Digital Media Buzz > The Heat is On: IPTV’s Inevitability

The Heat is On: IPTV’s Inevitability

By John Greaves

1997 sounded the bell for a fight between Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and current champion cable television. IPTV came out of the corner with an exotic Internet-based delivery protocol and amazed subscribers with a seemingly endless supply of program options. Cable answered with a two-fisted approach incorporating Switched Digital Video (SDV) and Open Cable Applications (OCAP). Cable claims that the combination of SDV and OCAP allows Multi System Operators (MSOs) and single community systems with hybrid fiber architecture to offer media interactivity without completely revamping their entire system.

It could be argued that North America is the only location that has a viable IPTV alternative. “The rest of the world doesn’t really have a cable broadband system,” says George Ou, an analyst for digitalsociety.org, “They have DSL and telecom.” So IPTV was free to grow overseas without competition. Within our borders, cable is an entrenched entity with different franchising regulations from IPTV and multiple providers from MSOs to single community systems all with a recognizable presence and an FCC mandate to support analog TV until February 2012. At issue is how companies will meet the demand for two-way, communication-based programming and whether a compromise is possible or even desirable. According to Keith Kocho of ExtendMedia, “Rights are the top issue obstacle in North America. Cable sees it as valuable real estate and they want to control it.” Rights notwithstanding, inaction is not an option. “The genie is out of the bottle, cable has realized that they need to get into that game but also leverage the strengths they have with broadcasters and rights holders” Kocho says.

Others say the issue is an architectural one. Essentially cable’s infrastructure has been built around RF cable, which carries an analog signal. “If you try to shove IPTV onto a cable broadband system it doesn’t work,” Ou says. “You lose the ability to support analog TV.”

The Champion
Although cable operators have added fiber to their network in order to support voice and data services, they are reluctant to uproot their remaining RF architecture and are also constrained by the demands of the FCC mandate. “IPTV is an option, it’s just not our only option,” says Jenni Moyer of Comcast. “We have SDV and other options out there.” Ou agrees.

SDV does show promise. The technology is similar to Video On Demand (VOD) technology in that only requested programming is broadcast to subscriber homes rather than all channels being available all the time whether or not anyone is watching. According to Ou, “SDV is basically an alternative to multicast IPTV on a cable network, and the cable companies find it more suitable for their networks as opposed to IPTV technology. This gives them all the characteristics they desire without having to drastically change architecture.”

to make SDV work, however, cable operators from MSOs to smaller single community systems needed middleware that transforms their one-way RF networks into something that is two-way communication compatible. Enter CableLabs with OCAP (a.k.a. retail designation Tru2Way).

Tru2Way was designed by CableLabs for the cable networks of North America, and provides the interactivity to enable e-commerce, online banking, electronic program guides, and digital video recording. However this middleware technology has a few important drawbacks. One is a lack of standardization in the middleware and application layer. Also problematic is the FCC’s slowness to fully approve OCAP. Still Microsoft just announced that it will now support SDV allowing end customers to add a digital cable tuner with CableCARD™ to their PC, and for existing digital cable tuner with CableCARD customers to enjoy more portability for digital cable TV that is marked as “copy freely.” That is a big boost for cable and supports its contention that IPTV is not the only option.

The Challenger
IPTV is entrenched overseas but although it’s only now picking up steam in North America, it’s not a new idea. “As far back as ‘97 we said let’s build bigger and better programming because of fiber networks being able to cram 2 or 3 times more programming on fiber than on RF cable,” says IPTV proponent Kevin Kenworthy, who is COO and executive vice president of the National Telco Television Consortium.  “The evolution from DSL to IPTV was the next technological advancement. Of course DSL hasn’t gone away, many operators deliver IPTV over DSL networks rather than fiber.”

However, Ou points out on his blog that IPTV’s very versatility can affect bandwidth for the provider. IP-based television services can consume more than half of the total advertised bandwidth though it varies from provider to provider, he says.

