who will be the first entrants in the IPTV arena, which means they would be largely shifting away from cable TV and that there is a huge market waiting to be opened, according TR Madan Mohan, director ICT, Frost & Sullivan.

Mohan said that the size of that pie, excluding advertisements, is $ 333 per head per annum, and hence, Mohan emphasised that the MSOs should take this apparent threat as an opportunity.

The Summit, organised by Exhibitions India, was attended by a 100-odd delegates from various companies and there was an atmosphere of both anxiety as to how things would pan out, and whether at all they would, along with some infectious excitement about a coming revolution.

Mohan said that one must realise that the IPTV business cannot be value-chain driven, but rather, ecosystem driven, and Wadhwa not only gave the clearest idea of the picture of what that ecosystem would look like, but also had some startling experiences to share, primarily that video-driven IPTV would not be cost-effective at all.

Vijay Yadav, MD, UTStarcom India Telecom Pvt Ltd said: "MSOs should not be concerned because IPTV is not telco specific, and LCOs could deploy it with equal ease."

He added: "It is actually an opportunity, so where the point of inflextion is copper (wiring for last mile delivery), fibre optics has limitless potential, and even if you get a smaller share of a much larger pie, the revenue stream remains good."

So far as the technology is concerned, Wadhwa said: "We have already deployed 12 IPTV enabled headends, which can switch over to IPTV when the MSOs want this."

Talking to indiantelevision.com between two sessions, Wadhwa said that a lot of new and smaller MSOs, including that of Rajan Bakshi in Delhi, Sristi Cable Networks, Silver Line and Howrah Cable Networks in Kolkata have started using IPTV enabled headends.

These headends offer composite, single voucher billing system that can be of use to the MSOs, broadcasters, LCOs and subscribers in managing their finances and payments, with bills emerging from the servers and not in computer printouts.

However, he added that one had to take the ecosystem approach, because for IPTV to roll out, it would need the services and technological inputs from broadcasters, content aggregators, content repurposing agencies, ISPs, video-on-demand producers, providers of applications such as air and train ticketing, retail purchase outlets as well as logistical support from MSOs.

But IPTV will not be successful if it is TV and VOD driven, for many do not understand that IPTV is not just TV, but all the applications taken together.

"Switching channels on will be a novelty for a while, but after sometime that would become a more," he said, adding that where all the players have roles to play is that for IPTV to succeed, it would need TV, VOD, push mail, buddy sites, chatting, video-picture sharing, multiplayer gaming all put together.

"VOD is not a big market," Wadhwa said, explaining: "Global surveys have shown that out of 100,000 subscribers, merely 15,000 per month have been downloading video as the latter is more easily available in the shop round the corner or can be downloaded from sites such as Torrent."

The biggest market in the IPTV segment would be P2P, or peer-to-peer, and such upcoming solutions and services as play-my-PC on STB, home security and surveillance, he said.

B T Jumani, Sr VP, IOL Broadband Ltd said that whereas in Cas or DTH, all channels are given simultaneously, in IPTV only those channels which specific subscribers pay for are accessible, which makes it possible for broadcasters as well as media buyers to have much more precious data on viewership than anything TAM today offers.

Jumani also predicted that over time, bandwidth need would actually go down and Zap time would reduce.

Answering a query on the 1.3 minute Zap time not being acceptable, Anuj Kapoor, Director, Sales Services, Alcatel Lucent announced that in their company's technology, Zap time has been brought down to 200 millisecond.

Overall, the consensus that emerged is that there are suspicions about the new technology which derive from lack of awareness, and as Shyamal Ghosh, chairman, IPTV India Forum, who was also chairing the sessions, said that it will take time, but IPTV is the new opening horizon.