Oct 27, 2005 10:49 AM,

SBC comes out swinging on IPTV

By Vince Vittore

LAS VEGAS--SBC this week at the Telecom 05 show in Las Vegas defended its plan to provide IPTV service using a fiber-to-the-node architecture as part of its Project Lightspeed.

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Jeff Weber, vice president of product and strategy for SBC, was particularly ardent on the company’s decision to use VDSL2 instead of bringing fiber all the way to the home in most of its existing territories. Several analysts (and even a few vendors) during the show criticized the company’s move, saying it didn’t give them enough bandwidth to provide multiple streams of high-definition video.

However, Weber said SBC already is through the first set of tests with its technology and has been happy with the results.

“In the short-term, we’re looking at 20 Mb/s to 25 Mb/s at 4000 feet,” he said in an interview. “A year ago bandwidth was an issue. We made a bet, and quite frankly that bet has paid off. The good news is that it looks a lot less risky than a year ago.”

SBC is building its bandwidth budgets on the assumption that it will be providing four streams into the home with one as HD. “HD is a big part of what we need to do,” Weber said.

The company also has decided to use both MPEG-4 and Windows Media/VC 1 compression with the former likely to be used mostly for linear programming and the latter for static content such as video-on-demand. Verizon, which is just launching its FiOS TV service, is using MPEG-2 because the technology is readily available and it has had 10 years to mature and come down in cost. MPEG-4 and VC 1 allow for greater compression and don’t require nearly as much bandwidth. In SBC’s case, though, it didn’t make sense to use only one, Weber said

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“We made a decision not to make a decision because it doesn’t make sense to make a decision,” he said. “The risk reward is just not there. Over time, you’re likely to see that settle out. In the grand scheme, it’s not a cost issue.”

The carrier anticipates budgeting about 10 Mb/s for an HD stream, 2 Mb/s for standard-definition streams and 3 Mb/s for a high-speed Internet access service. Weber, though, pointed out that HD only needs 10 Mb/s in select situations.

“That’s 10 Meg, if you’re talking about 1080i [resolution] and it’s sports,” he said. “In that case you’re using it all. If it’s news or 720, you’re not using the full 10.”