There are costs associated with IPTV including upgrading from copper-based technology and investing in set-top boxes. “Telcos have been investing in plant upgrades and adopting newer technologies, such as ADSL2+, VDSL and fiber to the home or wherever,” says Sandip Singh, an architect for video technology at Rogers Communications.

Results are varied and because of costs, every utility that tries its hand at IPTV doesn’t succeed. The Marietta Board of Lights and Water was forced to sell the FiberNet portion of the company to American Fiber Systems in 2004 for example. But utilities like the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB) are confident they can make it work. National Telco’s Kenworthy agrees. “EPB is a prime example of a company that has gone through the development curve and they should be fairly successful. That group has been working on the area of the alternative television for awhile. It’s not just something a Telco can decide to do overnight and be successful.”

In IPTV’s favor subscribers have already become accustomed to bundling services such as voice and data from telecoms so it’s not a huge leap for them to accept adding yet another service to the mix from one provider.

Also IPTV is tailor-made for Over The Top (OTT) content and is moving strongly with the help of end-to-end software providers like Extend Media to strengthen their position in that area of opportunity. “There are hundreds of other programs that are dying for distribution. They may not find a home on a cable or IPTV system. But they are available as an OTT offering” says Kenworthy.

Cable operators have their own version of OTT through products such as TV Everywhere, a collaboration between Comcast and Time Warner. Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes says “TV Everywhere is no longer just a concept, but a working model to deliver consumers more television content over broadband than ever before.”

The Bottom Line
The question is currently being asked about IPTV compatibility with the current cable broadband setup. The answer depends on who’s doing the answering. Cable’s current model “Doesn’t leave the kind of capacity you need on an IP network to run IPTV,” Ou says. “If they tried to run IPTV today, they would have to completely replace their set-top boxes and completely eliminate their digital and analog TV channels. It would also require the implementation of IP multicasting.” Or in other words: yes, if cable is willing to ignore the FCC mandate.

Regardless, industry professionals such as Rogers Communications architect, Singh, believe multi cast and even unicast on demand is inevitable whether cable likes the idea or not. “Delivering digital television in a broadcast medium is the most efficient usage of precious HFC spectrum, but the will see a shift in the allocation of that spectrum,” he says.

Kenworthy sees the cost but also sees IPTV as a natural extension of what’s already been done with voice and data by cable operators. “When cable started offering broadband they were building fiber networks, it makes sense for them to switch to IPTV. This includes smaller operators especially if they are already in the triple play business with voice and data and their analog is running on the same poles,” he says. Still Kenworthy, who authored a patent that details the current methodology deployed or to be deployed by telecom-based video providers, sees nothing wrong if cable leaves IPTV to Telcos. “I think we’re all in competition so we’ll cooperate as much as you cooperate with someone you compete with. Competition is going further upstream we all get content from the same places, ESPN from ESPN; Hallmark Channel from Hallmark Channel. We will need cooperation from programming to offer same programs as cable. ”

Upstream, the main concern for content producers and aggregators is security. That is one of the obstacles facing IPTV just by virtue of its association with the Internet. The name is actually a detriment because TV programmers are leery of anything with Internet in its name, Kenworthy says. They are unsure whether IPTV is secure like the Xbox 360 or open to piracy like the Personal Computer (PC). Kenworthy maintains it’s the former. “IPTV is using Internet protocol but it’s over a closed distribution like cable,” he says.

Singh agrees. “[They] differ according to platforms (public vs. private secure), geographical reach, ownership of networking infrastructure, quality of service, access mechanism and content generation methods.”

The outcome of this debate appears to depend in a large part on IPTV being able to wean American customers away from cable with new products, as well as how well MSOs and single community systems are able to navigate within the confines of the FCC mandate and their architectural constraints.

As we watch this competition intensify with the major players continually upping the ante, the question remains whether IPTV will score a knockout in North America as in the rest of the world or if cable can continue to hold on to the title.