'A global IPTV standard will provide interoperability'

Why is there a need to establish a global IPTV standard?

Expectations from IPTV are high and there are a lot of subscribers worldwide. However, most subscribers are using propriety standards and not global standards which create problems for upgrades and interoperability. It is thus, important to develop global and consumer international standards that will also help to drive down costs and bring in economies of scale, giving way to a healthy competition.

How will IPTV help in the rollout of e-services by the Indian government?

IPTV offers a great opportunity to meet the goal of e-services being currently rolled out by the Indian government across the country, offering high quality entertainment, e-governance, e-education and e-health as well. While the new IPTV standard has been adopted by other counties, we hope that the Indian government too adopts it as a national standard soon.

What scope does ITU see in India for IPTV?

India is a huge market, however, out of 700 global companies that are a part of ITU, only 7 are from India. Thus, we need more participation from India to meet market requirements and combat the low adoption of IPTV. ITU is now on the lookout for universities to join ITU, and we have kept entry at a nominal fee of $2,000 to encourage participation. Singhad Education Society, which was the venue for the first 'ITU-IPTV International Meet' in India-in partnership with Tech Mahindra-is also the first Indian university to have joined ITU.

Price is a major concern in the Indian market. Can this new IPTV standard work in rural areas?

We have a series of high-end and cheaper options from ITU based on the new global IPTV standard which is device agnostic. Thus, this will help in preventing interoperability issues, and at the same time, these options utilize the same standard across cable/fiber/wireless. This is especially relevant today with the Indian government actively rolling out fiber in rural areas.

Do you see any competition between IPTV and mobile TV?

IPTV will be more popular than mobile TV because of having fiber from point-to-point and having no danger of spectrum exhaustion. Secondly, IPTV is a platform which is mass standardized with global standards. So, applications can be shared and all apps on a personal computer can be offered on a TV platform as well which is more popular than a mobile with the older generation. These services can then be bundled with e-commerce, allowing fly-by-night operators to offer a variety of campaigns for a short period on the same medium. With cable and DTH, since there is lack of a common standard, this flexibility is not possible.

Beryl M
berylm@cybermedia.co.in

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